“Vocal Advantage: Breath (part 4)” by Dina Else

VOCAL ADVANTAGE: BREATH (part 4), by Dina Else

 

We left off last week discussing noisy versus silent breath inhalation.  Before we leave this topic I’d like to address one more way that noisy inhalation sneaks into the process.  In my travels I have had the privilege of singing under, and observing many fine conductors.  One of the fairly consistent habits I’ve noticed is the conductor, him or herself, taking a noisy breath as a part of their initial conducting gesture.  Most of the time the conductor isn’t even aware that they are doing it.  The problem with this habit is, as we discussed last week, noisy breath intake is associated with clavicular breathing.  When we are conducting our choirs and we take a noisy breath, what do you suppose our singers do in response?  You guessed it!

 

This leads me to my next point, the conducting gesture itself.  This is the definition of a conductor on About.com:  ‘a conductor is someone who leads and guides a group of singers in order to perform a piece to the best of their abilities.  The conductor makes sure that the music piece is interpreted properly by acting as the guide to the singers.’  Later on in the description it says, ‘[the conductor] is able to build a connection with the musicians and uses hand gestures or signals that the musicians clearly understand.’  What is doesn’t say is what the hand gestures or signals are supposed to convey to the singer. We know the answer to that!  When we think back to our conducting classes in college we know the gesture conveys several things; the beat, the phrasing, the dynamic level being sung, etc.  

 

What we often over-look is that the conducting gesture also greatly affects tone quality and especially affects the breath intake.  When you are preparing your gesture, keep in mind that you want you singers to experience a breath intake that drops down into their body.  Conducting preps that are high tend to entice the singers into a high, clavicular breath intake.  In parenting terms; your children don’t listen to what you say, they watch what you do.  If we want our singers to form the habit of a correct breath intake, we have to make sure our conducting gesture encourages just that!!

 

(original posting: September 30, 2013)