Brian Silve University/College Vice-preident
Conducting Expressively Matters – Or Does It? One of my favorite things
about my job is that I interact with music conductors all of the time – professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, and middle school and high school teachers. Because I am tasked with preparing novice conductors as part of my teaching responsibilities, I am able to see them develop, struggle, and refine their skills during their undergraduate coursework. Perhaps not surprisingly, being expressive (e.g., fluid left and right hand gestures, varied facial expression, consistent eye contact with ensemble members) is not something that comes easily to students who probably feel overwhelmed by learning how to use their bodies in a manner in which they are unaccustomed. Considering that the focuses of many student conductors’ rehearsals are rhythmic accuracy and technique (Bergee, 2005; Worthy, 2006), it only makes sense that expressivity is not a central feature of undergraduates’ conducting and rehearsal experiences.
Nonetheless, the importance that musicians ascribe about performing for expressive conductors is evident. Anecdotally, some of my favorite ensemble experiences have come during performances in which the
summer 2017 |
www.mmea.net
conductor navigated us through the music with expressive gestures and powerful emotion. I am certain that each of you has a similar story that would suggest something similar – being able to see what you should be performing is an important aspect of playing and hearing the music. My own empirical research—which has focused on the interactions between conductors and musicians of varying ages—demonstrates that middle school (Silvey & Koerner, 2016), high school (Silvey, 2013), and college musicians (Silvey & Fisher, 2015) prefer conductors who conduct expressively. Further establishing the importance of expressive conducting, Morrison, Price, Geiger, and Cornacchio (2009) found that ensembles led by expressive conductors received higher ratings than ensembles led by unexpressive conductors, even when the musical selection accompanying each conductor was identical.
But this is only one side of the expressive conducting and expressive performance paradigm. As teachers and conductors, I am sure that we all agree that it is important for our students to react to our conducting gestures. It stands to reason that by doing so, they will ultimately respond
with greater expressivity and accuracy, allowing for better music making. Although this makes intuitive sense, a series of studies led by Harry Price have shown no relationship between conductor expressivity and ensemble performance. In these studies, Price and colleagues found no correlation between the expressivity ratings given to performances that were led at high school state music festivals and the expressivity ratings of that group’s conductor (Price, 2006; Price & Chang, 2001, 2005). With regard to middle school performances, Price and Winter (1991) reported that ensemble performances with both expressive and unexpressive conductors were rated similarly by experienced adjudicators, graduating instrumental music education students, and school ensemble members.
So where do these seemingly mixed results leave us with regard to the importance of developing and demonstrating expressive conducting behaviors? As written previously by Silvey and Koerner (2016), perhaps “student musicians’ positive perceptions about expressive conductors may be just as important as whether or not expressive conducting
See SILVEY, pg. 26 25
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