Technique – Introduction

The material here is intended to be used in as wide a variety of situations as possible. At the core of everything is the ConductIT Workbook: a series of short excerpts chosen to demonstrate specific technical points in a way which connects the development of technique to music-making right from the beginning. You will see three videos demonstrating each extract:

• Conductor Only View
• Ensemble View
• Conductor Plus Score View

You can download the score, a piano reduction, and instrumental parts in a wide variety of transpositions to practise yourself. In the Library you will also find all this material in one place, including additional excerpts that don’t feature in the individual lessons.
Many of the conductors in the videos are themselves students, albeit some of them with quite a lot of experience. This is intended to expose you to conductors at different stages of their development, rather than just the famous ones you might see on YouTube.

Working through the chapters solo is one possible option. In that case, we suggest filming yourself practising the various workbook exercises. This will allow you to compare your conducting to the video examples – maybe yours will be better! We would also suggest practising with the video playing to start with, but then working without the video. You can do this in silence, but it can also
be useful to sing as you conduct.

Even better is to combine individual work with practice sessions with an ensemble or pianist. As you will see, almost any possible combination of instruments is catered for and although there is something satisfying about having a quartet of string, wind or brass instruments, we recommend that you mix it up a bit if you can. This will teach you a lot about the different responses different
instruments have to your gesture, and the challenges of unifying ensemble, dynamic and articulation between them.

Of course you may also be using this material as part of a programme of study with a conducting teacher.