For a few years now, I have been trying to understand why choral conducting looks like it does without really being able to find an explanation. I have been toying with a thought that seems relevant to me, and I feel a need to try to verbalize it – at least for my own sake. Even though I have a feeling that I am onto something relevant, it has been surprisingly difficult to develop that small idea into a cohesive thought. So, bear with me as I attempt to make my thoughts understandable.
The starting point of this journey came through teaching choral conducting and leading masterclasses. I started wondering why many, if not most, young conductors have considerable tensions in the shoulders, neck and arms. After all, conducting is mostly about waving one’s arms in the air, a piece of cake compared to playing an instrument, and something we do in real life all the time. When people ‘talk with their hands’, it never looks tense or stiff. Why the tension when conducting?
The most apparent answer is that we tense up because we are doing something that we are not yet comfortable with or that we are trying to guide others through something that is difficult. And this surely explains much of the tenseness that we see in beginners. But it seems to me that this unwanted tension often persists way past the point where the conducting itself (beat patterns, cues etc.) demands lots of attention, and even in music that poses no great demands on conductor or ensemble.
An idea started taking shape: what if our thinking about what we are doing is muddled? Could part of the problem be that we have not quite decided what it is that a choral conductor does? The singers sing, but what does the conductor physically do? It sounds a little like a trick question, but it is not. At least I had to rack my brain a little to come up with a simple answer: I wave my arms in the air and make facial gestures (to convey simple and complex ideas about music and singing). Both in essence quite simple and mundane actions, but so are the movements needed for playing tennis. It makes sense that mastering and coordinating these movements both in conducting and tennis will take years to perfect.
I can imagine anyone with any idea of choral conducting will be unimpressed so far – this is all just a vague description of what conducting is. Where is the beef? Alright, here is the beef: I believe choral conductors are too close to the physical action of the people they conduct. Their bodies reflect singing at least as much as the music. Conducting ceases to be the waving of arms and varying facial gestures and becomes a combination of these and soundless singing.
But hold it, is this a problem? Isn’t this what we are taught in choral conducting studies? To breathe with the singers, to create and support sound with our arms and body, to help shape vowels with our mouths and hands. Yes, I do think it can be a problem and that the teaching of choral conducting might be too focused on the singing. Before I go deeper into this, let me just make a little detour into why I think the ‘soundless singing’ method of conducting might be so common and feel so natural.
Choral conductors on the whole are singers. We mostly from choirs, just as orchestral conductors have grown up in orchestras. Which means that singing is much more natural and intuitive to young choral conductors than conducting gestures. In addition, singing happens to be the thing everyone in front of the conductor is doing. Compare that to an orchestral conductor, who will at best master a few of the instruments in front of them and often have very little idea about the playing of most of the instruments. Focusing one’s gestures on how to play the oboe or cello makes little sense, whereas focusing on singing has real relevance in front of a choir. The temptation to sing (silently) with the choir is more than understandable.
This focus on singing is seldom a considered choice, but rather more of a reflex. It is not so much a set of gestures intended to aid singing as simply singing with the choir. One symptom of this is the mouthing of words, something no one considers beneficial, but almost everyone is lured into. Other symptoms include both audible and inaudible breathing with or for the choir, a tightening of the throat at the beginning of phrases and tension in the arms, neck and shoulders at places that are demanding for the singers. All of these arise from a singing focus, but somewhat ironically none of these symptoms are of any great service to the choir and its singing. The only logical explanation I have for these symptoms is that they are unintended and a reflection of our being too involved with what the singers are doing.
Let’s for a moment forget the physical assistance to singing in choral conducting. What do have left? I can think of at least the following: setting the tempi, phrasing, articulating, creating direction, balancing, emphasizing, reflecting the character or emotion of the music, encouraging, and navigating transitions. In a word, this is the part of conducting that is primarily focused on the music, not the physical action of playing or singing. Now, if great choral conducting was only a question of eliminating all choral considerations and focusing on the music, any wonderful orchestral conductor would automatically be a great choral conductor. In my experience, this is not the case. Which, in turn, means that there must be specific choral needs. Does that mean we a back to square one and that the singing approach is the only way to go with a choir? Maybe not. I believe there might be a place in between these approaches that captures the best of both worlds. To find such a place we need to identify the specific needs of choral conducting.
First of all, it seems that choral singing improves considerably if the singers see a breathing, free body in front of them. Breathing not so much for and with the singers but somehow feeling in synch with the breathing of the choir. Secondly, I feel the arms must be a little lower on average than in orchestral conducting and have a stronger feeling of weight. I often think of the arms of ballet dancers and how they, especially in slower movements, retain their weight but still flow effortlessly. Achieving this in conducting requires that the energy of the movements is forward to the next event (beat) and not away from the previous event. In pulling away from beats the weight of the arms fluctuates constantly (weighted only at the little stop on the beat before the sharp pull upwards) – something that serves the legato character of most choral singing poorly. Thirdly, the choir tolerates considerably less sharpness than the orchestra; as a rule, it seems to thrive more on sweeping rather than beating gestures. In addition, there are elements that are specific to choral music: the text, vocally challenging sections and a vulnerability of intonation that might simply require a set of gestures not necessary in orchestral conducting. Maybe all this comes from an understanding or awareness of the instrument and singing, or experience, and all the rest (breathing body, heavy, flowing arms) just follows intuitively.
But hang on, aren’t we back where we started? If choral conducting requires this bodily manifestation of singing, what is wrong with the silent singing approach that seems to bother me so? In a nutshell, two things: the unhelpful features it brings with it (texting, tension) and an exaggerated emphasis on singing. I really believe the previous is the cause of much of the tension and stiffness in conducting – taking a little more distance to singing helps to keep gestures more relaxed and fluid. As for the latter, focusing more on the singing and the ensemble rather than the music can lead to a certain stickiness in the music-making. It helps if someone in the performing ensemble does not have their hands in the mud as deeply, and the only one with this possibility is the conductor.
I also have a feeling that focusing conducting more on clarity, shaping and listening than singing, might at times help the singing more than the hands-on approach. Something that speaks for this is how the choir still manages to sing well in the rhythmically demanding sections where the conductor is focused on the music, or even just the beat patterns, instead of the singing. Could it be that a little less focus on the singing could be helpful even in the sections that are musically more straightforward?
A short sidestep might again be helpful here. We are aware of how the singers mirror with their bodies what they see (something I have heard called video-kinesthesia); a reflexive reaction to the tension or non-tension of the muscles of someone in front of us. This is why lowering the arms can cause a lowering of the breath and stiffness in the conductor’s upper body tensions in the singers. I had always thought of this as a one-way street, as physical information flowing only from the conductor to the singers. But if there is video-kinesthesia, why would there not be audio-kinesthesia? If the singing is tense, strained or pressured, would that not cause physical reactions in the conductor? In rehearsals I have for years and years used the sensations I feel in my throat area as a means of deciphering what is wrong with the singing, and even as a way of recognizing when all is well with the singing. But I had bever thought that the same phenomenon could explain tightness and tension when I conduct.
If this theory holds water, it comes with an interesting twist. On the one hand, it explains some of the tensions I feel when conducting. On the other, it comes with a teaching: the best way to react to the tension-causing singing is not by going with the feeling in my body, but against it. Easy to say and difficult to do. But maybe my main point – concentrating a little less on the act of singing – might be the ticket even in this case. Concentrating one’s senses more on the music and less on the singing (and yes, I do realize these are never totally separable) will help avoid the reflexive tensions that arise from less than perfect singing. And this might help explain why it sometimes feels that a choral conductor who seems to conduct the score more than the singers seems to get at least the same results as one who is more aware of the singers and the singing.
If you think I might be onto something, how could you test the idea out? I can come up with a couple of approaches. Firstly, try not conducting at all and just listening to what the choir does. How much do they actually need your gestures, and for what? Just removing yourself from the silent singing approach might open some doors. If the singers know the music well, you might even notice that they sing better without your assistance – awareness of ensemble is heightened, listening more acute, and the music-making must come from within the ensemble. But you will also notice things that are not easy without you: beginning the piece and setting the tempo is a little unsure, dynamics tend to become middle-of-the-road, the music can feel a little directionless, navigating difficulties like tempo changes, fermatas, cesuras and long notes can feel cumbersome, and so on. We have just discovered what we are needed for. Above all, we are the ones who can change the music during performance, vary tempi, shape phrases, time events, adjust dynamics and balance, add emotions. This should be our primary focus and I believe taking a step back from the silent singing helps us focus on it.
Other methods of finding a more music-centered, physically freer conducting could be to think of the music as instrumental music or (this one is weird) asking the singers to watch you less, unless you clearly are in communicative mode. The choir should be able to follow you by being in the music – remember that the primary information for a singer is auditive, meaning your visual information needs to be in synch with the auditive information, or else chaos ensues. As a wise teacher of orchestral conducting once said: the beat must be where the musicians assume it will be. In an orchestra, the norm is to play by ear and only on occasion does the visual cue actually decide when something happens. Remembering this in front of the choir can be very helpful.
Most conductors tend to be somewhat perfectionistic, and I certainly recognize that trait in myself. Letting go a little and trusting the singers is one of the most difficult things I know. Yet the whole process of leaning away from the silent singing whilst conducting towards the musical expression requires letting go and showing trust. But if I have learned anything during my career, it is that going in directions that you would rather avoid is not only good for you, but also the very thing that keeps you alive as a leader and a musician.
Kari Turunen 