Surprise! Get up here...
After warmups today, Doug put both Lindsay and I on the spot and had us conduct ~8 bars of a piece the girls had been working on for festival.
I worked with them on the beginning of Pie Jesu and we got through the first phrase. Doug then suggested that
1) I take the beat out of my wrists (Josh taped and after watching the video they were definitely not "strong" enough)
2) He had me stop beating every 4 count on the ends of important phrases and through big crescendos and decrescendos and just had me show those musical choices for the singers (his rationale was that they needed to see that more than beats and the pianist was obviously skilled enough to stay in time)
3) Move my gesture a little lower (into better breath space)
4) Make cut-offs upward vs. the flipping of the wrist to show the cut-off
I then tried it again and felt like I adapted and retained what he had told me well, which I thought was great practice for any sort of teaching in the future. Putting me up there without notice in the first place was enough to get me thinking quickly, and then throwing multiple changes out certainly had me working hard. I thought some of the changes were really valuable too, and can definitely transfer into my other conducting. I know my wrists sometimes get pretty loose with long-legato phrases and pieces.
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