Channeling the Inner Conductor

During intermission at an orchestral concert, my companion asked me about the role of the conductor. I thought this was very brave of her—most people don’t like to ask about things they think everyone else knows…

The orchestra is the biggest instrument in the world. It is like a huge living organ made up of all the instruments and the players who play them. The conductor is the musician who plays this instrument.  In concert, we see the conductor at the front of the stage facing the orchestra. We see him (or her) waving his arms around, body swaying…

But, watch his gestures carefully; notice how the gestures begin slightly before the musician’s response; notice how the musicians’ response is simultaneous with the end of the gesture. What this clearly shows is that the conductor knows what he wants to hear before he hears it. In other words, the conductor is not just gesturing along with the music, he is directing it.

A world-class conductor knows his music and its score. He has researched and studied the work and is well aware of the history of the work, its composer, and other conductor’s interpretations. He has a clear vision of the orchestration, tempo, dynamics, and nuances of acceleration and retard and crescendo and diminuendo he desires, and he has communicated all this to the members of his orchestra during a limited number of rehearsals before the performance.

Those of us who perform alone—as solo pianists, guitarists, etc. can learn a lot from studying and emulating the methods and techniques of world-class conductors. First, we should endeavor to understand all aspects of the pieces we are performing. We should know them  inside and out—their form and formal analysis, their history, the composers’ histories, and the interpretations of other world-class musicians—and we should feel totally confident in our ability to perform these pieces—like the conductor of a world-class orchestra is confident that his orchestra has the ability to follow his direction and actualize his vision.

Also, like a conductor, we have to be totally in the present of the music as we play it. This is a topic that is seldom discussed. What does a musician do when he is performing a piece of music? Does he think? And, if he does think, what does he think about?

The conductor of a world-class orchestra is focused on what he wants his musicians to do and does not concern himself about whether they have the chops to do it or not. In our case, the case of the solo performer, we have to play both roles—the player and the conductor. The player is the physical body—what is generally called the muscle memory.

Once the piece is in the body, the mind that has played the role of teacher—teacher to the body—is now free to become the conductor. The conductor plays the piece in his mind, staying in the moment—in the present—of the music as it manifests his vision in the present. It is in the present moment of the music that our inner conductor must remain. He cannot be thinking about the last measure that was played or the measure that is yet to come. He has to know the music that well.

Approximately 2,500 years ago the Buddha was explaining the mechanics of the universe and in the course of the explanation said that what is called the present lasts 1/17th of one trillionths of a second! How is it possible for a conductor or a musician to stay in the present of the music he is conducting? The answer is in the music itself—in following what is called the musical interest.

Musical interest (sometimes called melodic interest) is that place in the music where the music’s principle interest resides. Many patterns occur simultaneously in a piece of music—melodies and melodic rhythms, harmonies expressed both vertically as chords and horizontally as arpeggios, as well as the patterns of phrases, cadences, dynamics…

Examples of musical interest are delineated in the book, The Norton Scores – An Anthology for Listening. These scores are meant for listening to music and musical interest is always highlighted by a white band over parts of the score. Take for example Claude Debussy’s Prelude to “The Afternoon of a Faun.”  The piece begins with the beautiful opening melody played on the flutes. In the score, this melody is highlighted. Approximately halfway through the fourth measure the melodic interest moves to the French horns and the harp. In measures five – ten the clarinets and French horns are highlighted…

In ensemble music, musical interest most always can be seen to move from one instrument, or group of instruments, to another;  in music for solo instruments—music written to be notated in multiple line notation—the musical interest is often seen to move from one voice to another voice throughout the course of the piece. One consistency throughout all music is that there always can be found musical interest and it is always continuous from the beginning to the end of the piece. It is this musical interest that becomes the center of attention for both the conductor and the inner conductor of the solo artist. Musical interest is always in the present and being with it is the way the conductor and the inner conductor remain in the present of the music.

This can be a very subtle thing. Remember the Buddha’s description of the present as lasting 1/17th of one trillionths of a second. Now a musician can play notes very quickly, but I doubt that any musician can play a note in the time of a moment of the present. What this means is that any one note lasts longer than the time of the present and so, the present can actually be experienced as it moves through the three phases of creation – birth, life, and death. Staying in the present of the music allows us to experience these three phases of creation that exists in each and every sound. Play a note; let it ring for its full duration. First comes the birth—the articulation. Next the phase of life sustains the sound. Almost immediately, the life phase begins to give way to the death phase—the sound eventually dies away. What remains is silence, the place from where all sounds manifests and where all sounds dissolve...

As it is with every single sound, so it is with every group of sounds, and by extension, every piece of music. As the inner conductor learns to remain more and more in the present of the musical interest, more and more an interesting phenomena can be observed, the musician begins to disappear—begins to become invisible. When the musician disappears into the music he creates inspiring art. A good example of this disappearing can be felt in the recording of Paul Galbraith—especially his recording of Bach’s Partitas for Unaccompanied Violin.  There are moments when it can be felt that Mr. Galbraith is no longer there—that only the music is there. What an interesting irony, by staying more and more in the present moment of the music, the musician disappears.

Listen to this recording, see if you can hear what I’m talking about, and keep going deeper and deeper into your own music and begin to disappear—even to yourself!

(c) copyright Michael Kovitz, 2014