[Menvi-discuss] Conducting a choir

[Bettie & Bill Downing]

Sorry, but I couldn't resist:

One day, a tuba player wanted to torture the drummer behind him, so he hid one of the drummer’s sticks. After looking around for a few minutes, with a frantic, wide-eyed expression, the drummer fell to his knees, flung his arms wide, and screamed to heaven: “Finally! The miracle, after all these years! I’m a Conductor!”

On Jan 11, 2014, at 2:18 PM, Jared Rimer, MENVI webmaster wrote:

> There is nothing by Carlton Eldridge Carlton  listed through NLS.  There are other Eldridge Carlton 's listed, 16 in the list, but no title seemed to match what was discussed here.
> 
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> On 1/11/2014 12:13 PM, Brian Howerton wrote:
>> Hi Martha,
>> Thank you for the help. I am having trouble finding that book on Nls and would love to know the book you were referring to on learning ally. Thank you so much,
>> Brian
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>>> On Jan 11, 2014, at 12:34 PM, "Marda" <marda-pianist at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> When I was in college taking conducting the system was that in addition to our class instruction, each student had a private t a tutor who met with you for an hour a week and that was my lifesaver for learning the patterns, cues, cutoffs, dynamics and so on. Besides that one of my readers had taken conducting and was conducting a choir at the time so when time permitted she helped me practice too.  I also practiced a lot with recordings while I was learning the basics.   I'm sorry you had such a negative college experience with that.  I found the physical acts of conducting to be difficult at first until I got used to them and they became automatic.  For me though I needed someone to actually describe the patterns and manipulate my hands until I got the feel of it.  One thing I would suggest is that you take advantage of conducting resources that are available from NLS and learning ally.  NLS has a wonderful collection of articles written by blind conductors with lots of good tip
> s.  I don't remember the name of the book but it's by Carlton Eldridge I think.  NLS has a circular that lists all of the textbooks they had at the time of the circular's publication and I know both they and learning ally have conducting textbooks including the one I used in college. One thing I do is really emphasize that my choir knows how to count out loud.  It takes more time but it teaches them the rhythm better and helps them stay together.  Another thing I do with new choirs is to demonstrate how I do things like cutoffs so they'll understand if my movement isn't exactly precise.  One good thing to know is that there is a lot of variation beyond the basics in how conductors do things so even sighted conductors have to give their choirs a little time to get used to their idiosyncrasies. Hope that helps.
>>> Marda
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Howerton" <bshowerton1 at gmail.com>
>>> To: <menvi-discuss at menvi.org>
>>> Sent: Saturday, January 11, 2014 5:34 AM
>>> Subject: [Menvi-discuss] Conducting a choir
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Hello all,
>>>> I just recently took a position at a church here in the Richmond Virginia area as a worship leader.  I studied worship and music studies in college at Liberty University, and I took conducting, but unfortunately, my professor gave up on working with me privately on how to conduct.  That is the one thing in college that I felt like I really missed out on.  So now I am going to have to conduct the choir at the church where I serve and I have no idea what to do. Can anyone give any conducting tips for someone who has really had no experience doing it at all?  Thanks so much for the help,
>>>> Brian
>>>> 
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