Klarinet Archive - Posting 001053.txt from 2003/06

From: "James Hobby" <jhobby@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Left, Right or mixed handed?
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2003 00:33:10 -0400

(Not picking on you, Wendy), but you happened to hit what I consider to be
one of the big conducting problems: "The College Music Major Conducting
Class", or as I call it, Stick Waving 101. I've seen people, mostly in the
form of school band directors, who obviously never took any conducting,
beyond this point. They can maintain most of the basic beat patterns with
one hand and handle minimal dynamics & expressions with the other. They
can't help it. That's what they're offered (or required). The middle
school band director here conducts with her right hand and lets her left
dangle at her side, unless she's turning pages. She even gives cues with
the baton. (Conducting aside, she's really pretty pathetic as an
instructor. We thought she was leaving at the end of the term, but her
family are good friends with the superintendent.)

College conducting teachers seem to be spread out to everything from the
elementary music prof to the department head. My SW101 course was taught by
the head of the department, who was a marvelous chorusmaster. Terrible
orchestra/band conductor. He was what I call an "in the box" conductor. He
taught that everything should be done in a box, about 15x15, right in front
of the face. Luckily, I'd become interested around age 14 in studying
conducting at summer music camps and took both class and private
instructions. As it was, SW101 came as quite a shock. I luckily overcame
Dr. Wright's class, and went on to be the first student in this history of
the university to conduct the orchestra in public performance.

As far as handedness, my wife and I were both right handed. My daughter is
left handed, and we insisted that the schools would not require her to use
her right hand. The only real problem class she had, for some reason, was
typing. I'm not sure why.

The only professional left-handed conductor I ever remember seeing was in
the mid-sixties. I was student technical director for the mainstage
theatre, where the Community Concert Series was played. We had -- not
positive of the name -- The Chamber & Ballet Orchestra of Paris. I saw
nothing particularly disconcerting about his conducting. However, this may
have been because I was already so p*ssed off. They were supposed to be
there at 8:00am. When they hadn't showed up by 11:00, I ran off campus to
get us some sandwiches. They came while I was gone, and when I walked back
in, he was screaming at my assistant -- in French. He had demanded that the
asbestos curtain be lowered across the arch so the orchestra could play out
on the apron covering the pit, and was demanding that it be taken down and
ironed! 32' wide, 21' high, and 12" thick, weighing some four tons. Since
the only person connected with the orchestra who spoke English was one of
the traveling seamstresses, we had some communication problems. (My 2 years
of HS French didn't cut it.)

I think a person should be able to conduct with whichever hand they wish, as
long as they do it well.

Jim Hobby

>From: "Wendy" <bosma@-----.net>
>
>hmm, I took a conducting class in college. It was hard. Really hard. I
>learned some serious appreciation for conductors that semester. I thought
>we were taught that you maintain the beat pattern with your right hand and
>use the left for all the other stuff. I never considered it an advantage
>that I was right handed.

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