Psalm 100
It was so sad that today was our last conducting class! I've really enjoyed it, and feel that I've made a lot of progress. I am amazed looking back at how much I didn't know. I would love to continue taking conducting methods, I just don't know if it will sync up with my requirements. It would be a shame to not keep the momentum. Maybe I'll have to keep it up on my own.
I really enjoyed this piece as well. It really keeps you on your toes. Going in, I felt like the biggest challenge was going to be keeping my head out of the score. I still haven't completely internalized the piece, so I have to keep looking to make sure I'm in the right place. I tried to make an effort to look at the choir more, but I found that I did lose my place. I felt I recovered ok, though. Going in, I had also made a decision to make a marked difference in my 2-eighth note versus 3-eighth note patterns. I wanted the duple meter to be crisp and small, and the triple meter to be more rounded and take up a little more space. It is difficult to keep the pattern small, though! My tendency (and I think most everyone in the class does this) is to go too big. It doesn't feel that big, but looking in the mirror, it is. It's also much harder to have a big pattern with a piece like this. It's easy to speed up or slow down.
One of my big issues, as the class commented on, is moving too much. This is a really hard habit to undo. I have always moved as part of making music. Since this is mostly in the "rock" arena, it feels second nature to me. I tend to think of conducting as playing a large instrument made up of many voices. It's still an instrument, it's just played differently.
It is interesting to note the effect on the choir when I do this. I agree with Dr. Mehaffey that with a piece that is rhythmically complex, it is best to simplify the conducting, and just let the choir know where they are. Moving around makes it difficult for the choir to have a consistent place to look.
Anyway, I've had fun. Hopefully I'll see one or all of you conducting at the Met someday!
Tim