Hotaru Koi (belated)
Hotaru Koi was an interesting exercise in the management of space and energy. The ending is a prolonged decrescendo and I found myself running out of space and clamping my elbows in close to my body. When I kept my arms open and free- Andrew mentioned this issue to another classmate- the ensemble experiences a better sense of support.
I was interested to hear Jon’s comment in class (and on the blog) that he would enjoy revisiting pieces rather than conducting them once or twice and putting them away. I agree- I’m terribly excited to start teaching and be able to live with a piece every day. I think my conducting skills will grow exponentially because I will be able to start adding in more subtle details. As it is now, you just try to keep your wits about you and keep waving the hand, but getting a chance to work a piece “into your hands” (like you work a song into your voice) over months is an appealing thought. Oh, those poor high schoolers who will be our guinea pigs!
But the grad student applicants who visited the Chamber Singers and Concert Choir these past weeks taught me that independence is a double-edged sword…. While regular teaching will allow me to get comfortable with conducting and necessitate refinement, I will continue to video tape myself from time to time. As we all noted, there were a few conductors who demonstrated nasty habits obtained from years of working with a certain population. Hopefully, video taping my conducting will help me to self monitor and prevent these behaviors.