Feb 2014 Beginners Conducting Course Report

The Foundational Conducting Course took place on a wet and windy February day in south east London. Six students from across the UK plus one from Brazil spent the day doing a lot of arm waving ... goodness only knows what the neigbours made of it! After a historical introduction to conducting, with various video examples, the students negotiated holding a baton, learning to beat 2, 3, and 4 time, how to do upbeats, how to stop an orchestra, how to change dynamics, and many other things. We ended up going through exercises such as this: "Ok, so now we're beating in 4, legato, and we 4 bars crescendo followed by 4 bars diminuendo". Quite a leap for some of the students - a few of whom had never done any conudcting before!

English