Conductor's Gestures Research Articles

Influence of Timbral Sound Coloring on the Evolution of the Conductor's Gesture

An overview of the professional aspects of conducting as a process of managing a performing team was carried out. The main directions of the development of the conductor's performance skills from the noisy type to the silent type are revealed. The dynamics of changes in the forms and methods of conducting have been traced while preserving the priority of gesturing as the main type of influence on the collective during the performance of a musical piece. It was found that the conductor controls not only the logic of the development of the musical material, but implements it by using a specific complex of real physical movements (gestures) organized in time. The essence of the conductor's orchestral thinking is analyzed, which is a synthesis of his logical and procedural thinking, which ensures the development of the timbre dramaturgy of the musical work. The dependence of the timbral coloring of sound on the involvement of various types of orchestral instruments in the reproduction of musical material is substantiated. It has been established that orchestration is the basis of the conductor's timbral thinking. Composers are divided (conditionally) into two main types of timbral thinking, where the first includes those for whom orchestration is a means of expressing musical thought (L. Beethoven, R. Wagner, P. Tchaikovsky, D. Shostakovich, and others), and the second includes those for whom orchestration is a means of expressing sophisticated imagery by creating an orchestral color and multi-colored sound (H. Berlioz, M. Rimskyi Korsakov, K. Debussy and others). It has been proven that: timbral coloring and the conductor's manual technique have a reciprocal relationship; The elements of the conductor's gesture reflect not only the metro-rhythmic structure, stroke realization, dynamic shades, emotional and figurative content of the musical work, but also reflect the quality of the new timbre, its modification and development; the timbre auditory imagination of the conductor develops in classes on orchestration (instrumentation) and in the process of conducting directly with the orchestra; the conductor's gesture, which is not supported by timbral feeling, leads to a formal gesticulation that does not reflect the emotional and figurative content of the musical work.

Effects of Conducting With or Without a Musical Score on Observers’ Perceptions of Conductors

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of conductor score use (conducting with a musical score vs. conducting without a score) on observers’ perceptions of conductors. We also examined how those effects may differ when viewed from the ensemble perspective compared to the audience perspective. Participants ( N = 126) were collegiate musicians who viewed two video recordings of a conductor leading a collegiate symphonic band through an excerpt of Grainger’s Colonial Song. In one video, participants viewed the conductor using a musical score. In the other video, the conductor did not use a musical score. Half of the participants viewed the videos showing the front view of the conductor (ensemble perspective), and the other half viewed the back view of the conductor (audience perspective). Participants rated the conductor’s competence and knowledge of the score in each video. Results indicated a significant effect due to score condition. However, that effect was not independent of viewing perspective or presentation order. Responses to open-ended questions indicated that conductor gesture was the most common aspect observed by participants, but participants also reported that conductor score use was one of the common aspects noticed when evaluating knowledge of the score.

The development of a sense of rhythm in students in the process of choral conducting training

The purpose of this article is to study the effectiveness of pedagogical and psychological conditions that form a sense of rhythm in students (n=200) involved in conducting. The study was conducted in 2017-2019 among 1-2 year students from Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (China). In the control part of the experiment, 42% of students were in the group with a low level of rhythm perception. The number of students with a low level of intonation of musical rhythm was reduced by 2.0 times, a combined response as a key element of the conductor gestures of conducting was increased by 2.81 times.

The gesture enigma: Reconciling the prominence and insignificance of choral conductor gestures

Curious as to why conducting gesture are both acknowledged and ignored by choral singers, this article investigates the enigmatic nature of the act of conducting. Education and research are biased toward gestural aspects of the choral conductor role. At the same time, research shows that gestural skills rank strikingly low compared with other musical skills and interpersonal skills. This study endeavors to unpack this enigma, based on 40 interviews with choral singers and conductors in Norway and Sweden. Taking a phenomenological approach, analysis of the fieldwork reveals that singers are more aware of gesture when something out of the ordinary happens, is unclear, or is even particularly appealing. The enigmatic role of gesture is partly due to conceptual ambiguity—gestures are signals that conductors “do” as well as embody the integral conductor “being.” Moreover, four “enigma busting” contextual dimensions were found: complexity of the music, the irreplaceability of gestures in the specific situation, singers’ receptiveness to gestures, and the gestural proficiency of the conductor. The article points at some implications for education as well as future research.

The Question of Lag: An Exploration of the Relationship Between Conductor Gesture and Sonic Response in Instrumental Ensembles.

Group musical performance, especially large instrumental ensembles, present the outward appearance of an asymmetric, temporally immediate stimulus-response relationship between conductor and ensemble. Interestingly, anecdotal reports from both conductors and performers indicate a degree of variability in the timing of orchestral response to the conductor’s gestures. This observation is not present in anecdotal accounts of other instrumental ensemble settings, like wind bands, but commonplace occurrence among orchestral musicians indicates the potential presence of greater complexity in the observed relationship. This study investigates both the quality and quantity of temporal lag between conductor and ensemble in two common instrumental ensemble configurations – wind bands and orchestras – in an effort to describe the interplay present within conducted group performance. The findings indicate that the anecdotally identified lag is present within all ensemble types, and that it presents a flexible, dynamic temporal relationship between conductor and ensemble. Additionally, both the quantity and quality of lag values are significantly different between ensemble types, experience levels, and musical content. Several avenues for future research are identified, and confounds within the sampled ensembles are examined for their potential roles in the observed relationships.

Хорова фуга як об’єкт художньо-виконавської інтерпретації (на прикладі «In sempiterna saecula, Amen» з кантати «Stabat Mater» Джоаккіно Россіні)

ктуальність. Вперше здійснюється розгляд виконавської проблематики, пов’язаної із художніми завданнями, що постають в процесі виконавської інтерпретації хорової фуги. Мета роботи – виявити специфічні вокально-хорові труднощі, зумовлені складною поліфонічною фактурою, формою та драматургією двотемної фуги, а також методи їх вирішення. Методологія спирається на взаємодію компаративного, аналітичного, а також виконавського методів. Висновки. Хоча фузі присвячена велика кількість досліджень, специфіка хорової фуги вимагає окремого розгляду, що зумовлюється, насамперед, присутністю тексту, багатотембральністю, своєрідністю хорової артикуляції, фактури тощо. Усе зазначене здійснює безпосередній вплив на будову теми і драматургії фуги в цілому. Виявлено художньо-виконавські задачі та їх реалізацію в поліфонічній фактурі, потенційні вокально-хорові труднощі та запропоновано методи їх подолання.

Використання мелодекламації для розвитку творчих здібностей дітей дошкільного віку

The article substantiates the use of group melodeclamation for the development of creative abilities of children of preschool age. The interpretation of the concept of melodeclamation, as well as the conditionality of melodeclamation, expressiveness of speech and artistic word is revealed. It highlights the meaning of the gesture for the development of expressive pronunciation and the advantages of group verse reading. We consider the forms of interaction between the leader and the children in the classroom. The main tasks are indicated when working on melodeclamation: expanding the range of voices, improving articulation, forming an answer to the conductor's gesture, mastering the technique of interpretation. Extension of the range of voice involves the use of artistic tactics, which is accompanied by the pronunciation of words at different altitudes. This principle is used in the technique of melodeclamation. Improvement of articulation is carried out when working on an algorithm and artistic tactics. The formation of the echo of the conductor's gesture is due to the task for children to repeat the gestures of the teacher in the process of melodeclamation. In the gestures shows the height of speech, dynamics, speech stroke, metric features and tempo. Learning the technique of interpretation is an obligatory part of the work on the quality of melodeclamation. The teacher constantly asks to change the nature, to read the poem in a different way. In doing so, he gives different examples of interpretation. In this way, he induces the mastery of the technique of children's improvisation throughout the course of study. Improvisation has a collective character, so every child can participate in it. Availability of improvisation is a prerequisite for the development of the creative potential of children. They have the opportunity to reveal their abilities. The role of understanding the artistic image to work on technical skills is revealed. The main goals are identified, namely, the development of expressiveness of speech technology, as well as such tasks as changing the direction of the melody of speech, correct articulation of vowels and consonants, forming the ability to play strong and weak parts, mastering dynamics and strokes, translating the originality of drama, mastering the plasticity of gesture voice shaping. Keywords: melodeclamation, group reading, expressiveness of speech, articulation, gesture.

The Effects of Temporal Action-Sound Congruence on Evaluations of Conductor Quality

Vision serves a fundamental role in the human experience of musical performance. In conducting, this particular heuristic influences both expressive and coordinative aspects of musical activity. Ensemble conductors present a special case of musical gesture, as their activities are coordinative rather than directly sound-producing. While the influence of vision on evaluations of musical expressivity has been well studied, less attention has been paid to the temporal aspect of conductors’ gestures. Given anecdotal observations of a flexibly congruent relationship between conductor gesture and ensemble response and the ability of entrainment to promote preference, we theorize that alterations to natural action-sound congruence in conductor-to-ensemble settings may influence evaluations of conductor quality. Naturalistic performance video of five conductors was left intact or adjusted to an audio- or video-lead condition by a percentage of each excerpt tempo (intact, ±15%, ±30%) and fully crossed into stimuli orders. Participants were asked to rate the quality of the conductor, the ensemble, and the performance overall using a Likert-type scale bound by “ poor” and “ excellent.” Our results indicate that any offset, whether audio- or video-led, resulted in a lower level of conductor quality than intact, unaltered performance. While our effect size was small (η p2 = .02), participant ratings reinforce the role of action-sound congruence on observers’ perceptions and overall evaluation of conductors’ activities.

The influence of visual cues on temporal anticipation and movement synchronization with musical sequences

Music presents a complex case of movement timing, as one to several dozen musicians coordinate their actions at short time-scales. This process is often directed by a conductor who provides a visual beat and guides the ensemble through tempo changes. The current experiment tested the ways in which audio-motor coordination is influenced by visual cues from a conductor's gestures, and how this influence might manifest in two ways: movements used to produce sound related to the music, and movements of the upper-body that do not directly affect sound output. We designed a virtual conductor that was derived from morphed motion capture recordings of human conductors. Two groups of participants (29 musicians and 28 nonmusicians, to test the generalizability of visuo-motor synchronization to non-experts) were shown the virtual conductor, a simple visual metronome, or a stationary circle while completing a drumming task that required synchronization with tempo-changing musical sequences. We measured asynchronies and temporal anticipation in the drumming task, as well as participants' upper-body movement using motion capture. Drumming results suggest the conductor generally improves synchronization by facilitating anticipation of tempo changes in the music. Motion capture results showed that the conductor visual cue elicited more structured head movements than the other two visual cues for nonmusicians only. Multiple regression analysis showed that the nonmusicians with less rigid movement and high anticipation had lower asynchronies. Thus, the visual cues provided by a conductor might serve to facilitate temporal anticipation and more synchronous movement in the general population, but might also cause rigid ancillary movements in some non-experts.

Формування асоціативного мислення майбутніх учителів музики в процесі диригентсько-хорової підготовки

The paper presents specification of the concept "associative thinking", the peculiarities of forming conductor gestures and the content of training students at choral conducting classes. The effective methods for future Music teachers’ associative thinking in the conductor’s and choral training have been identified, namely the method of associative verbal succession, vocal and choral analysis of music scores on the basis of associative approach, visual message method. The primary function of the association method is to awaken student’s imagination, arouse his/her emotional response, develop better understanding of the music content. Associations activate creative thinking, emotions, creative attitude to playing music. That is why, the development of associative thinking plays an important part in training future teachers of Music, as long as associative thinking is one of the elements of cognitive activity; it is a link between different pieces of knowledge; based on analysis, synthesis, sense perception and contributes to the fact that the new material is included into one’s own experience. Mastering the skills of associative thinking is the basis for students’ professional competence. Associative thinking of future Music teachers is the basis for creativity and is characterised by integrated and analytical perception of music pieces and their performing in one’s musical and pedagogical work. With regard to our research, associative thinking of future Music teacher is considered as a process of understanding artistic images in a certain piece of music and personality’s ability to convey it by means of conductor’s gestures in the performance.

The Conductor As Visual Guide: Gesture and Perception of Musical Content.

Ensemble conductors are often described as embodying the music. Researchers have determined that expressive gestures affect viewers’ perceptions of conducted ensemble performances. This effect may be due, in part, to conductor gesture delineating and amplifying specific expressive aspects of music performances. The purpose of the present study was to determine if conductor gesture affected observers’ focus of attention to contrasting aspects of ensemble performances. Audio recordings of two different music excerpts featuring two-part counterpoint (an ostinato paired with a lyric melody, and long chord tones paired with rhythmic interjections) were paired with video of two conductors. Each conductor used gesture appropriate to one or the other musical element (e.g., connected and flowing or detached and crisp) for a total of sixteen videos. Musician participants evaluated 8 of the excerpts for Articulation, Rhythm, Style, and Phrasing using four 10-point differential scales anchored by descriptive terms (e.g., disconnected to connected, and angular to flowing.) Results indicated a relationship between gesture and listeners’ evaluations of musical content. Listeners appear to be sensitive to the manner in which a conductor’s gesture delineates musical lines, particularly as an indication of overall articulation and style. This effect was observed for the lyric melody and ostinato excerpt, but not for the chords and interjections excerpt. Therefore, this effect appears to be mitigated by the congruence of gesture to preconceptions of the importance of melodic over rhythmic material, of certain instrument timbres over others, and of length between onsets of active material. These results add to a body of literature that supports the importance of the visual component in the multimodal experience of music performance.

Effects of varied conductor prep movements on singer muscle engagement and voicing behaviors

The purpose of this study was to examine whether certain nonverbal conductor gestures might trigger varied motor behaviors in choristers as indicated by acoustical data and measurement of extrinsic laryngeal muscle activity. Participants ( N = 23) performed a melody while following a prerecorded conductor who displayed the following fully-crossed preparatory gesture conditions: (a) initial upward or downward moving arm, (b) upward moving or neutral head positioning, and (c) fisted hand or open palm. Surface electrodes measured singer posterior neck, upper trapezius, suprahyoid, and sternocleidomastoid muscle region activity during inhalation. Audio recordings provided data for acoustic and perceptual comparisons. Among primary results: (a) suprahyoid mean muscle region activity was significantly greater during upward compared to downward moving gestures; (b) sternocleidomastoid mean muscle region activity was significantly higher during fisted compared to palm open gestures; (c) posterior neck and upper trapezius mean muscle region activity displayed no significant differences during the varied conditions; (d) fisted conditions corresponded to higher mean sung amplitudes than palm open conditions; and (e) expert listeners perceived that singer inhalation was less efficient during upward compared to downward moving gestures. Results were discussed in terms of chorister responses to conductor behaviors, implications for teacher-conductor preparation, and limitations of the study.

Keeping an eye on the conductor: neural correlates of visuo-motor synchronization and musical experience.

For orchestra musicians, synchronized playing under a conductor’s direction is necessary to achieve optimal performance. Previous studies using simple auditory/visual stimuli have reported cortico-subcortical networks underlying synchronization and that training improves the accuracy of synchronization. However, it is unclear whether people who played regularly under a conductor and non-musicians activate the same networks when synchronizing with a conductor’s gestures. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment testing nonmusicians and musicians who regularly play music under a conductor. Participants were required to tap the rhythm they perceived from silent movies displaying either conductor’s gestures or a swinging metronome. Musicians performed tapping under a conductor with more precision than nonmusicians. Results from fMRI measurement showed greater activity in the anterior part of the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) in musicians with more frequent practice under a conductor. Conversely, tapping with the metronome did not show any difference between musicians and nonmusicians, indicating that the expertize effect in tapping under the conductor does not result in a general increase in tapping performance for musicians. These results suggest that orchestra musicians have developed an advanced ability to predict conductor’s next action from the gestures.

A Note from the Guest Editor

It is tempting to introduce this collection of essays on “Opera and the Avant-Garde” by way of Pierre Boulez's 1967 interview with Der Spiegel, the one in which he half-jokingly called for the opera houses of Europe to be bombed.1 Certainly there is enough material to choose from. Perhaps the passage in which he dreams of a theater so total that not only plot and language but even the conductor's gestures are radically integrated into the score?2 Or the moment when he warns against combining “jazz with western music”?3 And then there are the insults. Opera is “a musty old wardrobe,” “a relic, a well-cared-for museum […] full of dust and crap” and attended by “tourists [who] make me want to vomit.”4 Hans Werner Henze is a “hairdresser,” Franco Zeffirelli “the Henze among producers.”5 It is “unfortunate” that Bertolt Brecht “collaborated with such inconsequential musicians,” but perhaps that should come as no surprise.6 After all, even the composer of Parsifal authored only “a few other” operas worth producing.7

Natural human–robot musical interaction: understanding the music conductor gestures by using the WB-4 inertial measurement system

This paper presents an inertial measurement unit-based human gesture recognition system for a robot instrument player to understand the instructions dictated by an orchestra conductor and accordingly adapt its musical performance. It is an extension of our previous publications on natural human–robot musical interaction. With this system, the robot can understand the real-time variations in musical parameters dictated by the conductor’s movements, adding expression to its performance while being synchronized with all the other human partner musicians. The enhanced interaction ability would obviously lead to an improvement of the overall live performance, but also allow the partner musicians, as well as the conductor, to better appreciate a joint musical performance, thanks to the complete naturalness of the interaction.

Mental Imagery for Musical Changes in Loudness

Musicians imagine music during mental rehearsal, when reading from a score, and while composing. An important characteristic of music is its temporality. Among the parameters that vary through time is sound intensity, perceived as patterns of loudness. Studies of mental imagery for melodies (i.e., pitch and rhythm) show interference from concurrent musical pitch and verbal tasks, but how we represent musical changes in loudness is unclear. Theories suggest that our perceptions of loudness change relate to our perceptions of force or effort, implying a motor representation. An experiment was conducted to investigate the modalities that contribute to imagery for loudness change. Musicians performed a within-subjects loudness change recall task, comprising 48 trials. First, participants heard a musical scale played with varying patterns of loudness, which they were asked to remember. There followed an empty interval of 8 s (nil distractor control), or the presentation of a series of four sine tones, or four visual letters or three conductor gestures, also to be remembered. Participants then saw an unfolding score of the notes of the scale, during which they were to imagine the corresponding scale in their mind while adjusting a slider to indicate the imagined changes in loudness. Finally, participants performed a recognition task of the tone, letter, or gesture sequence. Based on the motor hypothesis, we predicted that observing and remembering conductor gestures would impair loudness change scale recall, while observing and remembering tone or letter string stimuli would not. Results support this prediction, with loudness change recalled less accurately in the gestures condition than in the control condition. An effect of musical training suggests that auditory and motor imagery ability may be closely related to domain expertise.

Driving the virtual orchestra with a conductor gesture interpreter

The interactive multichannel computer music system known as the ‘‘virtual orchestra’’ (VO) has been used several times in professional opera and theater as an alternative to a live pit orchestra. In each case, the VO has been operated by a ‘‘tapper’’ who follows the conductor and operates the computer which controls the VO. Recent research in noncontact, video-based conductor gesture interpretation has shown interesting possibilities in tempo and limited musical dynamics management when the gesture interpreter is directly connected to the VO controller. Two different approaches to conductor gesture detection will be discussed and the virtual orchestra will be demonstrated.

Effect of Conductor Verbalization, Dynamic Markings, Conductor Gesture, and Choir Dynamic Level on Singers' Dynamic Responses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of conductor verbalization, dynamic markings, conductor gesture, and choir dynamic level on individual singers' dynamic responses in music. Singers (N = 144) sang along with nine renditions of a tune while watching a videotape of a conductor, listening to a choir through headphones, and referring to the music. Instructions regarding the dynamic level (soft or loud) were given under four conditions: (a) verbal instructions, (b) written instructions, (c) changes in conducting gesture, and (d) volume changes in the choir. Results indicated that verbal instructions from the conductor elicited significantly stronger dynamic performance responses (alpha = .05) than did the other three instructional conditions. Singers responded significantly better on instructions pertaining to soft singing than they did on instructions relating to loud singing. Comparisons were made between conductors, college singers, and high school singers, and eye contact was also examined.