Lucas Hobson MUSPE 390 14 February 2012 DVD Transcript: Down a Country Lane My second conducting round consisted

of a read-through of the first and fourth movements of Ron Nelsons Courtly Airs and Dances with the lab band. During the course of the lesson we worked on eliminating extraneous movement in my conducting and on using a posture that mirrored the music. Upon my first review of the video, I can immediately see the problems that Dr. Vondran focused on. My preparatory beat was unclear, and my movement takes away greatly from the power that should be emanating from the podium for this fanfare. My left hand technique and cues, however, have improved very much from the first conducting round. We began at the very beginning, which is a very good place to start. Dr. Vondran talked about cuing with an activation beat and dead gesture. We then worked on developing a better posture, by opening up my hinges and standing still, getting my chin up, and keeping my shoulders back. We then moved to the saltarello, which I took under-tempo for the bands sake. Review of the video shows that Im going to have to keep working to get the movement out of my torso. After working out the issues of heaviness of conducting, we read it again. The ensemble had several problems with their parts, but I could have cued them better as well. Dr. Vondran attributed the problems with tempo to

the ensembles difficulty in reading the piece, but also stated that it is my job as a conductor to push the ensemble. Several of the issues from my conducting round, such as nerves and left-hand gestures, improved dramatically in this round. My score knowledge was high, which allowed me to keep my eyes on the ensemble most of the time and show the style better. My goals for the next conducting round are to eliminate the extraneous movement, establish better cues, and be more proactive in my conducting. Better cue markings and more awareness of my bodys general movement on the podium should help me bring me to a higher level in conducting.