23

believing that the shape of the conducting hand affects the sound produced by the
choir16.
Jordan’s textbook is a must for choral conductors, but should be considered by
all conductors, due to its kinaesthetic approach throughout.

The instrumental conducting textbook that comes closest to Jordan’s in its

kinaesthetic approach is Lead and Inspire (2005)(1st edition) by Robert Garofalo
and Frank Battisti, used in the surveys by one university conducting teacher.
This book is one of the most recently written conducting textbooks, and it is
designed to teach conductors the knowledge and skills needed to inspire
expressive musical performances. Garofalo and Battisti correctly claim that: ‘no
other conducting book provides as comprehensive a taxonomy of conducting
skills and gestures’ (Garofalo and Battisti 2005:v). It is a companion book to the
earlier written Guide to Score Study for the Wind Band Conductor (Battisti and
Garofalo 1990), which was used by seven university conducting teachers and two
experienced Melbourne secondary school conductors in the surveys.
The book is divided in three main parts, part 1 covering ‘The Craft of Podium
Conducting,’ including parameters of body and space, characteristics of
conducting motion, body language, and facial expressions. The authors suggest
that this section could be used as a conducting class textbook, stressing that the
chapters need not be introduced sequentially, but as determined by the individual
instructor. Part 2 contains music for class conducting and performance, and is
made up of flexibly orchestrated full scores. Instrumental parts can be obtained
from the publisher via their website (www.whirlwind-music.com). Part 3
provides students with opportunities to deal with numerous conducting
challenges using examples from the wind band and orchestra repertoire.
This textbook employs more kinaesthetic learning strategies than any other
instrumental conducting method, such as excellent movement and spatial
exercises, including warm-up stretching and joint sensitivity exercises, which
relate to the size of conducting gestures using conducting frames17. These

16
An example of this occurs in Colin Durrant’s book Choral Conducting: Philosophy and
Practice in which Durrant describes a gesture in which the palm is lifted as if gently pulling a
puppet string: ‘The importance of this particular gesture is that the raising of the inside of the
palm reflects the raising of the soft palate, which is situated inside the mouth at the rear, which in
turn will assist with tuning certain musical phrases or notes’ (Durrant 2003:147).
17
Conducting frames are rectangular spaces into which conducting gestures fit, the size of which
are determined by dynamics; the louder the dynamic, the larger the frame.