Mikey Mayer / Conducting 1, Rehearsal Observation 2 E 12/01/2019 On the 16" of November, | observed Professor Boggs conducting the Eastern Symphonic Band from 7 to 8 PM, Because it was a concert week for the ensemble, they were just touching up a lot of the pieces for the next day's concert, so it was a fast-paced rehearsal. Although Professor Boggs was running a litte late, the ensemble still warmed up individually until he got there a few minutes later. 1 was pleasantly surprised that their focus was so intact throughout the rehearsal From my perspective, Professor Boggs’ conducting was not the clearest and a lot of confusion stemmed from his posture. His positioning of his baton was very unfamiliar tome His sh baton hand was almost claw-like and did not look comfortable at all. He would only hold his ’ baton with the thumb and pointer finger, and the other fingers were not wrapped around the * baton, but rather just there, independent from the baton. I noticed that his hand was not in the right position either when he was conducting Fourish for Wind Band by Ralph Vaughn Williams. Unlike what we are told with the palm of our right hand facing downwards, his was facing the side, so it was harder to see and seemed like he was having to push through the pattern. Because of his hand position, it looked like his pattern was very smallwhich'led to. confusion when I was trying to find the beats, because they looked too similar Also, inthe lyrical section of the piece, he was not emoting that differently because a lot of his conducting style came from his shoulder rather than his wrist or forearm. The overuse of the shoulder could give off the wrong style and a wrong interpretation of the piece For most of the rehearsal, his back was very stil, almost looking locked throughout Although he leaned into different sections and gave great eye contact, I felt like his emotions— could have been realized more if he was to loosen his back and not be so tense. Although his — posture was not the clearest thing to follow, the ensemble was great at perceiving what he was trying to convey with the music. His arm positions perplexed me as well because they were too / bent. Instead of the arms being out and at a 7-8 o'clock and 4-5 position, his arms were bent and not really extended, keeping his pattern small for the most part. The limited movement of the arms could have affected the dynamic range of the ensemble because he was not really showing a lot. I feel a lot more emotion could have been more evident if he extended his arms a little further out ee In his rehearsal, he was able to maintain a professional yet easy-going kind of rapport 8 with the ensemble. The ensemble was able to joke around with him, but they were still focused, com the piece at hand, When the ensemble was working on Fmpetata Overture by Claude T Smith, the clarinet section was having trouble with rhythms that they worked on in previ us weeks. Professor Boggs was able to hear the problem and focus on the problem quickly and was able to answer questions about the music diligently. Because it was the day before the concert, <<: Professor Boggs rarely looked to his score and even sang the problem rhythms that the ensemble ‘was struggling with, he seemed confident in his knowledge of his scores. I also liked the M technique he used when trying to find trouble spots, he asked the members what they wanted to go over after they played each piece; it gave the ensemble more critical thinking opportunities in order to make more of a musical experience > bay When they were working on A Hymmsong of Phillip Bliss by David R, Holsinger, 1 noticed that the finger: his left hand were moving differently from each other and m t have been distracting to the ensemble. Throughout the rehearsal, there was not a lot of wrist motion in his right hand, but primarily there was a lot of shoulder motion, regardless of style. Overall, |thought that his rehearsal technique was very well thought out, it was an environment of fun music-making, but his posture and his hand positions made it difficult to follow at first glance, His preparatory beats were clear with a good breath, but often when he released, he would go higher on his plane. Because the ensemble meets with Professor Boggs throughout the semester, the ensemble most likely understood his way of conducting more.