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James’ solution, recording positions of movement, and extrapolating expressive

intention from these positions, is not entirely satisfactory, in that it goes against
the ideas of Alexander, Laban, and Feldenkrais observed in the previous chapter,
who argue for the expressivity of active motion over frozen posture. Here, the
distinction needs to be made between the observation of expressive movement
and the learning of expressive movement. There is no doubt that the
enhancement of expressive conducting is greatly facilitated by active kinaesthetic
movement, rather than by copying still photographs from books on conducting55.
James’ position is possibly a reflection on the difficulty of recording
observations of expressive non-verbal behaviour, a problem that will be
discussed later in this chapter and which to this day has not been fully solved in
relation to observation of conducting.
James also observed that ‘the head and the trunk taken together are basic to the
postural expression; arms, hands, distribution of weight, etc., are to make more
specific the more general expression of the head and the trunk’ (James
1932:435). This fits in with Lamb’s observations regarding the complimentary
nature of posture and gesture. Lamb makes the following comment on learning
gestures without postural awareness:
There seems to be a tendency for most people to fix their Posture while learning and
concentrating on Gesture. It is sufficient simply to exhort them to keep up some postural
movement to overcome a lot of potential tension. Once a task has been learned together
with a fixed Posture a habit is formed and it is then extremely difficult to ‘feed in’ the
Posture adjustment other than by stopping the task and doing the Posture movement as a
diversion (Lamb 1965:38).

For conductors wishing to enhance their expressive conducting, Lamb and

James’ comments are significant, as I have observed many conductors,
particularly those of low entering behaviour, who, in attempting to work on
developing their gestures, completely ignore their posture.

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This was an advantage of the McMurray DVD Conducting from the Inside Out, as noted in
Chapter Three.