Technique (Patterns) or Freestyle: Is There a Conflict?
Dr. Don R. Campbell
I started conducting in 1970 while in the middle of high school when my church needed a director for the boy choir. My accompanist was a friend who was two years younger. He was as experienced at accompanying as I was at conducting. We had a great time figuring out this whole music leadership thing—making many mistakes and adjustments along the way. Though I haven’t kept in touch with any of the singers over the years, I’m confident none of them were musically or emotionally damaged in the process. I do know that the experience enabled me to discover my love for the art of conducting music and musicians.
Over the 53 plus years I have studied the intricacies of the art of conducting, I have observed a wide spectrum of conducting efficiencies and effectiveness. Before we get to the focus of this article, I’d like to lay out some definitions and clarifications. First, many of you have noticed a shift in the use of the words “conducting/conductor” and “directing/director” in our Harmony University/Directors College curriculum. The purpose is to distinguish between the two tasks. “Conducting” refers to what people do with their hands and faces to convey to musicians what the conductor sees and feels in a musical score. It is essentially the “sign language” used to communicate without words. “Directing” refers to the extra-musical aspects of leading a musical organization. This could include leadership techniques, human resources management, counseling, logistics, time management, score study, rehearsal techniques, etc. This article focuses on the conducting aspect.
The second clarification pertains to the definitions of “patterns” and “freestyle.” This clarification is important because even after the Directors College began ushering directors to use the gesture language of professional conductors some 25 plus years ago, this issue still surfaces. Let’s make a temporary “straw-person” dichotomy between the two words. (This may be a bit of foreshadowing, but we’ll continue with it.) “Pattern technique” refers to the perfunctory “floor-door-wall-ceiling” technique that has all ictus (beat) points touching the same arbitrary plane in front of the conductor. “Freestyle technique” describes conducting that uses seemingly random, free-form, arm-waving much akin to the “spider dance” (getting caught in a cobweb). Each of these techniques alone can lead to either stilted or asynchronous performances.
Many of our barbershop directors/conductors come either from our volunteer ranks or from those with music degrees such as: music education, music performance (vocal or instrumental), music minors, or partial music degrees. Those from the volunteer ranks can be good musicians, but they probably have not had any consistent, long-term, formal training in the basics of conducting. Most bachelor-level music programs, either education or performance tracks, allow only one or two semesters of conducting classes with minimal real-world conducting opportunities. By the time many of those music majors discover the wonders of barbershop, their conducting technique has atrophied.
Therefore, in the Directors College we have focused on the basics in our conducting classes. Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi started each year’s training camp from scratch assuming the players were blank slates by beginning with the most elemental statement of all, “Gentlemen,” he said, holding a pigskin in his right hand, “this is a football.” Jay Butterfield has compared working on the basics in conducting to the Olympic ice skaters being judged on their compulsory figure skating. When we all learned to ride bicycles, we didn’t start at the top of a hill. In conducting whether for barbershop or classical music, there are many compulsory skills such as: posture, patterns, preparations, cueing, subdividing beats, treatments of gestures of syncopation, internal and external releases/breaths, asymmetric meters, dynamics, left- and right-hand independence. These are the “compulsory figures” that every conductor needs to master. It is the language of professional conductors that ultimately can be excellent tools for conducting barbershop.
Once our barbershop conductors master the basics, they can be ready for melding techniques and phrasal conducting. If the melding or phrasal conducting are not rooted in the basics, the “freestyle” motions have less or minimal meaning. Professional conductors use these techniques to shape their music into a whole new level of performance. They can do this because they and their musicians are also skilled in the basics. Arm-waving without context or causation is confusion in music—not clarity.
So, the answer to the question in the title is, “No.” However, the relationship is symbiotic. Every gesture we use to convey musical ideas effectively and efficiently must be founded upon the developed language of conducting in our culture. If it isn’t, we have confusion. We can’t develop our own conducting gesture language and expect it to be readily understood by all people. Even sign language is not universal—“there are somewhere between 138 and 300 different types of sign language used around the globe today.” If we don’t have grounding in the basics of conducting, anything we do that allows us to effectively communicate rubato, rallentando, accelerando, dynamics, tone color, articulation, phrase shaping, or melding will lack context and foundation.
No, there is not a conflict between patterns and freestyle—they are interdependent and mutually beneficial. Wise conducting students will choose to honestly recognize where they are on the conducting continuum and work through the rubrics to develop into consummate conductors who use gesture effectively and efficiently to raise the musicality level of their choruses.
The Directors College faculty are continuing to hone the conducting curriculum with clear objectives with rubrics that represent real-world expectations. Stay tuned for more developments to come.
-DRC