The most challenging part
of the physical act of conducting
is that you have to be in two places at the same time.
You have to be in real time, very much real time,
and hear what happens right there when it happens
and then react to it.
But also you have to be slightly ahead of what's going on.
So you have to be in some cases
a fraction of a second ahead.
In some cases, you have to be a few seconds ahead,
and in some cases, such as say an opera by Wagner,
you have to be 15 minutes ahead of what's happening
in order to be able to pace the music in the right way.
And that perhaps is the most important function
of a conductor, pacing,
i.e. distributing music
on the axis of time.
That's what we do for a living.
The mechanics of conducting are really simple.
Essentially, you indicate time
with mostly your right hand,
and every kind of metre has its own pattern,
and the most important thing is that the downbeat,
i.e. the first beat, number one, always comes down.
So, if you're beating two, you go like this, one, two.
If you're beating three, you go like this, one, two, three.
If you're beating four, you go one, two, three, four.
And then every other number is a combination of these.
So, if you're beating say nine,
so it's one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, up you go and then downbeat.
That's very simple.
And what the stick does, it's just to kind of
amplify the movement of the hand,
so it really has no magic to it.
It's just a way to focus.
Focus the movement, you get a bigger range
with the smaller movement of the hand.
And many orchestral players prefer it, they say.
Now the really interesting part of conducting
is how you actually manage
to coordinate 100 people play something together.
And I had a very interesting experience
when I was still studying, and one of my teachers,
Arvīds Jansons, an old professor from Leningrad,
was watching me to try to start
Beethoven's Egmont Overture together, and it never worked,
and the orchestra sounded like a house of cards.
And finally he said, "Has anybody got an apple?"
Somebody gave him an orange,
and he puts himself in front of the orchestra and does this.
(orange plops)
And the moment the orange hits his hand,
the orchestra plays, bang on, together.
Now why is this?
And what does this have to do with conducting?
Now my theory is that the one constant,
physical constant,
in the world that is absolutely universal, understandable
for all people, all human beings and animals,
for that matter, is the acceleration of free fall,
9.8 metres per second to the second power.
And, if we simulate the movement of free fall with the hand,
then everybody instinctively knows the moment
when the hand is going to hit the point where it started.
So watch again.
Bam, OK?
So that's conducting.
The classic theory of conducting
is that the right hand is the controlling hand.
We're talking about right-handed people here.
And the left hand is the expression hand.
With the left hand you can describe the kind of sound
you want or the kind of articulation,
whether you want to have longer notes or shorter notes,
or whether you want to have a quick accent
or a slower accent, or whatever.
But, even so, it is entirely possible
to conduct an entire concert with your left hand only,
if you so wish.
But, of course, the point here is that
everything a conductor does
should ideally convey a musical message.
None of it should be decoration.
Every gesture should have its equivalent sound,
and the musical imagination
of the conductor
should be the guiding force behind the physical movement
of the hands and the body.
Now orchestras are very different
in terms of how they relate to the beat.
Some orchestras have a tendency to absolutely play
on the beat, i.e. start at the very moment when the object,
i.e. the hand, hits the ground zero point,
i.e. the point where the movement started
or the level which is understood to be the sort of baseline.
Some orchestras have a habit of playing behind the beat.
So, by the time the hand is reaching the baseline,
they kind of inhale.
That's an extreme example, and then everything in between.
Now conductors prefer slightly different approaches.
I, myself, like an orchestra to play exactly on the beat.
It's easier for me, and it's ultimately easier for them.
And most orchestras can do that, if they so desired.
But it's a cultural thing, there's a house style.
Every conductor is somewhat different.
Every orchestra relates somewhat differently
to different people, and so and so forth.
But, this is one physical constant,
i.e. the acceleration of free fall
that unites all these gestures, and this is something
that actually enables conducting as a process
to be a useful tool in musical performance.
- [Narrator] If you've enjoyed learning
about the instruments in the orchestra,
why not try our iPad app, The Orchestra,
featuring Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
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(orchestra playing Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique)
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hear the inside scoop in audio commentaries
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Available for download in the App Store on iTunes.