My Conducting Class

I took a music conducting class my freshman year, and I really enjoyed it. I learned everything I needed to know to direct a choir. This would turn out to be a very useful skill in my music callings at church. This weekend, I directed large congregations in singing hymns during local church meetings. I was impressed by the compliments I received afterwards. Several people told me I did a good job conducting. I was a bit surprised because people usually keep their eyes on the hymnbooks and just listen to everyone else for the tempo. It turned out more people were watching this time than I thought. I appreciated the nice comments.

So, I am grateful for my conducting class because it taught me two main things: 1. The technicalities of conducting, how to mark time and dynamics and breaths and fermatas, 2. The principle that a conductor should not only keep everyone in time, but also embody the music itself, they should communicate to the ensemble the vision they have for the music so the ensemble can communicate that vision or idea to the audience. I kept all these things in mind, and it turned out I was very successful.