Conducting I

Curriculum guideline

Effective Date:
Return to Course
Print Guideline
Course
MUSC 3170
Discontinued
No
Course code
MUSC 3170
Descriptive
Conducting I
Department
Music
Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Credits
1.50
Start date
End term
201330
PLAR
No
Semester length
15
Max class size
20
Contact hours
2
Learning activities

Lecture/demonstration, group and individual practice in class.  Students will conduct their peers in the classroom, receiving immediate feedback on the effectiveness of their gestures.  Students will be videotaped in class for their own study.  When appropriate, the videos may be viewed during the class to aid instruction.  Score reading assignments will be evaluated in separate sessions with the instructor.

Course description
This course provides an introduction to basic conducting technique, including patterns, cueing, preparations and cutoffs, dynamic shading and visual expressiveness, tempo changes, independence of hands and baton technique. Students will also begin the development of elementary score reading at the piano.
Course content
  • Development of clear ictus, distinction of different characters of ictus depending upon the character of the music (staccato, legato, strong, weak, etc.)
  • Conducting patterns: 2/4, 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, 9/8, changing meters.
  • Cueing entrances and cutoffs on any beat in the measure.
  • Visual rhythmic dictations to show character and accuracy of beat.
  • Active and passive beats.
  • The effect of posture on gesture, and its relationship to sound.
  • Tempo, character and dynamic changes, fermatas.
  • Passages from the choral repertoire will be assigned as conducting exercises.
  • Elementary score reading assignments in all modern clefs: treble, bass, alto and tenor c-clefs.
Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students should possess a competence in elementary conducting technique including: patterns, cueing, preparations and cutoffs, dynamic shading, tempo changes, independence of hands and baton technique.  Students should also be able to read C-clefs in elementary score reading exercises at the piano.

Means of assessment

In class conducting assignments (6-10) (ongoing preparation for and achievement in class activities) 50%

Final exam 40%

Final score reading assignment 10%

Textbook materials

Textbooks and Materials to be Purchased by Students

Conductor’s baton.  Metronome.

R.O. Morris and Howard Ferguson: Preparatory Exercises in Score Reading (Oxford U. Press)

 

Other assigned or recommended texts may include:

Ray Robinson: Choral Music - A Norton Historical Anthology (Norton)

Elizabeth Green: The Modern Conductor

Hideo Saito: The Saito Conducting Method

Max Rudolph: The Grammar of Conducting (G. Schirmer)

Brenda Smith & Robert Sataloff: Choral Pedagogy, second edition (Plural Publ.)

Harold A. Decker & Julius Herford: Choral Conducting Symposium (Prentice Hall)

Prerequisites

MUSC 2410 or permission of instructor

Which prerequisite

MUSC 3270