The Precision Required to Guide

Conducting is less about making people play together and more about guiding them. It is less about indicating points and more about making them anticipate those points. I feel it is similar to the sensation of turning a long jump rope.

Beat-point conducting comes from the idea of making people play together. While it may indeed be easier to synchronize, it is acoustic rather than musical. As I mentioned the other day, there are too many centers of gravity within a phrase, which results in a lack of fluidity. Yes, it lacks kinetic energy.

The way to solve this problem is to take the measures and combine them into phrases, even while keeping time precisely within the measures. It is necessary not only to draw small patterns but also to be conscious of the large arcs formed by combining them. Even if a conductor follows a famous, strictly detailed conducting method, if they understand how to combine those details, they can achieve a wonderfully natural sense of guidance. There is a precision like weaving a spider's web, yet it does not force synchronization; instead, it steadily guides the players.

The issue depends on whether the conducting part can read the logic of the musical piece.

The first phrase of the 3/4 Andante in Brahms' Op. 68 is made up of a four-beat structure starting from the pickup measure. If one cannot be conscious of that large four-beat structure, the true 'lightness' of the Andante cannot be realized. Pushed by the clinging resonance, it ends up inferior to an Adagio. That is not romantic; it is merely a result of laziness.

And then, it relays into a five-beat measure, and further returns to a four-beat structure. Only when this sequence of four beats, five beats, and four beats is visible can the form of this Andante be seen. One must realize that this entire section is the prelude.

The act of conducting must be an act of carrying the members along that sequence and guiding them. It must not end in a performance that is merely a blind succession of additions.

When you feel that you must have many beat points within a measure, it means you have not yet grasped the piece. With a field of vision that is barely able to cross the measure, you cannot guide the members to the main theme. A breath that is too long in the process leading up to the start of that oboe solo is not love for the work. It is simply being buried in the resonance of the chords, not the music itself.

As a performer, and especially in the conducting part, one must have that discernment.

I consider performance to be an integral. However, I warn myself not to fall into the perspective of a derivative. Falling into the perspective of a derivative happens because one only sees points or parts.

However, you cannot guide with just an integral. If you cannot see the angle at that point, you will deviate from the optimal path. To guide, you must realize an integral direction through a precise combination of derivatives. Both must be established.