It's one thing to listen to music, quite another to control it. This is the job of a conductor.Feelmore continues to talk about professions unusual for Chelyabinsk. Today Alexey Prosekov, director of the choir, answered questions about himself and his business Primavera.
- Have you dreamed of becoming a conductor since childhood?
Honestly, as a child I didn’t even want to be a musician. It so happened that at school I was sent to a dance class, and then I gradually switched to choral singing. I think my musical activity began somewhere in the third grade. Namely, I have been in the conducting profession for about 7-8 years, when after music school I joined the SUSU choir. Then it was led by Natalia Lopukhova, a wonderful person and professional conductor. Then, in my third year, I joined the choir of the Opera House. A month later - to the school of the Great Bishops' Choir, where Ekaterina Korobeynikova was the regent. This woman gave me a lot of knowledge professionally, for which I am very grateful. This is how I entered the conducting profession. Now I have replaced Natalia Mstislavovna Lopukhova as the director of the SUSU choir.
- You mentioned a music school, but where did you receive your special education?
I studied at a music school for three years, I have a secondary professional education as a conductor. Although I acquired many conducting skills even before entering college.
- Tell us about the language in which the conductor communicates with the musicians?
Complex issue. In general, they communicate with musicians using gestures, but in the course of my work, I am increasingly convinced that the language of communication between the conductor and musicians is not so much hands, but a certain energy that he transmits to them. For example, the American conductor Leonard Bernstein was excellent at conducting his eyebrows. And once one regent of the Ural State Conservatory said to his student: “Why are you waving your hands like that in front of the choir? Look, I can only get by with my nose.” And you know, the choir began to sing better. The conductor's gesture is of great importance, but it is important to know what you want to convey to the musicians, it is important to find mutual understanding. After all, the conductor sets the mood.
- What qualities should a conductor have and can anyone get into the profession?
I recently attended an exam choir conductors. He was received by professor of the Ural Conservatory Vladimir Borisovich Zavadsky. After the exam, he said: “There are three pillars on which the conducting profession is based. The first is hearing, the second is hands, the third is musicality.” Then he corrected himself: “But there is one more whale, and it is the most important - health.” I think I agree with this. The conductor must be musical, artistically gifted, must understand music and what he wants to convey to the public. Of course, one cannot do without strong-willed qualities, because the profession is connected with people.
To become a conductor, you need to study for a long time. First music school, then four years at a music school, then five years at a university. And in the end it turns out to be about nineteen years! And someone else is going to graduate school.
- Is there a career ladder in this profession?
There are certain steps here that indicate the recognition of the conductor by society and the state. A conductor can become an Honored Cultural Worker, an Honored Artist of Russia, and then a People's Artist of Russia. I don't know how much this has to do with money. Maybe there's something to be said for this. But in fact, there are many experienced conductors who have achieved success even without titles.
- Is it possible for musicians to perform without a conductor?
With pop orchestras it is possible. There it is important to listen to the drummer, he sets the rhythm. If the orchestra is professional, it can play for quite a long time without a conductor. But usually this is done for decoration - something like playing for the audience. In a choir, a conductor is needed: he indicates when to start a piece of music and when to finish it. As my teacher told me, “our role is the control room.” It is very difficult to navigate when there are more than fifty musicians and they do not see each other, and very often do not hear each other.
- Does it happen that musicians get confused at concerts? And what does the conductor do in this case?
Of course, anything can happen. I remember how our choir Primavera, performing at the opening of the exhibition, almost failed the piece. It was the song “Rejoice to the Virgin Mary” by Rachmaninov. Conventionally, in the middle part of the work there are two solo parts. They didn't get used to each other, and it sounded terrible. Then we somehow leveled out, and the last part was a success. There was another incident during a service in the Cathedral. The singing of the choir accompanied the church ceremony, and it turned out that the singing ended, but the ceremony did not. And in order to coincide with the ritual, it was necessary to repeat part of the work. One of the parties started repeating from the wrong place. But since the choir is professional, everyone gradually tuned in and finished singing. In general, it is important to just not stop, be attentive and be able to adapt.
- Do you have any signs before the performance?
I think no. The main thing is to tune in, because everything depends on the mood of the conductor. I remember I was first at the state conducting exam. And I understood that I was setting the mood with which other graduates and the choir would continue to work. And I succeeded, everything went well. Here’s another example: this year, before the “Student Spring,” I failed to get ready, and as a result, I took second and third place.
- Why do you think there are practically no women among conductors?
In fact, this is a false statement. It is indeed believed that a conductor is a male profession. But if we take our city, the leaders of the leading choirs are women. True, all these women have masculine strong-willed qualities. I remember when I worked in the temple, there was a survey among the singers, they wanted to find out what qualities a regent should have. And one of the common answers is “the regent must be a man.”
- What is the main reward for a conductor?
Everyone here has their own goals. For example, someone wants to become a cool world-famous musician. And someone, like Natalia Lopukhova, wants to introduce people to good music, to instill domestic and foreign musical culture. And this goal is very worthy. For me, playing music is an opportunity to experience real emotions, which are few in the modern world. And I want people to experience these emotions with me.
Ordinary people who are far from classical music do not always understand what exactly this man in a tuxedo is doing, waving his hands in front of the musicians trying to play their best. However, not a single orchestral concert is complete without this participant. What does a conductor do, what is his role and why are listeners more willing to buy tickets if he is famous?
Long before Toscanini, Furtwängler, von Karajan and Bernstein, their work was already carried out by Pherecydes of Patras, known in Ancient Greece as the “Pacemaker”. According to historical sources, back in 709 BC. he controlled a group of eight hundred musicians with a golden baton, raising and lowering it and ensuring that the musicians "started at the same time" and "all could stick together."
The functions of a conductor have changed over the past thousand-plus years, but the profession is still shrouded in a certain mystical aura. Indeed, it is amazing the ability of one person, holding only a wooden stick in his hand, to provide the harmonious sound of sometimes hundreds of instruments.
How is it that the sounds pouring out as a result of this mysterious dance at the control panel sometimes cause sublime delight, seizing listeners who then cannot forget the feelings that gripped them for the rest of their lives?
This is the great mystery of art, and, thank God, it is impossible to completely unravel it.
In more down-to-earth analogies, a conductor is the musical equivalent of a sports team manager. It is never possible to assess exactly what he is doing, but it is always clear what result he is achieving. An orchestra, in principle, can do without a conductor, but in most cases they still prefer to play under his direction. So what exactly does he do? These are some of the many things a conductor does, consciously or unconsciously, at the podium.
“The whole duty of a conductor lies in his ability to always indicate the correct tempo,” said Richard Wagner, who himself mastered this profession perfectly and was also a great composer. Typically, the right hand (with or without a baton) is used to control the orchestra, but other components also influence the flawless performance. The conductor cannot be replaced by a metronome (as beautifully illustrated in Fellini's allegorical film Orchestra Rehearsal), his actions mean much more.
The conductor's job is to bring the score to life. To do this, he uses his own understanding of the work as a tool and expresses it through an individual sign language. He, as it were, “sculpts” the musical line, emphasizes the nuances and individual musical elements, controlling the musicians, and, in fact, creates a lot anew. These processes are usually expressed with the left hand. While all conductors have some common gestures, most of the greatest have their own unique style. For example, Furtwängler at some moments spontaneously made rather strange movements. Valery Gergiev moved his fingers, expressing the character of the music; he himself explained this manner by the fact that he was a pianist.
“The best conductors make the best listeners,” says Tom Service, a journalist and author of the fascinating book “Music as Alchemy: Travels with Great Conductors and Their Orchestras.” They, like a lightning rod, take on the emotional load of the work and focus attention on its strongest aspects. It is important for a conductor to understand music more deeply than ordinary people, and then express his own hyper-awareness, making it publicly available.
“You must impose your will - not by force, but you must be able to convince people of the correctness of your point of view!” - said Pierre Boulez, the legendary composer and conductor. Although most conductors these days consider themselves democrats, this simply cannot be true. This does not mean that dictatorship cannot be avoided, but it is not easy. Boulez gives the example of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, calling it a group of individuals: “If the conductor does not give them a collective direction, then they will be deprived of a rudder and sails.”
In many languages, the word “conductor” sounds like “conductor”. Well, there is something in common, because every listener perceives music with his ear, and looks at what the conductor is doing, and through this visual image there is a visual connection, a kind of bridge between our eyes and melodic sensations. Sometimes it’s simply impossible to take your eyes off the remote control; the sight is mesmerizing.
“Conducting is much more difficult than playing one instrument. You need to know the culture, calculate everything and project what you want to hear,” says Boulez.
Conductors need musical instinct, intuition and innate musicality, but beyond that they need to know a lot. They typically spend many hours preparing before taking a seat at the console. It is often academic in nature, covering the study of historical documents such as letters, specifications of instruments from a particular period, or biographical details of authors. Like all great mysteries, great music only comes from a huge amount of hard work.
How to become the conductor of your own destiny? An excellent question for those who have decided to take a step towards themselves! But first, a little theory, namely, we will talk about the “Field of Activity”. The field of activity is an information-energy structure woven into a single “still life” of the universe, with the help of the gunas))). Through the field of activity, our higher self, our unconditioned consciousness, as if with tentacles, interacts with the space and time that it needs, just like a schoolchild or a gymnasium for an athlete.
Looking at ourselves in the mirror and feeling with our hands, we believe that we are us, so we poke ourselves in the cheek or in a closed eye with the index finger of our hand and immediately feel the result of this action with our consciousness. In fact, consciousness is in a different dimension, and what we see in front of the mirror is just a bio-robot, which consists of a rough and subtle shell. Moreover, each shell has its own specific reflexes that require their satisfaction. The reflexes are so strong that they can even subjugate consciousness, which is what happens)))).
Where it will go and what will happen to the bio-robot, in turn, depends on the field of activity. The field of activity is governed by our desires and karma, or in other words, fate. Thanks to the field of activity, events come into our lives with mathematical precision. Yes, certain events do not come into our lives by chance, no matter how strange it may sound, but our events in the future depend on our thoughts, emotions and actions in the present and past.
Now comes the fun part! PLEASE USE YOUR IMAGINATION! Imagine that you are a treble CLEF, with strings coming from you in different directions to different musical INSTRUMENTS. Musical instruments are the managers of your destiny, their names are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu. Depending on the place in your natal chart and the tension of the string, these musical instruments sound differently. Each musical instrument is responsible for a certain area of your life, for example, the Moon for emotions and the mental mind, Venus for beauty and love, and so on. Depending on the tension of the string, it depends on what kind of relationship you have with this musical instrument in goodness, passion or ignorance. Our every thought, our every emotion or action is equivalent to the fact that we are pulling the string of a certain tension, a certain instrument. This way we get a certain sound.
Let's develop the idea further. Those. our field of activity is, in essence, a kind of chord or melody. And now, dear friends, remember the cartoon “The Enchanted Boy” about Nils and Martin the Goose. That moment when Martin is floating on the water, Nils is standing on the old Akka and playing the magic pipe, and the rats, zombified by the melody, follow them. So in our lives, depending on how our field of activity sounds, such zombified events in our lives haunt us, rush at us and tear us apart. As soon as we change the melody, tune the strings differently, other zombie melodies begin to haunt us. Accordingly, the tighter the strings are, i.e. The more energy of goodness in our life, the more favorable the events, or they happen for us with fewer emotional resources.
Some masters stretch the strings to such an extent that the strings break, and the masters become transcendental)))
I think this article has brought you closer to understanding how to become the conductor of your own destiny.
We will examine these and other questions at the practical psychology courses “East - West” in St. Petersburg. Starts on November 10 and 11 this year. Send preliminary applications via messages on the D-Om page.
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The word “conductor” is translated from French as “to lead, to manage.” This profession existed back in Ancient Egypt. This is evidenced by the bas-reliefs that decorated various architectural structures of that time. The conductor was depicted as a man with a baton in his hand, standing in front of a group of musicians.
Ancient Greek culture also did not ignore this type of human activity. There was a luminary here who led the choir, beating time with his foot. Later they began to beat the beat with the help of a battuta - a special stick. In the 17th century, it was replaced by the violin bow. Currently, conductors control an orchestra, choir, and ensemble with the help of a conductor's baton and hands.
The conductor is a representative of the most difficult of all musical professions. During his work, he is responsible for the quality of performance of the entire team. He is a connoisseur not only of musical works, but also of the abilities of each of the musicians or choristers with whom he works. This specialist selects works and distributes batches, focusing on the capabilities of his charges. The professionalism of a conductor is also determined by the ability to give the work expressiveness and, perhaps, an unusual sound.
average for Russia:Moscow average:average for St. Petersburg:
The conductor independently stages performances, draws up a rehearsal plan, a concert program, and a performance schedule. He selects a lineup of musicians or choristers, works with them to improve their professional skills, and helps newcomers to the team get involved in the work process. During the performance itself, a representative of this profession performs his main task - controlling the musical team using certain gestures. He must fully know the sequence of parts and their distribution among the performers.
The profession of a conductor can hardly be called in demand on the labor market. For those who really want to be employed in this specialty, it is best to find a job while still studying at the conservatory. This will help you gain professional experience and, therefore, increase your importance in the eyes of subsequent employers. The career ladder of a conductor is formed from ranks. So, talent, professionalism and at least 10 years of work in the profile will help him rise from the 9th to the 13th category.
Description:
A conductor (from the French diriger - to manage, direct, lead) is the leader of the learning and performance of ensemble (orchestral, choral, opera, etc.) music, who owns the artistic interpretation of the work, carried out under his direction by the entire ensemble of performers.
The sound quality of a choir or orchestra depends on the skill of the conductor. With a wave of the conductor's baton, the musicians become one. The musicians see right through the conductor and feel the slightest nuances of his mood.
Until the 19th century, the duties of a modern conductor were performed by one of the members of the ensemble (usually a violinist or harpsichordist), who, while playing with blows of a bow, a special baton, nods of the head, etc., counted the beat (meter) of the composition being performed and indicated the moments of entry of individual instruments .
Subsequently (around the turn of the 18th-19th centuries), these duties were transferred to a special person - the conductor, who performs them with hand movements. The orchestra conductor, as a rule, holds a baton in his right hand. The strongest (first) beat of the measure is indicated by the downward movement of the right hand, the weakest (last) by the upward movement of the right hand, the rest (if any) are distributed between them, forming the so-called metric grid. In addition to this determination of tempo and rhythm, with additional movements of the hands, head, entire body, as well as facial expressions, the conductor indicates the nature of the music performance both for the ensemble as a whole and for its individual groups and participants.
Places of work: professional choir (orchestra), music schools, etc.
Specifics of working as a conductor: a conductor is a unique, exclusive profession that is practically impossible to teach. You have to be born a conductor. It takes years to get into this profession, and you are unlikely to find a vacancy for a conductor in recruitment agencies.
Salary and prospects for the profession of a conductor: a conductor needs to start building a career while still studying - try to get a job in some professional choir (orchestra) in order to “get” an interesting place for yourself after graduation. Otherwise, it will be difficult to find a job and prove that you are worth something as a musician.
Responsibilities:
The main task of the conductor is to captivate the musicians and lead them. An orchestra is a team. And the team must have a leader who will take full responsibility.
The conductor leads a group of musicians using movements of the hands, fingers, and head, selects the repertoire, gets acquainted with the score, learns a piece of music with the group, instilling in the musicians his interpretation of the work as a whole.
Requirements:
Education begins with a music school - this is the first and mandatory stage. Then you can enter a secondary specialized educational institution - a music school, or a higher education institution - an academy or conservatory. Conductors are trained at military conservatories and music pedagogical institutes. The state standard provides for two specialties that a future conductor can choose: “Choral conducting” or “Conducting an opera and symphony orchestra.” The second can only be obtained at a university.
Knowledge: extensive musical repertoire, theoretical foundations of recording and reading choral works, fundamentals of choral studies, pedagogy, psychology.
Personal qualities: ear for music, sense of rhythm, musical memory, good coordination, motor fluency (mobility of fingers), perseverance, patience, determination, developed imagination, creative abilities (tendency to improvise, flexibility of thinking), pedagogical abilities, strong will.
