sample excerpt from
Igniting Response: the conductor's toolbox
ATTENTION & ENGAGEMENT
Key Concepts:
  • Creating energized attention is the top priority; they won’t learn or retain without it – and all the
    rehearsal time in the world won’t be enough.
  • Attention and involvement are motor oil for the rehearsing machinery.
  • Don’t start or continue without everyone’s full attention
  • If you have to wait a long time, do it.  Set the rules right away and you’ll get all the music rehearsed.  
  • You don’t have time to set the rules and wait for them?  You have to keep going to get through all
    the music?  You’ll struggle for attention at each rehearsal, not get it, and the music won’t be good.
Doing anything well takes attention; doing music well takes a lot.
  • Ensembles have enough rehearsal time only if their members pay attention and become actively involved –
    from beginning to end of the rehearsal.
  • Learning and high performance just don’t happen without attention and involvement; that’s why
    conductors of outstanding ensembles prioritize them.
  • They don’t start before everyone is quiet, watching, and focused.  They don’t comment or continue before
    everyone is quiet, watching, and focused.
  • If they do, they're training their ensemble it's ok not to be quiet, watching, and focused.
Veteran music teachers know that, unless your students are focused and engaged:
  • Your clear beats won’t guarantee crisp rhythm.
  • Your gorgeous left hand crescendo gesture will remain just that: a lovely movement.
  • Your counting off “It don’t mean a thing…” - in a jazzy style - ain’t sure to “get that swing.”
Annie's drawing shows a powerful - and
usually overlooked attention devourer: the
pile of food, back- packs, athletic gear,
stuffed animals, etc. covering the floor at the
feet of our young musician.
The teacher whose students move everything
to the sides of the room will (in addition to
enduring some initial but short-lived com-
plaints), create dramatic improve- ment in
attention,engagement, rehearsal efficiency -
and therefore, the music.   
Plus...it's so much better for us!
Are we building or losing attention?”
  •  We must constantly scan our ensembles for the answer.  
  • Everything we do should build attention.
  • Focus on students’ involvement and attention level as much as on the music; there is
    a disappointing aspect of this – not pure music – but it is what it is
  • Without prioritizing attention, there can only be marginal improvement, retention,
    and carryover.  
  • Any improvement there is results from pure repetition getting things into the muscle
    memory.
  • This is an aspect to this, however, that is good news (see chapter 4.x)
  • We have to be anesthetists in an operation; they check blood pressure and pulse; we
    check attention and involvement.  
  • If vital signs are off, we must restore them or their operation – and our rehearsal –
    can’t succeed.  
The Physical Setup
  • To engage the students, they must look at us easily.
  • Students must sit/stand so that, when they glance up from their music, they can see
    the conductor’s right hand easily and directly.
  • The greatest barrier to this is the stuff (books, book bags, instrument cases, food,
    etc.) that students bring to rehearsal.
  • They sit down in their chairs where they find the chairs, put their stuff down on the
    floor, make sure they are close enough to the stand to turn pages and change pieces
     and…that’s it!   Wrong!
  • Leave all that stuff on the side of the room
  • They should only bring music, instrument, and 2 pencils to their place.
  • Make sure cell phones are turned off.  
  • Something about – if you have to share a classroom and it’s not set up for you when
    they come in and you have to leave it for the next class, don’t compromise the
     quality of the rehearsal by, for instance, leaving it in rows.  Have a set up crew and it
     can be done in 2 minutes.  And it involves everyone.
  • No coats, no hats (write something about this in the urban setting)
Benefits
  • You’ll get results – your every day will be happier – better music making, satisfaction
    of your musicians really following you – not the usual charade of you doing your
     thing and they doing theirs.
  • You’ll not get depressed and frustrated and bitter, you’ll have enough rehearsal time,
    you’ll be chosen to conduct honors ensembles and be a mentor, you’ll make more
     money, you won’t quit music (like more that 50% of new music teachers do before
     their 5th year, etc)
  • But everything is a habit, and so this is just one way of doing things that will replace
    another way.
The Whole Person Method (WPM) helps school ensemble leaders (SELS) learn to play their instrument - the young
musicians – in the same way that violin, trumpet, and voice teachers have learned to play theirs.  
  • Young musicians at any level who are motivated to concentrate, take responsibility for watching, listening, and observing
    every musical marking, and take risks…will create in-spiring, memorable musical experiences.  
  • But relying on the music to motivate - asking for more expression because the “music is so beautiful,” or a louder forte
    because “the f is printed on the page” – rarely works.  
  • Seeing a clear beat, or being told that Beethoven’s music is inspiring and that Duke Ellington was great consistently fails
    to motivate.  Such things aren’t important to most young musicians - even if they should be.
Meeting young people's developmental needs
  •  The WPM identifies the drive to meet their developmental needs as the prime motivator for young musicians - to grow
    and achieve, experience their potential, build self-image and confidence, and to be valued by themselves and their peers.  
  • Their powerful developmental needs determine their attention and compel their involvement.  
  • The WPM teaches SELS how to harness this drive so their students regard ensemble participation as a process that
    meets their deepest needs; when school ensemble directors tap into this powerful motivating force, the involvement,
     concentration, and sense of ownership needed for great music making can be consistently achieved.  
  • The WPM provides specific, practical approaches and techniques to help directors meet these needs in every aspect of
    music making: from choosing literature, preparing the score, and planning rehearsals, to the director’s way of walking to
     the podium, leading the warm-up, speaking to the students, and rehearsing.  
The WPM changes traditional approach
  • From Music to Musicians: Showing how attention to detail and listening are skills that make stu-dents’ lives better invariably
    produces better dynamics than pointing them out on the page.
  • It’s far more productive to speak about the importance of gestures in life than to ask why students didn’t make the
    decrescendo the conductor indicated.  
  • A mother gesturing to her child not to cross the street as a truck approaches; a catcher signaling the right pitch…are
    comments students relate to, and will apply to their music.
  • From Director to Students: Helping students realize they - not the director (or their parents, friends, or bosses) - are
    responsible for the quality of their music making, creates dramatic and lasting improvement.
  • Will students respond to the WPM approach: “What messages are you sending yourself with those crossed legs?  Be
    alert?  Listen carefully?”… or: “Don’t cross your legs!”
  • From Teaching to Learning: Correcting mistakes and telling ensembles what to do prevents students from becoming active,
    involved learners.  If the conductor functions as their “brain and ears,” they’re unlikely to use their own.  
  • The WPM suggests that conductors ask ensemble members if they produced a compelling crescendo - not tell them they
    didn’t.  Repeating the passage and asking the same question until the crescendo becomes compelling… involves students
     actively in learning, and creates self-awareness and lasting improvement (as well as a superb crescendo!).
Basic skills Need to be Taught:
  • Watching the conductor is a behavior always demanded, yet not recognized as a skill to teach or as a risk-taking act:
    “What if I get lost?”  “What if I make a mistake?”  
  • And what good is learning a clear beat if no one is watching?  The WPM has created exercises to teach students the skill
    of watching.
  • Behavior asked of students is often not modeled:  Not all conductors behave as they want their students to behave;
    effectiveness is undermined, and concentration, involvement, and performance are compromised.
  • Students will never watch a conductor whose eyes are on the score – not on them.
  • Asking an ensemble to play with energy and passion in a subdued voice creates a tepid and short-lived response.
  • If directors don’t mark their score, neither will their students.
  • Directors frequently send mixed messages: By sending contradictory messages through their actions, conductors
    frequently train their ensembles to do the opposite of what they ask for aloud.
  • After rehearsing and discussing specific dynamic/expressive markings, a director’s failure to stop - if those markings aren’t
    fully observed - sends the message that it’s ok not to do what s/he has asked for, and that a mediocre effort is  
     acceptable.
  • Conductors with large, unvarying beat patterns wonder why their ensembles make so many mistakes.  They’re unaware t
    he undermining message they send is: “I can’t show the music with my beat, but I expect you to play it with your
     fingers/voices.”  
  • If a conductor makes a correction, then starts before every musician marks the part, the real message is that what s/he
    says isn’t important.  
  • If s/he gives the downbeat before all eyes are watching, then no matter how much she says, “Watch the conductor!”  the
    message the students receive and believe is: “I don't really care if you watch or you don't.” and that the group effort does
     not require the participation of each and every individual.
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