Would This Be Legal..., ...In your country? Options

[neilthecellist]

Before you begin reading, I would like to say this: If you don't want to read a hefty rant, then skip to the last 2 paragraphs.



Please note, I am a high school student living in California, in the United States of America. I joined these forums to seek advice and counsel of students who study in a country other than the USA. My belief is that your advice is much more valuable than any advice I can ever get from any high school teacher here.



Here goes.

My public high school orchestra director (for purpose of preserving her identity, we will refer to her as X) had to quit teaching at my school because of a new job opportunity elsewhere. Taking her place this year is W.

W has not taught an orchestra class before. Though she majored in music education back in her college years, she focused on teaching band. Not a surprise, considering that she has taught band and only band in the past.

What bothers me so far this year, and I often wonder and ponder over this: W does not seem to grasp the big and obvious concepts behind one of the pieces that we're playing this year, specifically the Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and Orchestra in g minor, op. 47 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_and_Allegro_%28Elgar%29).

She does not make a difference in conducting a molto rit. versus a poco rit. To her, the two are completely the same. At least, that is how she has showed it through the 3 months that we have been rehearsing the piece so far.

As a string orchestra, it's fairly obvious that she doesn't even know the difference between a "down bow" versus an "up bow".



The main thing we only go over is intonation and tempo control, and she's not even very good at either of those. Intonation-wise, many students still slip up on notes in VERY important passages but she only goes only a fraction of them, and in a 2 hour rehearsal session (3 sessions per week, so 6 hours total per week) we have covered a pathetic amount. Tempo… Like I said before, she doesn't differentiate between a molto rit. and a poco rit.



Stringendo means nothing to her. We as an ensemble are speeding up, and going against her conducting patterns, WE as a class have to forcefully play faster than her. And when we do, she says "you're rushing! Stop rushing!"



There are important parts in the piece, such as lunga. Those of you who you study music history know that when Elgar writes a lunga, he REALLY means lunga. HOLD IT ALL THE WAY. Instead, my teacher completely ignores the lunga and jumps straight into the next phrase.



If Elgar were alive…. (forum administrators, please understand that the following statement is a hyperbolic statement and is not intended to be 100% serious)…. Elgar would've yelled and berated my conductor. She is disgracing Elgar's music.



Oh, and the strange thing is… The second violin section in our class seems to slow down a lot, and our conductor takes their speed… Instead of saying, "Second violins, you need to speed up!" she instead turns to the rest of the class and says, "You guys are rushing! Slow down!"



As a conducting student myself, having studied with professors here and abroad, I find it offensive that my conductor, at age 30+, with a master's degree in music education and/or performance, cannot even hold a steady tempo.



According to The Cambridge Companion to Conducting, my teacher fails all 9 criteria to be a conductor.













Here is the question to all the ABRSM users: In your country, would such a teacher as I described so hastily above be allowed to teach in the school that you currently attend? Does it matter, whether or not a teacher has a master's degree, if he or she cannot even hold tempo or read a score correctly, or do their homework, and can't accept responsibility for their own mistakes?









Toscanini once said, "Conductors are born. They cannot be trained." Do you guys believe this? I mean… a professor can certainly teach the physical movements of conducting, as I was taught… But in my years of experience, I've learned that there's more to conducting than what you learn in the classroom environment. Conducting entails multiple aspects of social paradigms, including leadership qualities, the ability to take responsibility, to do what is necessary, to know what is important, to be expressive, to understand the vision of the composer… What happened at my school? What HAPPENED?

[ben_walker446]

in answer to the title: Yes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[vectistim]

The ability of conductors to give a tempo and a comprehensible down beat can sometimes be astonishingly bad.

I presume from your name you are a cellist, so here is a 'cello related anecdote: The county youth choir and orchestra were performing Vivaldi's Gloria and the conductor wanted to take the last movement rather slowly. However I - singing bass - wasn't having it and I knew the front desk of cellos and they agreed with me so we went with my speed and the conductor lost - badly!

I would put it down as part of your education to deal with conductors that you disagree with or conductors who you think aren't up to it.

[petrat]

That does sound bad but there are plenty of poor and incompetent teachers working in the UK too. I have known some really good conductors and a few poor ones and it is quite easy to play up the poor ones if you feel so inclined. Personally, I would not do so. It would be quite unprofessional. I might well ask a few leading questions in rehearsals though.
"How much difference do you want between the molto rit and the poco rit? I wasn't sure that we followed your beat. There seemed to be no difference. Perhaps you could take us through those sections again?" or, in the stringendo passage: "Well just how would you like us to interpret this stringendo please?" and so on.
As you are studying the art of conducting would it be at all possible for you to offer to take one or two of the rehearsals? Then you could try to do things your way. You would need to have her there of course to make the points hit home.
Another thought: Perhaps you could ask her for some time to look over the score with her to ask her about her interpretation. Ask about things. Find out why she takes certain passages as she does. Tell her how you would take them and listen to her answers.
A final thought and remember that I know nothing at all about the standard of your orchestra, is that some of the younger or less competent players may be playing up to or beyond their limits and perhaps the only way that she can hold the group together is by taking things at the tempi that she does as a kind of damage limitation exercise. Is she doing the best that she can with a less than able band?
There are plenty of school teachers in this country too who have to do things that they are not very experienced at doing and this sounds like the case here. You may just have to grit your teeth and play to her direction and that can be a good lesson in itself.

[mrbouffant]

Of course it is legal in the true sense. I know of no statute which prohibits a band teacher conducting a string orchestra!

Of course it is not desirable, and very frustrating for the players concerned so you have my sympathies there.

[organ_dummy]

Hello neilthecellist,

I am afraid the reality is that music teachers in public (state) schools in North America vary greatly in training and overall ability. Having a master's degree in music education may not mean much; it all depends on the school and programme.

Given the information you provided, here are a few points to consider:

1) You attend an ordinary public school, not a school with specialized arts programmes. There is no guarantee that the school would get a teacher who is knowledgeable.

2) Obviously your new teacher is rather inexperienced working with string players. If she had the right training in school, her ability to lead an orchestra may improve with experience. I am sure certain skills from conducting a band would be transferrable to conducting an orchestra.

3) Good music education programmes in North America require students to learn to play and gain a basic understanding of many orchestral instruments. Furthermore, they are required to study conducting, as well as band and orchestra techniques. The former is a real course in conducting; the latter a more practical course, suitable for working with primary and secondary school students. Usually, in a band and orchestra techniques class, the ensembles are composed of students, who rotate among different instrumental families. They learn from the teacher/conductor's perspective. They also learn from the perspective of a string, woodwind and brass player. I wonder if your new teacher had gone through the kind of training described above, or if her programme focused on the theoretical aspects of classroom teaching?

4) It seems like your expectation for a secondary school orchestra conductor may be too high. Sure, professional conductors are born and not taught, so are professional instrumentalists and singers. But let's face the fact. We are talking about a secondary school here.

5) You mentioned that your new teacher paid the most attention on tempo and intonation control, but she was not very good. Furthermore, she ignored many markings on the score. These problems are perhaps caused by her inexperience in correcting technical faults in string players. I wonder if she ignored certain markings on the score deliberately? Pedagogically, a teacher cannot possibly fix every single fault in a rehearsal or two. Instead, certain faults should be corrected first; others could be fixed at a later time, etc.

6) I wonder what the standard of the orchestra was like before the arrival of the new teacher?

[erard]

Are you leading the celli? In my experience if the four leaders of the string sections work together they can do pretty well pushing a weak conductor around. If he or she complains apologise and claim you must have been following the interpretation of which ever famous conductor you have a recording of... If you want to take over the orchestra you will need allies, but it can be done if it is worth risking a reputation as a trouble maker.

How vital is the orchestra to your musical education? I played very little indeed with my school orchestras and more with the local area youth and amateur ones, though that was mainly because the school orchestra didn't always include harp parts.

[Claire21]

Firstly:

If Elgar were alive�€�. (forum administrators, please understand that the following statement is a hyperbolic statement and is not intended to be 100% serious)�€�. Elgar would've yelled and berated my conductor. She is disgracing Elgar's music.

Elgar's dead. Get over it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I do mean that: even if this were a fully competent conductor, s/he would still be at liberty to *interpret* the music as s/he feels fit, just as you are when playing a cello piece solo. If his/her interpretation of the music is not to make much difference between poco and molto rit, that's up to him/her. Don't idolise dead composers (or even live ones). They're only human beings.

Secondly:
perhaps this conductor isn't particularly competent. Do you have the option to leave and play in another orchestra? If not, trust that her inadequecies will be recognised in time by other staff. Or if you think that's not going to happen, get a petition going amongst the players and take it to whoever her manager is. Look on it as a learning opportunity; you can still work on playing *your* best, within the context of the orchestra.

[snhs]

If the teacher has just been placed in an unfamiliar situation of conducting an ensemble they have no experience of then perhaps you could be a little more understanding of it. Very few degree, or even Masters, courses cover all the various ensembles someone could be asked to teach and some specialisation is inevitable. At the end of the day her aim is probably to get a presentable version of the piece which sounds reasonably good to the 'audience', and that the class learn something along the way. That means that she doesn't need to follow the score exactly as Elgar wrote it, or the way famous conductors have in the past, just get it together enough for it to work.

As a band conductor she probably wouldn't have that much experience of string instruments, but its really for the leader/section principals to deal with bowing unless the conductor wants a specific effect. You can hardly expect her to go over every intonation mistake in every passage in class, the fact is there are a lot of string players and its probably very difficult for the conductor to determine which one player in a section was out of tune. The idea surely is that you're meant to look over the passages at home, so those who are making mistakes should realise it even if she doesn't go over every single note that was slightly out. Even if it is very important passages it can take time for students who aren't as adept to learn how to play it, and her singling them out in a rehearsal could really demoralise some students and make it worse rather than better. If you're ignoring her so often can you blame her? If you don't follow her basic beat then she can be forgiven for thinking that you're just rushing and need to get the main tempo right before adding the marked tempo changes.

If they're second violins they tend to be not as good as the firsts, right? If they are playing at the conductors speed, or slower, then it may be an indication that they, or some of them, can't play it at tempo yet or at least can't play it at tempo in the context of the whole. That being the case the conductor has probably decided on a tempo that they know all the players can manage at that point, later they may well increase it add in the contrasting tempi etc but not until they know you're able to play it as a group properly.

Could your conductor maybe find it offensive that you're not holding a steady tempo when you play with her conducting? I doubt Karajan etc would be happy with it. If you're a conducting student surely you should realise just how annoying and demoralising it must be for her if you ignore her or play the complete opposite to what she is conducting. I think if Cambridge published a companion to orchestral playing your group would based on what you've said fail on at least some of the criterion.

I'm not saying that this is the case, but at the end of the day she is a teacher not a professional conductor and probably has no pretensions to being one. If you're interested in conducting don't you think it might be better asking her after the rehearsal/during break why she is conducting in a certain way rather than attacking her for doing it the 'wrong' way? There is almost certainly method in the madness.

There's a vast difference between conducting a professional orchestra and a school orchestra e.g. orchestras can hire/fire players, they don't need to put up with substandard playing, but in a school there's a lot of pressure to be inclusive and if you're getting credited with it for a class then there's even more pressure not to needlessly exclude pupils. The best conductors temper their expectations to what the group is capable of, and sometimes teachers are far better at doing that than professional conductors. It seems that your conductor may be doing just the things you say she is not doing, trying to show leadership, doing what is necessary given the resources. Maybe if you give her a chance and play it the way she is conducting it she will be able to move on to the intricacies of it, adding expression etc.

[Robodoc]

Your Orchestra has a new leader/conductor. She does things differently. You don't like her way of doing it, indeed you say she's doing it wrong. Tough; She's what you've got. No conductor needs or wants a fight and if you give her a fight there will be no winners.

Sorry to sound brutal, but shut up or get out - Chances are she will still be there, doing it her way, long after you have gone on to other things. Try following her & supporting her: It's not what you're used to and it's clearly not what you like, indeed it may feel alien to what you believe to be right. Consider that you may be wrong, though as a high school student with a strong sense of right and wrong, that may also feel alien (been there, done that, grown up a bit since - would you believe I'm more willing to admit to the possibility of being wrong now I'm a 48 year old consultant surgeon than I was as 16 year old!)

As for the question, of course it's legal: When and where has it ever been illegal for one teacher to be better in the eyes of her pupils than her replacement? Even more sadly, when & where has it ever been illegal to massacre music?

Good luck though!

[neilthecellist]

Thank you all for your responses.


In this Baroque piece we're studying (Winter, by Vivaldi), she wants cellos and basses to hold out every quarter note. HELLO! BAROQUE INSTRUMENTS DON'T LET YOU DO THAT. THE BOW ISN'T LONG ENOUGH>

Let me share the following story:
[quote]
Know the Instruments:

No one expects the conductor to come to rehearsal able to play every part on every instrument. However, it is expected that you have studied each part separately, and that you know the basics of every instrument. In this way you can make sensible requests of your players. If you ask for double-tonguing where none is possible, you will lose respect. If you ask a timpanist to change sticks and work closer to the rim, you may get no only the sound you want but also the respect you have earned.

I once attended a rehearsal of a Mahler symphony led by a "maestro" whose work was full of gimmick and pizzazz. Nonetheless, things were going reasonably well until he stopped the orchestra to demand more sound from the pair of harps. They played louder. He stopped, now a bit impatiently, and asked for more. They played even louder, their intsruments falling flat and flatter with every grab. He stopped a third time, and demanded to know why they still weren't playing loud enouhg. (It aparently hadn't occrued to him to rseat the harps, or to adjust the rchestra's dynamics.) "But maestro," the first harp replied, "if we play louder our calluses will come off." "Well then," he said in a voice trembling with exasperation, "push down all the pedals, ######!"

Maestro was nearly hooted off the stage. The quality of sound you can obtain, and its blend and balance, derives materially from your working knowledge of the properties of every instrument. No one knew this better than Szell. Study his rehearsal films with Cleveland to see how he did it...[/quote]




I will happily clarify some inquiries made by some of you:

• First off, the class I am in is the highest level string ensemble at our high school.Four years ago, under conductor John Ramirez (Julliard graduate), we studied (notice how I don't just say "play" or "rehearse"... unlike most people in the USA, I say "STUDY" which is the accurate term) fairly comprehensive pieces, such as Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (Bach) or Serenade for Strings in e minor (Dvorak). Also covered was Handel's infamous Concerto Grosso No. 4, along with all Four Seasons by Vivaldi.
  • Notably, in this year, the course syllabus read [paraphrased] "This class is the highest demanding performance ensemble as it pushes students to a pre-professional level."
• In the previous year we studied a concerto grosso under Pin Chen's (Northwestern graduate) baton by Handel, along with Serenade for Strings by Josef Suk, and notably Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony.

[quote]The ability of conductors to give a tempo and a comprehensible down beat can sometimes be astonishingly bad.[/quote]
Well... W is the first bad one I've met in 8 years then.

[quote]Of course it is legal in the true sense. I know of no statute which prohibits a band teacher conducting a string orchestra![/quote]

-California Standards of Music Education.
-National Standards for Music Education.

[quote]4) It seems like your expectation for a secondary school orchestra conductor may be too high. Sure, professional conductors are born and not taught, so are professional instrumentalists and singers. But let's face the fact. We are talking about a secondary school here. [/quote]
[quote]Are you leading the celli? In my experience if the four leaders of the string sections work together they can do pretty well pushing a weak conductor around. If he or she complains apologise and claim you must have been following the interpretation of which ever famous conductor you have a recording of... If you want to take over the orchestra you will need allies, but it can be done if it is worth risking a reputation as a trouble maker.

How vital is the orchestra to your musical education? I played very little indeed with my school orchestras and more with the local area youth and amateur ones, though that was mainly because the school orchestra didn't always include harp parts. [/quote]

• I am and have been section leader/principal cellist for three years. I am in my last year at this school.
• I am highly considering leaving the ensemble for the next term (January 14th - June 3rd, 2008)
  • I do not, however, want to leave the ensemble knowing that no one has the willingness to bring back the standards the class once had. These players are competent, many of whom are already beginning high school technique exercises (such as Kreutzer etudes or Paganini caprices). Concerto study is also demanded by each musician's private teachers
• As said before, I am a high school student in my last year. Though some of you may be inclined to say, "Well, deal with it, you're going to inevitably leave the school when you graduate..." the fact remains that I have a dedication to music and would not want to see music ruined in the school's highest performing ensemble just because the teacher couldn't do what was necessary.

[quote]As a band conductor she probably wouldn't have that much experience of string instruments, but its really for the leader/section principals to deal with bowing unless the conductor wants a specific effect. [/quote]
I apologize, but I must disagree. Conductors, as I have been taught my whole life, are required (well not LEGALLY of course, but ethically-speaking-"required") to make bowings ahead of time, and not appear stupid in class.

Never should a conductor say, "You guys are slowing down!" as if to say that we're the ones making the mistake, when it's obviously W who is incapable of holding a tempo without slowing down. A conductor accepts responsibility, and does not scapegoat others for his/her mistakes.

========

There is a part in Introduction and Allegro where second violins have a pp <crescendo> subito ppp. The passage is one that evokes an "ethereal/heaven-like" sense to the listener.

Guess what? My conductor ruined it:

"Second violins! What are you doing?! CRESCENDO to a dynamic that is louder than what you started off with! Make it stronger!"

Uh.

No.

Elgar would've slapped her. Maybe even kicked her.

[quote]Elgar's dead.[/quote]

But he would've anyway.

[quote] from the Cambridge Companion to Conducting [/quote]
Criteria #6:

Achieve the vision of the composer.[/quote]

* Neil shakes his head in sadness. *

[quote]If they're second violins they tend to be not as good as the firsts, right? If they are playing at the conductors speed, or slower, then it may be an indication that they, or some of them, can't play it at tempo yet[/quote]
Clarification:

• One day, the conductor was absent. I took the podium, and decided to run through that section, and suddenly, the second violins were capable of keeping my speed.
• The next day, I tried to tell the conductor this, nicely of course. "Good morning, Ms. W. The rehearsal went well yesterday. I just wanted to let you know, at rehearsal 9, the second violins can actually keep the a tempo. We dont have to slow down there."
• Her response: "We're slowing down?"
• Me: "Yes."
• Her response: "Oh! [as if she suddenly understood?] Yeah... I got it... yeah....."
• Next day in rehearsal.....
  • When we're at rehearsal 9... suddenly we're slowing down again. The conductor, as I soon discovered, has been slowing down HER conducting for the second violins. And omigod... It sounded so bad in the recording.

[quote]Could your conductor maybe find it offensive that you're not holding a steady tempo when you play with her conducting? I doubt Karajan etc would be happy with it. If you're a conducting student surely you should realise just how annoying and demoralising it must be for her if you ignore her or play the complete opposite to what she is conducting. I think if Cambridge published a companion to orchestral playing your group would based on what you've said fail on at least some of the criterion. [/quote]

Well... Herbert von Karajan understands what stringendo and molto rit. means. My teacher clearly doesn't. Recently I've been conforming, with mental-silent grudges, to my teacher's tempo.


=======

Lastly, I'd like to say this:

I am a student with a burning intent on becoming a symphony conductor. I do not, however, know if the future would prefer that I teach students first, I suppose it would be good experience.

In my life, I have never known a truly "bad" conductor until now. I am surprised that despite having a master's degree in something, one can still... for the sake of keeping things short be a complete idiot when it comes to achieving the vision of the composer more like going against what the composer wanted.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ill.gif)

Your Orchestra has a new leader/conductor. She does things differently. You don't like her way of doing it, indeed you say she's doing it wrong. Tough; She's what you've got. No conductor needs or wants a fight and if you give her a fight there will be no winners.

Sorry to sound brutal, but shut up or get out - Chances are she will still be there, doing it her way, long after you have gone on to other things. Try following her & supporting her: It's not what you're used to and it's clearly not what you like, indeed it may feel alien to what you believe to be right. Consider that you may be wrong, though as a high school student with a strong sense of right and wrong, that may also feel alien (been there, done that, grown up a bit since - would you believe I'm more willing to admit to the possibility of being wrong now I'm a 48 year old consultant surgeon than I was as 16 year old!)

As for the question, of course it's legal: When and where has it ever been illegal for one teacher to be better in the eyes of her pupils than her replacement? Even more sadly, when & where has it ever been illegal to massacre music?

Good luck though!

I apologize for double posting, but I believe this merits a new reply:

I may not have a master's degree, let alone even a bachelor's degree yet, but I know the requirements of being a conductor. She fails all 9 criteria. She doesn't go home to study the piece, she doesn't analyze the pieces from an aesthetic or even a compostional standpoint. All we do in class is run a piece through, go through some trouble spots here and there, and then the rehearsal ends.

When I conduct, I will stop and say, "this section needs to be brought out more. It stands as the glorious projection Elgar had in mind when he wrote this piece! Remember, he was an emotional man, and here is his emotional music. BRING TEARS TO MY EYES, violas. Second violins, push quietly in the background, it will ring beautifully in the acoustics of the performance hall, I assure you.

The ascent into rehearsal 30 is one of pure fury. Imagine yourself on a canoe, and seconds before you realize it's too late, you're aboutto fall off the world's largest waterfall. I want THAT kind of crescendo, THAT kind of feeling coming from the first violins, it will resonate so sensually in our audience. When the audience hears that particular section, they should feel a whoosh in their stomachs! Bring THAT kind of touch to this piece.

Let's go over rehearsal 30 again, and keep those in mind. Make the climax a real climax."

When she stops, she just says: "Second violins. More." she doesn't even address the important players sometimes, like everything's just ink on a page to her.

[ad_libitum]

Obviously conducting is one of your strengths, and it's hard to keep quite when you would do things a different way. However, you are at high school, not a specialist music school (as far as I can see) and this is what happens! The music teacher's strengths may lie in other areas, and she most likely has to keep on top of all the other activities she's employed to be in charge of.

[notmusimum]

I'm only a parent but I can feel your frustration. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation it's obvious you really care about what's happening.

Maybe something will happen to change things soon.

[neilthecellist]

@ ad_libitum:

You are correct. Conducting is one of my talents.



However, I do not believe that it is solely the act of conducting that I think my teacher lacks. It's the art of it that she doesn't seem to grasp. In every rehearsal we've had for the past 3 months (actually 4 months now that 2008 just came around), it seems like she's treating music solely as ink on a piece of paper, and nothing else. Sure, once in a while, she'll throw in a forte here, a piano there, but other than that… we're not LEARNING.


@everyone else:

The purpose of a secondary school (is that what's it called in the United Kingdom? We call them "high schools" in the United States) is to educate students specifically to prepare them for college, as it says in the many first documents of the United States Department of Education.



Our current teacher clearly isn't preparing us for college under any circumstances. I highly doubt a conductor at the University of Southern California merely will say "second violins. Softer." (well then again, USC has one of the best music programs in the United States)



Anyway, the point is, music is more than a piece of paper, or even the creation of sounds. It's the art of conveying the music's meaning, the purpose of the music, it's everything that the composer wanted! It's not just "forte this" "loud here" "softer there". I just turned 18, but even as a 10-year-old, I knew this fact.



What is my school coming to? The apocalypse of music?

[petrat]

You make some very valid points Neil. Have you tried talking to her or your head of department about it?