Seeing is believing

There used to be a credit card commercial that advertised itself with the slogan: 'Only 7% of communication is verbal'. The science behind this is more complicated, but it is nevertheless an encouraging idea for a profession like conducting that essentially only uses gesture and facial expressions to get its message across.

As speech is impossible during a performance (though some have been known to try!), conductors need to communicate everything through their physicality alone. Reassuringly for traveling conductors, many facial expressions apply universally across every human culture. According to psychologist Paul Ekman, these include anger, disgust, fear, joy, sorrow, surprise, amusement, contempt, contentment, embarrassment, excitement, guilt, pride, relief, satisfaction and shame - most of which a conductor needs at some point during a Mahler symphony!

Music expresses that which cannot be described in words. But emotions are no less specific or powerful through being indefinable. In fact the opposite is true and the advantage of being forced to communicate music silently is that the result is not limited by a choice of vocabulary. A smile or a frown say so much more than the words we use for them.

Problems only arise if a conductor's body language becomes vague or generic. A broad brushed physicality will result in a similarly broad brushed musical response. But if conductors are convinced in their own hearts and minds as to what the music is about, that will communicate itself directly to the players. The clarity of one's gestures is a direct consequence of the clarity of thought and feeling that lie behind them, and when the motions are a true consequence of the musical feelings, there will be no difficulty in them generating the emotions in others.

I'm glad to say that humans are the only animals who can synchronise their movements to music. It seems that, despite what some people might think, when it comes to conducting, a monkey could not in fact do a better job. But according to researchers Ray Jackendoff and Fred Lerdahl, one does not need to be a trained musician to understand the relationship between gesture and music. Just as young children are able to appreciate differences in the character of music, and improvise dances accordingly, the ability of performers to convert gestural shape into musical meaning is instinctive.

Equally instinctive apparently, is the ability of audiences to interpret these relationships spontaneously. A journalist once seemed surprised that I saw no connection between my gestures and how an audience responded to the works I conducted. As far as I was concerned, the orchestra were the sole conduit through which the music was communicated and my physicality was intended for their benefit alone. The recent research suggests I am wrong. It seems conductors' gestures do have a direct, albeit probably subconscious, musical affect on the experience of the audience. Though this can easily be taken too far, it seems, rather alarmingly, that 'playing to the gallery' might not quite be as pointlessly egocentric as it first appears.

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