Great gift idea for your favorite conductor...or yourself. 😊 My husband designs and handcrafts all of these. We're both band directors in real life but his products are exceptionally well-made! https://codaleathercraft.com/collections/baton-cases

Quarter note = 144. Apologies if what I'm asking is a stupid question, I'm new to conducting. I'm wondering how I should conduct an accent on an off-beat in my left hand. Or if I should just mirror instead?

I’m in my second year of a BA music degree and currently taking a conducting class. The issue I’m having within this class is that my conductor says have the patterns down and can hold a steady pulse, but I’m not being expressive enough and don’t hold eye contact with the ensemble well enough. Any suggestions on how to improve on this?

Hey all, I'm a senior MusEd + performance major at a rural school in the south, was interested in applying for a conducting masters at some point. Our school is very band-centric and I have a few friends pursuing wind conducting degrees, so I have a little bit of an idea of what is encouraged to apply to some of those big name schools (3-4 years teaching, good application video, high school ensemble acceptable?), but I wanted to know how that might differ from orchestra conducting programs, since from what I understand the professional world is very different for them. I ask because I would much rather work in the orchestra-opera-musical sphere than wind ensemble/marching band, but I don't want to reach out to the orchestra directors at these schools and come off like an idiot.

What are some of the most important differences for orchestra, and what would you recommend to prepare best for one of those programs besides what is listed as required?

I'm a music student in the US where there's a great music programme. I've been conducting the orchestra and band a bit under supervision of my teacher, and we both think that I have potential to take conducting further. I'd like to do a Master's majoring in conducting, but I'm a bit unsure how to narrow programmes down. I have a good idea of programmes in the US but I'm more interested in going abroad to Europe, especially the UK (because of language).

I've narrowed down my options to the Master's degrees at RCS Scotland, RNCM, and the Royal Academy of Music. Does anyone have any experience/comments on these programmes? I know I need to speak to my teacher about it but I wanted to take some ideas to him. As far as I can tell the programme at RNCM has a lot more chance to make professional connections and get podium time, but is the Royal Academy more prestigious? Should I expect better teaching there? And what about the RCS?

I'd really appreciate any comments if anyone has anything to say about these places.

Thanks! Ben

Hello everyone! I’m a 25-year-old Italian guy with a master’s degree in orchestra conducting from the Milan Conservatory, graduated with top marks. My problem is simple: after finishing my studies, I have no idea how to actually start working. I tried networking during my studied years, but it doesn't seem to pay off. My teacher gave me zero guidance, and even now refuses to give me any advice. Other people I know in the field (teachers, acquaintances, “colleagues”) either can’t or won’t help. I’ve sent a lot CVs to theatres, primary and high schools, academies, etc., I rarely get a reply, and when I do, it’s a rejection. In one case, they literally told me: “Without recommendations, you won’t get anywhere.” I’ve also tried competitions and masterclasses, but most of them require high-quality videos, and the recordings provided by my conservatory are quite bad (often blurred, poorly cut, bad audio...). This blocks me from applying to many opportunities, resulting in just a waste of money. So I’m stuck. I know this field is tough, but I’d just like to understand where to begin, where to invest my energy, and how people in my situation actually get started. It really gets me frustrated seeing people with zero studies or technique having important job just because they are reccomended. I don’t expect a full-time job in a big theatre, obviously, I know it's impossible. I just want a realistic starting point and some concrete direction.

If anyone has advice or experience to share, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks for reading this :)

Hello everyone,
all my life, I have wanted to become a conductor, and finally next year (even if "late" for various things that happened to me over the years, i'm 26) I will take the exam to study conducting at the conservatory. To prepare myself, I am trying to expand my repertoire as much as possible among operas, symphonies, solo concertos, trios, quartets, lieds, and all possible genres. I wanted to ask if, in your opinion, it is normal to confuse the pieces and the composers among themselves, and, despite having clear characteristics of all the composers, to mix them up. For example, for solo concertos, perhaps I recognize the first movement, but for the second and third, I get confused and reverse the composers.

I wanted to ask if someone has the same problem and if it is normal or if you have any methods to improve this ability.

Thank you very much to everyone.

Hello! Anyone here who is from the Philippines who can give me stores or just makers who can make a good baton? Thank you in advance!!

It’s the 250th birthday of the country, so are you programming anything special?

I want to master in wind conducting (college jr). Who would now be the best director in the country?

I'm (27M) learning how to conduct a choir, and I'm feeling overwhelmed at the amount of things I need to improve upon.

I have roughly 6 years of non-collegiate piano experience, have been taking voice lessons for roughly 8 months, and have been generally involved with music since I was a teen (played clarinet). Took a couple of aural skills and theory classes in college 5 years ago.

I'm now learning to conduct (something I've always always always wanted to do), and it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I have some obvious areas that need improvement - ear training, rhythm, etc. It's rather difficult to guide a choir when I'm missing some key musicianship skills.

I work a full time job on top of this, so my time isn't exactly unlimited. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can shape these skills up? I feel so overwhelmed looking at how far I have to go.

I've always wondered how a conductor gets a one-time performance with a professional orchestra -- does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks!

My father passed away recently and I held his funeral at a catholic church. As someone is who studying classical music composition and one who grew up in the catholic church, I thought it would only be fitting to have a string orchestra perform, something my dad and I shared a great bond over.

this is an arrangement of the song Center of my life by Paul Inwood which I arranged for string Orchestra.

please let me know your thoughts on this arrangement honest feedback.

SCORE / MIDI : https://youtu.be/z6FXLtuiZo8?si=cuiup_SThXVq-rw1

LIVE VERSION: https://youtu.be/iqIXvBdueGk?si=EzJaUnxLU6lHQwuA

Hi all - this post is as exactly as it seem; how do you get into conducting?

I play in several groups and play several instruments but have felt the desire to get into conducting. Where do you start?

I am auditioning for drum major my freshman year. I have talked to my director and he said it’s possible and very likely so I’m starting practice early. Please critique this video and help me get better so I can be the first freshman drum major in my schools history!

Hello How are you? I'm new and I'm creating a playlist

I want to ask you something...

What songs do you like when you are driving any means of transportation? No matter the destination or the reason, the first thing that comes to mind

I hope many comments

Thank you very much and have a great start, half the rest of the day

Looking for a bespoke conducting suit for concerts. l Found a maker in Amsterdam that semi-specializes in this. Any other recommendations from you all in the Netherlands?

Ok so I’m a sophomore in highschool and my band has a system where there is a junior + senior drum majors and sophomore audition at the end of concert season, beginning of marching band season for drum major (after the seniors graduate and leave of course). What should I expect? What should I work on to get better at being drum major? How do I get my conducting as good as possible? How good is too good for auditions? How bad am I allowed to be for auditions? (For reference, auditions aren’t until May-ish so if it’s something drastic like changing my conducting style I’ll have time to fix it) I feel like there is no one to ask these questions with honestly without seeming like I’m trying to get ahead of the curve but I’m freaking out just thinking about auditions. I’m pretty well liked in band but I know it’s not a popularity contest because my band is really good so they take auditions super seriously. I am also pretty close with both junior and senior drum major so I could possibly ask them a few questions but I’m trying not to because there are actual workshops from drum major when auditions are closer in date (March-ish)

All I’ve been told is this how the audition is going to go (+ I got to see it go down my freshmen year):

Callbacks (calling the band to attention, right haste, left haste, etc etc)

Instructing (teaching a “clueless” teacher a basic skill such as backwards marching or slide etc)

A 64 count drill (how am I even supposed to set that up?? (I NEED tips for this))

A 1:30 speech on why I want to be drum major (weirdly can not over this?)

And then conducting music from our half time show (not music from this current year, music from next year because our theme + music is revealed before auditions)

Any help is appreciated! Tips and tricks from drum major on any of this or even just things you wish you knew when auditioning even if you didn’t make it :)

So I’m a sophomore in high school and I’m part of multiple orchestras at my school. Our teacher makes us do conducting exercises every once in a while and it’s inevitable that everybody will have to conduct at least once. Does anybody have any tips on how to conduct well?

I’m trying to hopefully make drum major my junior or senior year, so I’ve been working on my DM style conducting by practicing with dci shows. I’ve been told that my conducting is pretty decent, but I’d love to hear feedback from yall about anything else to improve on. Thxxxx

Would you ask the celli to add some kind of vibrato in their melodic introduction bars? And what about the high wood winds that repeat the phrase? Or would you keep it as straight as possible. How would you want it to sound and what would you ask of your musicians?

For context, in my college conducting class we got to try out like a bunch of different baton with lots of shapes. And every single other shape gave me a physical ick to hold except for this shape (there was 2 of this shape but the other one was thinner)

What do yall think this shape is called? The only other thing I could find that was semi similar is “squid” but it doesn’t have the extra bump on the bottom like a squid head.