On talent and abilities...

[jim_p]

I had an interesting surprise revelation the other day, and I'm still turning it over in my head.

I really love my big sister to bits, and I don't talk to her nearly as often as I should. I phoned her up a couple of days ago in response to an email query: she and her husband are looking to move back to Massachusetts, and she wanted more information on a church organist gig she had found out about.

We got to talking about this and that, about paths our lives have taken, about roads not taken, and a whole lot about music. I was asking her about the kinds of gigs she's looking for. She's a kickass piano player, a wonderful accompanist, and in the last ten years or so she's taken up the organ as well. I mentioned perhaps she'd like a choir director gig. "No, that's not what I'm looking for. I can't conduct".

Those last three words caused a miniature head explosion.

See, I've always envied my sister her musical abilities. We all took piano lessons as kids, but she seriously outshone all of us. I had a promising start, but it wasn't long until I hit a wall; it stopped being fun and started being lots of work. While she was flying over the keyboard, I was plodding along, having to think about every note before playing it. Everyone told me that I wasn't doing well because I wasn't practicing enough... which was true to an extent. Practice was work, not fun. What didn't occur to me until my conversation with my sister was that it wasn't just a matter of how much we practiced: piano playing was a very different *experience* for her than for me.

I didn't even realize this until she uttered those three words, but apparently I'm a natural born conductor. I don't get to do it very much, but when I do I eat it up. I've had no formal training in conducting, all I've learned has been by observation. Still, I'm not too bad at it. After one rehearsal where I had pinch-hit for our choral director, someone came up to me and asked "Where did you study conducting"? Uh... study? I Just Do It. If you know the music it can't be hard, can it?

Apparently, her experience of conducting is pretty much my experience of piano playing. And vice versa.

Gotta think about this...

Meanwhile, anybody looking for an amateur conductor? I'll work cheap :)

Comments

[radioactiverich.livejournal.com]

Check out this thread. It does a pretty good job at describing what a conductor ACTUALLY does, rather than what most people SEE a conductor do. If you still want to be a conductor after this, let me know and I can probably hook you up!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070410002908AAE27bH

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

No surprises in that thread. When I say I learned conducting by observation, I meant as a performer under numerous conductors in several settings. In fact, at least 90% of the conductor's work is done before the performance. During the performance, their main function is to remind the performers of what they'd worked on in rehearsal. As president of my choral society for five years, I was also privy to the things conductors do outside rehearsal as well.

Having said that, what kind of gig did you have in mind?