Dear Colleagues,

All best wishes to you and yours for 2004!

In our last tip - Tip 15: Starting at the Right Tempo - I suggested how to get your ensemble(s) to sing or play at your tempo from the very beginning.

Have you tried them? Did they work for you? I do hope so!

In this tip - Tip 16: Keeping the Tempo Going 1 - and the next, we'll address what can happen to the tempo after you've gotten them going: it frequently begins to drag at some point. It can be a real challenge to get it back to where you want.

It's really rather easy to understand what causes dragging. And the good news is that it's quite easy to fix the problem if and when it does happen. The reason it's easy to fix is: the problem is usually us - not "them." And once we understand the part we play in their dragging the tempo, it's easy to make a few minor adjustments in how we're conducting and rehearsing.

In this tip, then, we'll take a look at how we slow things down. We'll consider the part the young musicians play in the February Tip: Keeping the Tempo Going 2.

Not every conductor I've worked with looks inward when things don't go just right. But it's a real positive to discover the part we play when "they don't get it right." Why? Because it's easier to change ourselves than to change anyone else, right? And if we are, in fact, responsible for some of the musical problems in our ensembles - but we fail to acknowledge the fact…or we always blame the kids - things just won't improve. Remember: when we, ourselves, are doing some professional performing in an ensemble and something goes wrong, we all know who's wrong - the conductor; right? Of course! Everyone knows that! But many of us forget this well-known fact when we're doing the conducting!

Here are some of the ways school ensemble leaders slow their ensembles down - without knowing it. The following assumes, of course, that ensembles are watching and following. If yours are not watching and following at the level you'd like, please (re-) visit Tip 4: Getting Them to Watch.

1. When we don't beat ahead of the music, the music will drag - this is the #1 reason I've observed over the years. And here's why many conductors don't beat ahead: since we're musicians ourselves, many of us want to feel as if we're part of the ensemble we're conducting - not separate from it. And they way we do that is by conducting as if we're playing or singing with our young musicians - rather than leading them. We do this by conducting beats at the precise moment they play or sing it…but this slows them down. Our ensembles need us to beat ahead of them so they keep the tempo moving forward.
2. Conducting with an overly large or strong beat in an effort to keep the tempo going - or to get it back where it was -invariably slows down our beat and - if they're watching - the music. If the tempo begins to drag, conduct smaller, not larger. Using a smaller beat makes it easier for us to feel the tempo; the larger beat makes us feel, instead, our effort. And if our students are watching, a smaller beat will focus their attention on our tempo as they strain to see the smaller beat.
3. Conducting too many beats also slows the tempo down, and my experience is that many conductors over-conduct by a factor of hundreds of percent. Here's the key question to ask yourself: how many beats do your musicians truly need? If you're conducting an Allegro in 4/4, do you really need to conduct 4 beats to a measure - or will 2 be enough? You're not sure? Just get them going and see if they need you to conduct at all! Conduct the pulse and the music, not the beat.

4. A difficult spot in the music - either for us or for the musicians - is another spot where we unconsciously tend to slow down. Maybe it's a spot where we have a lot of cues to throw…or different dynamics to indicate. Maybe we know there's a passage that we know has proven difficult for the flutes - or the 'celli - or the tenors. Even if we've practiced or cueing and indicating dynamics, and even if we've worked hard with the clarinets, 'celli, and tenors on those spots, we might slow down - without knowing it - to make things easier.
5. Finally, we must not to be late after a rest at the beginning of a measure or after a dotted figure, especially in faster tempi. The tempo will definitely slow down if our beat isn't strong and clear…and just a bit early.