This article was published in Interlude October 2012, the journal of the Australian Band and Orchestra directors Association Victoria Branch. It continues on from the article in the last Interlude “An Introduction to the Saito Conducting Method”.
Saito and his students
Hideo Saito b.1902, d.1974 was one of the founders of the Toho Gakuen School of Music where he taught the method.
Morihiro Okabe, who was in the first conducting class, became Saito’s teaching assistant and helped to create a textbook from Saito’s teaching notes.
Seiji Ozawa formerly music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Kazuyoshi Akiyama were early graduates of the conducting program. The method has been refined by Messrs. Okabe and Akiyama. The original text was translated into English by Fumihiko Torigai and edited to include Okabe’s revisions by Wayne Toews. It was published in Tokyo in 1988. Since the last interlude, the book as had a limited reprint run. More information can be found at http://www.conductorschool.com or contact Roland Yeung.
After first studying the method in 1974 in Courtenay, B.C. Wayne Toews traveled to Tokyo in 1983 to study with Morihiro Okabe. Toews used Saito’s method in his daily work for more than 40 years and taught it at national and international conventions, in university classes and to private students. He enjoys the reputation as a first rate musician and teacher. He has broad experience with orchestras, choirs, wind ensembles and jazz groups. Those willing to travel can participate in his Saito conducting workshops.
The Saito Method offers a catalogue of gestures or techniques. Each is distinctive and have particular characteristics in how the baton moves between beat points. Conductors should be clear that the techniques alone do not make for musical and clear music making. The Saito Method offers conductors these techniques to give conductors choices in how to communicate with their musicians. How the musicians responds to the gestures depends on many other factors such as the number of players, what and how many instruments are being played, the acoustics in the performance space, the conductor the ensemble had for the previous concert and so on.
The Saito Method gives conductors a basis upon which they can alter or shade the main techniques to illicit the very sound they desire. Just as subtle as the sound heard in one’ s head, the conductor’s technique should be just as refined and deliberate.
Conducting Circles Technique
A starting point for learning to move the baton through the air is to conduct circles. The beat point should be at 6 o’clock. A metronome should be set one circle = mm.40 (beats per minute). Use just right hand and conduct standing. The most effective standing posture for conductors is best explained using body alignment principles of the Alexander Technique.
The movement around the circle should be an even speed – no accelerations, no slowing down, no hooks, no stopping. The amount of effort should be as low as possible whilst still maintaining a constant speed. Check that the shoulder is not lifted. The arm should be not straight and stiff, but should be nearly straight. The size of the circle should be no higher than eye level and no lower than belt height. Ensure that your hand goes through 6 o’clock right on time. When your arm gets tired change to the other arm.
If it helps you, imagine drawing a circle on a wall just less than an arms length away from the front of you. Imagine when you are drawing the circle there is resistance to your movement that you have to work against. One of Elizabeth Green’s exercises in The Modern Conductor is to face a wall and move the hand so it has the same shape as the flat plane of the wall. This plane is easy for players to see the baton movement. The natural tendency is to move the baton in arcs.
Mr Miyagi when training Karate Kid in the movie of the same name began training with these directions. (Lesson 3 we will come to later). These illustrate how the hand moves and where the eye looks.
? Lesson 1 wax on, wax off
? Lesson 2 sand the floor, right circle, left circle
? Lesson 4 paint the fence
? Don’t ask questions
? Look me in the eye.
Look the video clip Lessons on YouTube. These apply exactly to this task of conducting circles.
Work on this technique patiently building both strength and freedom in how you move around the circle. Work in short bursts and build up durations gradually. Do warm ups and cool downs, mild and gentle at first.
You may wish to add variations to maintain regular practice and achieve consistency. Vary the tempo – go slower and slower, and faster but not faster than mm.60. Vary the size of the circle. Conduct with a straight arm: conduct without moving your upper arm, just using your forearm. Conducting this with just the wrist is very difficult to make constant. Find some music such as a waltz from an American Musical where the three beats are even. Don’t use a Viennese Waltz for this exercise as the beats are unevenly spaced. Conduct gradually varying the size of the circle. Vary the shape of the circle by making it flatter into a horizontal oval, back into a circle and then into a vertical oval. As you vary the circle, be sure you check the quality of the movement is maintained, in particular that you go past 6 o’clock on time. Look the players in the eye, that is, look beyond what you are doing. Hold the rest of the body in a relaxed by alert posture.
Conducting circles is a fundamental technique as it establishes the physical sensation of motion that matches sound that is sounding constant.
For advanced conductors this is the gesture used to conduct the phrase shape, hardly moving or conducting one beat a bar. Small motions will increase and decrease intensity, lift the phrase at the start and fall toward the end, and reverse the previous point. The circle can be used to energize fast woodwind semiquaver passages as used effectively by Craig Kirchhoff at ANBOC.
The circle technique will give the conductor a greater capacity to move the sound once it has started.
The technique is not good for giving a precise beginning of a note to a group of players. Therefore it is not recommended to be used as a down beat to commence a new section at a new tempo or start a work if the sound required is precise and confident.
The Conducting Circles technique is the first technique and is important introduction to the into-point gestures of the Saito Conducting Method. If this material is helpful, please give some feedback at www.rolandyeung.net.
Some new audio visual resources are being designed to help conductors learn and practice this technique without seeing a teacher every week. Conducting classes are being offered starting in Term IV 2012 and continuing next year.
Roland Yeung is a life member of ABODA National and has been awarded a citation of excellence by ABODA Victoria. He is music director of the Grainger Wind Symphony for most of the 25 years since it started. It is a community music group that celebrates the music of Percy Grainger, Australian compositions and recent published wind band works from international publishers in USA, Europe including the United Kingdom. He has studied conducting with and participated in workshops lead by maestri such as the late Robert Rosen, Yoshinao Osawa, Wayne Toews, Frederick Fennell, Don Hunsberger, Paul Vermel, Donald Portnoy and Werner Andreas Albert. Roland recently retired as the Director of Music at Carey Baptist Grammar School and is also a life member of aMuse (Victoria).
