First post in this series is HERE. Previous post in this series is HERE.
In the last post in this series we talked about conducting gesture transmitting information in the Cognitive domain. By this we meant specifically knowledge that our performers could choose to either act on or not. This post explores the second of our three domains: the Psycho-Motor. In Bloom’s Taxonomy, from which I have borrowed this terminology, the psycho-motor deals with physical movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill areas. Applied to conducting, this domain relates specifically to helping our performers coordinate the physical needs of singing or playing their instruments. I will speak specifically to conducting singers since that is my primary focus..
The longer I work with choirs, the more I believe that the magic is in the breath: if a singer sets up the body well before or during the inhalation, then the exhalation will require minimal effort, just the reversal of the breath flow, which allows for the least tension working against the sound. During my MM at UW-Milwaukee, I learned from my wonderful teacher, Dr. Sharon Hansen, that we can use our gesture to help our singers take a good breath. By modeling the body position, relaxed face and neck, and shape of the space that we want from our singers, they will adapt to following our model without really thinking about it. Pit space, posture, direction of the movement of the hands and arms can all help. Likewise, we can inhibit our singers from taking their best breath by showing them, for example, a tense face or body, a collapsed body position, or a closed mouth.
There seems to be a certain level at which people respond to things like body position automatically. Other psycho-motor elements can be trained by teaching a specific action and having the singers using a kinesthetic gesture to reinforce it. By drawing the connection between the gesture and the correct action, we the conductors can trigger this correct action by showing the gesture (research into mirror-neurons, which many of us were so hopeful would be the explanation of why this happens, seems to have led to less clarity rather than more… bummer!).
My friend Jimmy is fond of saying things like “I can take control of a whole room full of diaphragms at once.” By this, of course, he means that his breath gesture helps trigger and coordinate the unified breathing of his ensemble. However, it’s not like he can just walk around on the street and control people’s breathing like some kind of choral Darth Vader. There needs to be a willingness and trust between the conductor and the ensemble for psycho-motor gestures to be optimally effective. If this relationship of trust is not present, the psycho-motor gesture will become a suggestion rather than a pre-conscious trigger–essentially it becomes a cognitive gesture of sharing information that the singers will then choose to act on. Ever see a conductor give a prep gesture and have the choir wait to make sure everyone else is breathing before they themselves breathe? That’s the one. So how do we build trust? There are a lot of ways (to be explored some day somewhere 🙂 )but one of them is through our communication in the affective domain, which will be the next post in this series… Hang tight it’s coming!
Have thoughts about gestures intended to communicate in the psycho-motor domain? Please comment below!
Paul H. Thompson 