OT Lefties

[GTBannah]

Hello!

In 3:4 time, does the second beat of a left-handed conductor go to the left, or to the right?

A left handed person told me, that her tutor said she had to conduct right-handed.

Thanx! :)

[Carl Kolchak]

I haven't had to do any conducting since I was at school (and that was a long time ago).

If memory serves, in 3/4 (unlike 4/4) a right handed conductor would move the baton to their right (so from the point of view of the Orchestra, it would move to the left) for the second beat.

You seem to be surmising that left handed people do things in a mirror image... and to be fair, in two handed conducting, the hands do mirror one another.

I'm left handed, and I definitely moved the baton to my right, so the Orchestra were still seeing the same movement, it just happened to be in a different hand.

[GTBannah]

Thanx for the response!

Were you instructed to move to the right, or was it your choice? My friend is saying, that she wasn't given a choice.

[ddwhitney]

I had to think about that for a second!

It's been a while for me but I was taught regardless of the hand, the pattern of the movement has to stay the same for the musicians, just as if you were writing a number or letters for someone is facing you. No choice was given when I tried to "adapt".

But then again does it really matter? Some of the conducting I've seen you'd have a hard time telling what time they were trying keep...

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by GTBannah

Thanx for the response!

Were you instructed to move to the right, or was it your choice? My friend is saying, that she wasn't given a choice.

I can't say that I was or wasn't given a choice, the issue never came up.

I was instructed how to do it, and I followed the instruction - but with my left hand.

I thought of it as like writing on glass - whether you're writing with your left or right hand, you're trying to clearly convey a message to the people on the other side of the glass (in this case, the Orchestra), so you have to write backwards from your point of view.

As I said, with two handed conducting, the hands mirror one another, so that may be at the root of the issue for your friend.

She can still conduct with her left hand, but like the writing on glass analogy, she has to do it the way round the Orchestra can read it.

Personally, the only things I do left handed, are write (I guess Conducting is like writing) punch, and shoot.

The only thing I do right handed is play the Bass.

Everything else I'm completely ambidextrous.

Your friend may just be a hard-wired lefty, which means it's going to take a lot of practice for her to feel natural / comfortable using her right hand, but not necessarily if she sticks to using her left hand, but gets her head round the idea of writing backwards, so to speak.

[kdubyou]

Many years ago, I was taught that, when conducting, the "run up" to the next downbeat needed to be away from the body. That way, the musicians could clearly see the "swoop" up before the clear downbeat in front of the conductor's body. Now, we exaggerated the movements for marching bands, but the concept also applies to smaller groups or orchestras.

D = downstroke (downbeat)
U or u = upstroke (capital means larger movement, lower-case means smaller movement)
R or r = right stroke
L or l = left stroke

So, from a right-handed conductor's perspective:

3/x = D, R, U
4/x = D, L, R, U
5/x = D, l, l, R, U
6/x = D, l, l, R, u, u

A "leftie" would swap the lefts for the rights and vice versa.

That's what I learned and it always made sense to me. YMMV.

Good luck!

Kevin