Essentials in Conducting | Page 5

rehearsal goes on with renewed spirit.
An instrumental performer makes a bad tone, and the conductor laughs
at him, saying it sounds like a wolf howling or an ass braying. If the
remark is accompanied by a smile, the performer straightens up and
tries to overcome the fault; but if the comment is made with a snarl
there is a tightening up of muscles, an increased tension of the nerves,
and the performer is more than likely to do worse the next time.
There is a difference of opinion between the conductor and some
performer about fingering or bowing, phrasing or interpretation, and a
quarrel seems imminent; but the conductor refuses to take the matter
too seriously, and, having ample authority for his own viewpoint,
proceeds as he has begun, later on talking it over with the performer,
and perhaps giving him a reason for his opinion.
Humor is thus seen to have the same effect upon a body of musicians as
oil applied to machinery, and musical machinery seems to need more of
this kind of lubrication than almost any other variety.
But the conductor must distinguish carefully between sarcastic wit,
which laughs at, and humor, which laughs with. In a book bearing the
copyright date of 1849, the writer distinguishes between the two, in the
following words:[1]
Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically
retains, for it is the very juice of the mind, enriching and fertilizing
where it falls. Wit laughs at; humor laughs with. Wit lashes external
appearances, or cunningly exchanges single foibles into character;
humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly upon the
infirmities it attacks, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt,

scornful ...; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart.
[Footnote 1: Whipple, Literature and Life, p. 91.]
[Sidenote: THE VALUE OF A CHEERFUL ATTITUDE]
The conductor with a sense of humor will ordinarily have the advantage
also of being cheerful in his attitude toward the performers, and this is
an asset of no mean significance. It is a well-known psychophysical
fact that the human body does much better work when the mind is free
from care, and that in any profession or vocation, other things being
equal, the worker who is cheerful and optimistic will perform his labor
much more efficiently at the expense of considerably less mental and
bodily energy than he who is ill-humored, worried, fretful, and unable
to take a joke. But the foreman who possesses this quality of
cheerfulness and humor is doubly fortunate, for he not only secures the
beneficial results in his own case, but by his attitude frequently arouses
the same desirable state of mind and body in those who are working
under him. It is particularly because of this latter fact that the conductor
needs to cultivate a cheerful, even a humorous outlook, especially in
the rehearsal. As the result of forming this habit, he will be enabled to
give directions in such a way that they will be obeyed cheerfully (and
consequently more effectively); he will find it possible to rehearse
longer with less fatigue both to himself and to his musical forces; and
he will be able to digest his food and to sleep soundly after the
rehearsal because he is not worrying over trivial annoyances that, after
all, should have been dismissed with a laugh as soon as they appeared.
There must not of course be so much levity that the effectiveness of the
rehearsal will be endangered, but there is not much likelihood that this
will happen; whereas there seems to be considerable danger that our
rehearsals will become too cold and formal. A writer on the psychology
of laughter states that "laughter is man's best friend";[2] and in another
place (p. 342) says that the smile always brings to the mind "relaxation
from strain."
[Footnote 2: Sully, An Essay on Laughter.]
[Sidenote: THE VALUE OF IMAGINATION IN CONDUCTING]

Creative imagination is an inborn quality--"a gift of the gods"--and if
the individual does not possess it, very little can be done for him in the
artistic realm. Constructive or creative imagination implies the ability
to combine known elements in new ways--to use the mind forwards, as
it were. The possession of this trait makes it possible to picture to
oneself how things are going to look or sound or feel before any actual
sense experience has taken place; to see into people's minds and often
find out in advance how they are going to react to a projected situation;
to combine chemical elements in new ways and thus create new
substances; to plan details of organization in a manufacturing
establishment or in an educational institution, and to be able to forecast
how these things are going to work out.
It is this quality