Setting a clear beat

I don't watch a lot of television for various reasons. However I do watch videos on Youtube now and again, as regular blogue readers will be aware. There's various things I am subscribed to : National Geographic for the English Class, TEDTalks because sometimes they're useful, and some music things. 

Then Youtube suggests videos for you. Recently it suggested a video that a conductor had posted of himself conducting the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique 5th movement, so I took a look.

It's a funny thing, conducting. 

I had the immense privilege of playing percussion for that symphony when I was a student, thanks to a friendly bank clerk at the local Barclays. I played bass drum and cymbals, and for the coda of the 5th movement (if my memory serves me correctly) essentially it goes Ya-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-bash, bash, bash-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-bash, bash, bash-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta-Ta-ta-ta CRASH. Meanwhile conductors like to speed up so that you have the impression of smashing into a brick wall at the very end of the symphony, which is a VERY LOUD NOISE in best Berlioz style. The CRASH of the cymbal comes as your nose touches the hard brick.

Of course, you have to synchronise all that. The best way, as always, is to watch the conductor. Ours, however, got all excited and went into a kind of nervous, rhythmic spasm. This is fine as long as his spasm is extravagant enough for you to see. If not (it wasn't) you have to do it by ear. Then you have to find the instrument that plays the loudest and most reliably to synchronise with. For us it was the trumpets. Thanks guys !

Another conductor in the brass band used to conduct us for some vaguely Italian thing of Tchaikovsky - Capriccio Italien ? (I was about 15 !) He found the rhythm at the end very exciting. Essentially it went 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 (or ya-ta-ya-ta-ya-ta-ya-BANG-BANG-ta-ya-ta-ya-ta... etc...) The problem is that when he got excited he went into the foetal position and kind of hopped up and down. This was OK, because it was perfectly visible, but our bandroom was precariously built on a hillside and his hops would set the floor bouncing, which sent the music stands swaying, which made the music fall off - 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 BANG GRAB 2 1 2 1... The answer ? Clothes pegs.

Another common mistake in conductors is to beat during the point d'orgue / final pause of a piece. Once I was happily playing oompah oompah and we got to the end - long pause - but the conductor carried on beating time ! "AARGH, I must have miscounted", thought I, and played an extra(neous) oompah.

So ? Well the Christian life is a marathon, yes - but now and again there are sprints to be done, build-ups to missions, preparations for opening events, all kinds of things like that. And people time things differently. For some there's a long build-up, so everything is ready for when the time comes. Others are "last minute Larry" - EEEK - everything happens tomorrow, quick all hands to the pumps ! The vital thing is communication so that people have a chance of knowing what's happening and keeping in rhythm !