Cutting Edge: Conducting Goes High-Tech
April 6, 2001 — -- Aspiring conductors normally spend hours practicing before the mirror conducting imaginary music. But they can't know how sweet the music truly is until they step in front of an orchestra.
Now, technology is allowing some conducting students to play solo.
Gary Hill, a professor at Arizona State University, is teaching with a system that allows the most novice students to conduct a virtual orchestra on a synthesizer at the earliest stages of their training.
The digital conducting lab uses four sensors secured to students' biceps and forearms by special form-fitting sleeves. The sensors detect motion, muscle tension and other factors, and feed the data into two personal computers running special software.
The students' arm movements control the way the computer plays pre-programmed notes. They lead computers in the same manner a conductor directs a live orchestra to play notes on the printed page.
At first, an inexperienced student's work can sound slurred and distorted, not exactly music to the students' ears. That's exactly the point, Hill says.
"They change their conducting until it responds correctly, which is exactly what we want them to do," says Hill, of ASU's Herberger College of Fine Arts School of Music. "If the dynamics aren't right they have to adjust the dynamics. If the style is not correct, they have to conduct differently to suggest a different style. It's exactly what people do in real life on the podium."
Since Hill began using the system in the fall, he has seen results, he says.
He is attempting to quantify it in a study. Hill asked some students, monitored by teaching assistants, to practice conducting in a traditional manner. He asked another group to practice in the digital conducting lab for the same amount of time. The students then performed with a live orchestra and professionals evaluated their improvement.
"The students who are working with the computer are definitely improving their skills at a faster pace," Hill says. "I think to the lay person it might be somewhat subtle, but to the musicians watching the person and to me as the conductor, it's quite noticeable."
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