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."

Quantifying Results

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."

The digital conducting lab is still experimental, but Hill and the lab's creator, Teresa Marrin Nakra — a Boston-area inventor and musician who has performed concerts with the technology — believe it soon may be ready for music schools across the country.

"They're all very interested to see what our results are," Hill says. "I think that within a year to 18 months, we'll have enough data to do presentations on the system to conductors and demonstrate what we've learned."

Some are Skeptical

Everybody may not be convinced.

Edward Bilous, chairman of the literature and materials of music department at The Juilliard School in New York, and an adviser to the school's program to train music teachers, says classical music instructors tend to be very traditional. They resist change because of a philosophy that if the old, low-tech ways were good enough to train Beethoven and Mozart, they're good enough to develop today's musicians.

"I can imagine how the conductor's jacket would be very useful, but it's probably going to take some time before some of the traditional teachers in the United States would go for something like that," Bilous says.

"Even though it's cutting edge technology, it's going to be a hard sell for most music teachers — because they're going to say that 99 percent of the learning process takes place on a sort of unspoken level between students and teachers."

Practicing Skill by Skill

Hill says the digital conducting lab cost Arizona State about $10,000 for hardware, plus consulting fees paid to Nakra to customize the software and "tune" the computer to accurately reflect the students' arm motions.

"My own particular bias is that inappropriate tension in the muscles causes a lot of problems in conducting technique," Hill says. "Actually seeing a visual picture of their muscle tension profile [on a computer screen] can lead to improvement in their conducting technique."

Hill has written 10 etudes to train conducting students on a succession of skills, and he and Nakra hope to broaden the training repertoire of the conducting lab.

An existing exercise teaches students the difference between conducting short, choppy notes and long, flowing notes. If the student's arm moves incorrectly during that exercise, the computer will play an inappropriate interpretation of the note.

"Most importantly, they're immediately hearing the musical result of their gesture," Hill says.