hypnosis

I touched in my last blog on the subject of hypnosis over musicians as practised by conductors. It is quite extraordinary how if you are absolutley sure of what you want in terms of tempo and any nuances or sudden inspired "moments", these can be transmitted by the power of hypnosis to musicians. However, you have to be absolutely secure in your thoughts to achieve the result you want. I don't know how it is done. I suppose it is something to do with your eyes, your arm and body movements and you know absolutely what you want, so the gesture you transmit is obvious to the musicians for it to happen. This even extends to chords when played by the whole orchestra. If you know absolutely where you want the note placed in relation to your downbeat, then that is where the orchestra will play. Confidence is everything. This is why conductors have to be so arrogant: they know where the chord should be played, they know the tempo of the piece, they know they are going to do a very slight ritardando (perhaps not rehearsed). The trouble comes when although they know where they want it, they are not transmitting it with their bodies. So only the "natural" conductors can succeed in practising the art of hypnosis. Those who have to study how to conduct, will not be able to instinctively show what they want to the orchestra. The conductor is almost in a trance, so there is no point in thinking more of your technique than the music: too miuch focus on the wrong aspect of performance. When this forcing of your will by some power that is within you happens, then that is the performance we as musicians all strive to achieve. It takes the concert onto a higher level of artistic merit.