Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/91

Rh In the lower grades, it is best not to conduct formally with baton in hand, but rather to stand (or sit) before the class, and by facial expression, significant gesture, bodily pose, et cetera, arouse an appropriate response to the "expression" of the song. Every song tells a story of some sort and even little children can be caused to sing with surprisingly good "expression" if the teacher makes a consistent effort to arouse the correct mental and emotional attitude toward each individual song every time it is sung.

In teaching a class of older children, it is well for the supervisor to stand at the front of the room with baton in hand, giving the conventional signals for attack and release and beating time in the usual way during at least a part of each song in order that the children may become accustomed to following a conductor's beat. It is not necessary to beat time constantly, and the teacher, after giving the signal for the attack and setting the tempo, may lower the baton, until a fermata, or a ritardando, or the final tone of the song makes its use necessary again.

A word of warning should perhaps be inserted at this point against tapping with the baton, counting aloud, beating time with the foot, et cetera, on the teacher's part. These various activities may occasionally be necessary, in order to prevent dragging, to change the tempo, to get a clear and incisive rhythmic response in a certain passage, et cetera; but their habitual employment is not only exceedingly inartistic, but is positively injurious to the rhythmic sense of the children, because it takes away from them the opportunity (or rather necessity) of each one making his own individual muscular response to the rhythm of the music. The more responsibility the teacher takes, the less the pupils will