Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/94

82 The conductor must always appear cheerful and confident when conducting children (or for that matter, adults) in public, for if he seems anxious and distressed, or worse yet, if he informs the singers that he is afraid that they will not do well, his uneasiness is almost sure to be communicated to the performers and there will probably be a panic and perhaps even a breakdown. If the conductor seriously feels that the compositions to be performed have not been rehearsed sufficiently, it will be far better for him either to insist upon extra rehearsals (even at considerable inconvenience), or else upon a postponement of the performance. A good rule to follow in preparing for a public performance of any kind is this: Go through the work over and over until it is done correctly; then go through it enough times more to fix this correct way in mind and muscle as a habit. Too many performances are given upon an inadequate rehearsal basis, and it has happened again and again that performers have been so busy watching the notes that they have had no time to watch the conductor, and the rendition of really beautiful music has been made in a tame, groping, and consequently uninteresting manner. Our American impatience with slow processes of any sort is as often to blame here as the negligence of the conductor, the latter often arranging to have a performance at an earlier date than he really wishes to because he knows that his chorus will become impatient with the large number of repetitions that a really artistic performance requires.

In directing a large high school chorus (sometimes numbering from five hundred to fifteen hundred singers), the conductor will find it necessary to study his score in advance even more than usual, for here he is dealing with large numbers of bright and lively