Combing

“ The pipe was lit and passed around while they were in this contemplative mood, and as their ears were open, they got, in the meantime, further information of the wonderful modes and operations of this vast machine; and also, in round numbers, read from a report by one of the proprietors, the quantity of ale consumed in the kingdom annually. Upon hearing this, which seemed to cap the climax of all their astonishment, they threw down the pipe, and leaping into an empty vat, suddenly dissipated the pain of their mental calculations by joining in the Medicine (or Mystery) Dance. ”

“ The hostess, who holds a boy’s cap in her hand, tells one side that the inside of the cap is the signal for them to act, and the other side that the top of the cap is their signal. She stands between the rows and throws the cap up into the air. If it lands on the floor bottom side up, the side which has the inside of the cap for a signal must immediately go into roars of laughter, or they may giggle, simper, tee-hee, or show mirth in any way in their efforts to make the other side smile even the least little bit. Anyone who does smile at all goes over to the side of the enemy in disgrace. ”

“ Like the waves of sound in music here the waves of smoke float around us and smooth over all that is ruffled in us. When I easily and silently take a long puff at the pipe, keep the ethereal draught a moment in my mouth, and then let it stream out in a light breath, it flatters and soothes my mouth and lips as a soft melody does my ears. ”

“ Stand just here now and sing well out, there's a good girl.
Good Girl (apologetically) . I've got the slightest touch of a cough, so that I'm not really what you'd call——
Manager. I don't want to hear your cough, missie; I want to hear your song. (To conductor) Now!
Conductor. Once more, sorr, I ask permission to remark
Manager (briskly) . And get ready at the back for that comic scene with the hansom cab. And be on hand for the chorus there, and (severely) not quite so much chow-row; if you please. I can't hear myself speak. Fire away, my good girl. Don't forget the American accent. ”

“ ILLUSTRATIONS OF HUMOR IN THE REHEARSALSome player or singer is either over-arduous or a bit sleepy during the first stages of rehearsing a new composition, and makes a wrong entrance, perhaps during a pause just before the climacteric point. The occurrence is really funny and the other performers are inclined to smile or snicker, but our serious conductor quells the outbreak with a scowl. The humorous leader, on the other hand, sees the occurrence as the performers do, joins in the laugh that is raised at the expense of the offender, and the rehearsal goes on with renewed spirit. ”

“ COMB, the name of an instrument made of a thin plate either plane or curved of wood, horn, tortoise-shell, ivory, bone, or metal, cut out upon one or both of its sides or edges, into a series of somewhat long teeth, not far apart; which is employed for disentangling, laying parallel and smooth the hairs of man, horses, or other animals. ”

“ The minds of conductor and accompanist must work as one. In stopping his chorus for a correction, it should be possible for the conductor to assume that the accompanist has followed him so carefully and is in such close musical rapport with him that, before the conductor speaks, the accompanist has already found the badly executed passage, and the instant the conductor cites page and score, is ready to play the phrase or interval that was wrongly rendered. ”

“ Thus in the case of a composition beginning upon the first beat of a measure, the conductor holds the baton poised in full view of all performers, then, before actually bringing it down for the attack, he raises it slightly, this upward movement often corresponding to the back-stroke between an imaginary preceding beat and the actual beat with which the composition begins. ”

“ In chorus directing, it is of the utmost importance that conductor and accompanist not only understand one another thoroughly, but that the relationship between them be so sympathetic, so cordial, that there may never be even a hint of non-unity in the ensemble. The unskilful or unsympathetic accompanist may utterly ruin the effect of the most capable conducting ”

“ All muscles must be relaxed unless a contraction occurs because of the conductor's response to emotional tension in the music. The wrist should be loose and flexible, and the entire beat so full of grace that the attention of the audience is never for an instant distracted from listening to the music by the conspicuous awkwardness of the conductor's hand movements. This grace in baton-manipulation need not interfere in any way with the definiteness or precision of the beat. In fact an easy, graceful beat usually results in a firmer rhythmic response than a jerky, awkward one. ”

“ Lest any of our readers, however, should not understand what chiming is, it consists of swinging the bell to and fro by the rope, so that it moves like the pendulum of a clock, and comes in contact with the clapper, which remains nearly stationary inside, owing to its weight and the loose manner of suspending it. ”

“ When she had done this, she laid the comb down beside the water. She had not long to wait, before the depths became troubled and stormy, and a great wave rose and rolled towards the shore, bearing the comb away with it as it retired. ”

“ A rubber comb can be used to make portions of the heart by occasionally using it in the finer portions of the wiped-out hearts, taking care that the lines made by the comb closely follow those made by hand, and that they are equally distinct, or the places where the comb has been used can readily be distinguished from the rest of the work, and they look very bad. ”

“ Such conductors often imagine that they are being very definite and very precise indeed in their directing, and have sometimes been heard to remark that the singers or players whom they were leading seemed exceedingly stupid about following the beat, especially in the attacks. The real reason for sluggish rhythmic response and poor attacks is, however, more often to be laid at the door of a poorly executed beat by the conductor than to the stupidity of the chorus or orchestra. ”

“ For example, we had a scene where a group of chorus-men were made up as sailors. They came in, ye-heaving and ye-hoing, and lifting up first one leg and then the other by yanking on their waistbands.
Having gained heart, I ventured to ask the stage-manager why this should be so.
"There's nothing in the play, so far as I know, that says these sailor- boys have the white swelling," was my remark. "Why, then, should they make their entrance in this way?"
"Why?" he repeated,"Why? Why, because they always have. and that's all there is to it!" ”

“ Comber was perfectly aware of all the conversation that it would give rise to, of all the people that would in all probability be angry with all the other people because they had been asked or because they had not. There was, generally, a reason for a dinner. Some important person had to be asked, some unimportant people had to be worked off, someone was conscious that there had not been a dinner-party for a very long time. But on this occasion there was no reason except that Mrs. Comber had liked the look of young Traill, had at once thought of Isabel, and had conceived a plan. ”

“ The English conductor Coward takes the ground that the swell (a combination of crescendo and diminuendo) is the most powerful choral effect in existence. [1]
When the composer wishes to build up a really tremendous climax and sweep all before him by the intensity of the emotional excitement generated, he frequently indicates an increase in the amount of tone, coupled with a very gradual acceleration in tempo, all proceeding by slow degrees, and perhaps accompanied by a rise from a low pitch register to higher ones. ”

“ An instrumental performer makes a bad tone, and the conductor laughs at him, saying it sounds like a wolf howling or an ass braying. If the remark is accompanied by a smile, the performer straightens up and tries to overcome the fault; but if the comment is made with a snarl there is a tightening up of muscles, an increased tension of the nerves, and the performer is more than likely to do worse the next time. ”

“ Sounds striking on concave surfaces are reflected from them, and, after reflection, converge to points which are the foci of these surfaces. It follows, therefore, that the ear may be so placed in one, as that it shall hear a sound better than when situated nearer to the point of the first impulse: again, in the case of two concave surfaces placed opposite to each other—"
"Nonsense, sir. Don't tell me of foci. Pray, sir, will concave surfaces produce two voices when nobody speaks? I heard two voices, and one was feminine; feminine, sir: what say you to that?" ”

“ The kinds sold at stores are usually altogether too thick and too heavy. If at any time some adulating chorus or choir should present the conductor with an ebony baton with silver mountings, he must not feel that courtesy demands that it should be used in conducting. ”

“ PROPER BREATHINGProbably the first thing about singing to learned by the student of conducting is that good voice production depends upon using the full capacity of the lungs instead of merely the upper portion. Hence the necessity of holding the body easily erect as a matter of habit, with chest up, and with the diaphragm alternately pushing the viscera away in order to enable the lungs to expand downward, and then allowing the parts to come back into place again, as the air is in turn expelled from the lungs. ”

“ How could that young woman, in the midst of a sublime chorus, deliberately pause, arrange the knot of her neck-tie, and then, after a smile and a side glance at the conductor, go on again with a more self-satisfied simper than ever upon her lips? ”

“ THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF CONDUCTINGThe conductor works largely through the instrumentality of instinctive imitation; that is, his methods are founded upon the fact that human beings have an innate tendency to copy the actions of others, often without being conscious that they are doing so. Thus, if one person yawns or coughs, a second person observing him has an instinctive tendency to do likewise. One member of a group is radiant with happiness, and very soon the others catch the infection and are smiling also ”

“ But when the organist-conductor wishes a ritardando, he merely plays more slowly, and the singers must get their idea of the slower tempo entirely through the ear. Since rhythm is a matter of muscle rather than of ear, it will be readily understood that conducting and organ-playing will never go hand in hand to any very great extent. ”

“ A conductor often demands from his players an exaggeration of the dynamic nuances, either in this way to give proof of his ardor, or because he lacks fineness of musical perception. Simple shadings then become thick blurs, accents become passionate shrieks. The effects intended by the poor composer are quite distorted and coarsened, and the attempts of the conductor to be artistic, however honest they may be, remind us of the tenderness of the ass in the fable, who knocked his master down in trying to caress him. ”

“ In order to have interesting performances of choral and orchestral music the conductor must see to it that the performers play or sing all rhythmic figures correctly, that long tones are sustained for their correct duration, and that in general the musical performance be permeated by that steady throb of regular pulsation which is the foundation of all rhythmic coherence. ”

“ Some one appears in answer to a summons from without; an eavesdropper listens to a conversation below; a girl talks to her lover, and there may be an ascent or descent with the help of a rope-ladder or a basket. But [94] there are a few plays in which we are obliged to constitute the existence of a regular chamber scene, with several personages and perhaps furniture, set ‘above’. The second scene of the induction to the Taming of the Shrew, just cited, is already a case in point. The presenters here do not merely sit, as spectators in the lord’s room might, and listen. ”

“ If in such a case the conductor does not see to it that a copy of the music is placed in the accompanist's hands several days before each rehearsal, he will simply be digging his own grave, figuratively speaking, and will have no one but himself to blame for the poor results that are bound to follow. ”

“ When a composition begins upon the weak beat (e.g., the fourth beat of a four-pulse measure) , the preceding strong beat itself, together with the back-stroke accompanying it, is often given as the preparation for the actual initial beat. In case this is done the conductor must guard against making this preliminary strong beat so prominent as to cause the performers to mistake it for the actual signal to begin. ”

“ In concluding the chapter let us emphasize the fact that the establishing of a tempo is a matter of muscle even more than of mind, and that before beginning to beat time the conductor should have the tempo recorded in his muscular memory. ”

“ The process which I tried to characterize in the section on hearing-play is with me connected with breathing movements and tensions of the throat and mouth muscles, and is thus symbolic in both directions. Those who play much on some instrument commonly find that with them the tension is of those muscles which they most use—this is apt to be especially the case in recalling a remembered melody. ”

“ Bouncer's feelings; but when songs are shouted or yelled at the top of the voice, and without much attention to time or harmony, the result is anything but musical or soothing. Mr. Smirke was there, none the worse for his ducking of the previous day, but already anything but the better for an injudicious combination of coffee and punch. ”