Conductor

“ How do those mules on the flanks manage to avoid knocking their hoofs against the metal-ruts, and tripping themselves up? What a stand-and-deliver air the conductor has as he presents his snip-snap apparatus, like the brutal key of the primitive dentist, and viciously punches an orifice in your ticket! For these conductors, as for letter-carriers, I have a profound sympathy; they are over-worked and under-paid; and yet they enjoy motion in abundance. ”

“ You know that if anything happens the first thought of the conductor is the safety of the women and children, at the expense of his own safety. And when your loved ones come home safe, and you meet them at the train, and the conductor stands upon the platform as the train backs into the depot, looking at nobody, but his eye fixed upon the chances of accident, you always feel as though you wanted to put your arm around him and say, “Bully for you, old boy.” ”

“ The conductor’s magnetism, his personality, his style, even the cut of his cuffs have thrust themselves between the public and the immortal works of the masters, until it seems as if there must come a reaction which will drive us back to the ancient time-beater. ”

“ The illustrious conductor, having taken some time to thrust them upon a very large and red hand, leisurely takes up his baton, rises, grins upon the expectant musicians, lifts his arm, and—the first chord is struck! ”

“ He does more than bid them. He lifts them, he gathers them up, far and near, with the upward gesture of both arms; he takes them to their feet with the compulsion of his expressive force. Or it is as when a conductor takes his players to successive heights of music. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They sit in your lap; they stand on your toes; when they wish to pass, they simply push you. Everything in silence; they know that silence is golden, and they have the worship of gold. When the conductor wishes your fare, he gives you a poke, very serious, without a word. ”

“ The newspaper man has half a mind to inquire. Instead he picks on the conductor, and as the car bounces gayly through the dark, cavernous streets the mild-faced conductor lends himself to a conversation. ”

“ The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horses of this char-a-banc, the end of the whip-lash and the lower jaw of the conductor—who was just beginning to yawn—were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quite noiseless except for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat! And as parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, and a conductor, and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the thing began by being madly queer, and ended by being disagreeable. ”

“ The conductor was a man of action: "It may be," he said, "it may be that there is some one on the train who can do the job. It's a mighty doubtful thing, but I'll find out."
He was a big, red-faced, heavy-moustached man, with a big voice, and he started promptly on his way, bellowing through each car:
"Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph? Is there anybody here who can cut in on a wire, and telegraph?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the conductor who unlocks the mysteries of the score. Like water that will always rise to its own level, it may safely be said that the actual performance of an orchestral or choral work will only rise to the level of the conductor’s intellectual and spiritual conception. A good conductor can get good results from players of lesser ability, while a poor conductor can throw the finest orchestra into confusion. ”

“ A conductor on a local train who has grown familiar with scores of passengers is no longer a ticket-punching, station-shouting automaton. He bears himself in friendly fashion towards all travellers, because he has established with some of them a rational foothold of communication. ”

“ The conductor or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform. He walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy dictates; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and stares at you, if you chance to be a stranger; or enters into conversation with the passengers about him. A great many newspapers are pulled out, and a few of them are read. Everybody talks to you, or to anybody else who hits his fancy. If you are an Englishman, he expects that that railroad is pretty much like an English railroad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now when your home begins to drop out of sight behind, and the conductor comes along to punch your ticket rather than to comfort you, say to your heart "Go it, you you old ninnyhammer! It's natural for you to thump, but you can't interfere with business, you know!" ”

“ Granted that the conductor has a clear and matured mental conception of a musical work, there is still a vast distance between this conception and its final perception by the listener. An enumeration of these obstacles and a description of their overcoming will constitute a complete outline of what the art of conducting is.
A conductor with a definite conception of the musical score in his head is not unlike the commander of an army who has worked out a complete plan of action. Each has to carefully consider the limitation of his forces and equipment, and how best to achieve the objective. ”

“ When all are provided with their imaginary instruments, the conductor orders them to tune, and by so doing, he gives each musician a capital opportunity for making all sorts of discordant noises. When the different instruments have been tuned, the conductor waves an unseen bâton, and commences humming a lively air, in which he is accompanied by the whole of his band, each player endeavouring to imitate with his hands the different movements made in performing on a real instrument. ”

“ The hours of a conductor move up and down the day. Sometimes Jay punctured her first ticket at a time when you and I are asleep, and when the coster-barrows, waving with ferns and fuchsias, move up the Strand like Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane. ”

“ CONDUCTING A COMBINATION OF SCIENCE AND ART
In setting out to become a conductor it will be well for the young musician to recognize at the outset that by far the larger part of the conductor's work rests upon an art basis, and that only a comparatively small portion of it is science ”

“ But in addition to these purely musical requirements, experience and observation have demonstrated that the would-be conductor must be possessed of certain definitely established personal characteristics, and that many a musician who has been amply able to pass muster from a musical standpoint, has failed as a conductor because he lacked these other traits. ”

“ Sometimes our conductor is hailed by some one at a station as we dart past. We hear the voice, but distinguish no words. The conductor, however, has understood, and makes answer. As he replies, we drop away from the sound of his voice at such a rapid rate that his words are drawn out into sounds which we can hardly understand, though we are standing by his side.side. ”

“ DEVELOPMENT OF CONDUCTING
“Conducting is the art of directing the simultaneous performance of several players or singers by the use of gesture.” It is thus that Ralph Vaughan-Williams heads his illuminating article on conducting, written for Grove’s Dictionary, and while this rather terse definition is an admirable summing up of the meaning of conducting, it needs to be qualified.
In music the conductor is one, who after assimilating in his own consciousness every phase of a musical composition, becomes the supreme arbiter in the process of bringing that composition into actual being. ”

“ The conductor knows that these people are so demoralised that they are no longer fit for anything but to blow trumpets and walk about with halberds and in yellow shoes, and that they are also accustomed to dainty, easy living, so that they will put up with anything rather than lose their luxurious life. ”

“ The very first time I was on a car in Atlanta, I saw the conductor—all conductors are white— ask a Negro woman to get up and take a seat further back in order to make a place for a white man. ”

“ The conductor who is likely to be most successful in handling such a chorus is he who, other things being equal, has prepared his work most thoroughly and is able to conduct without looking at his music at all, and who can, therefore, keep things moving throughout the rehearsal period. ”

“ I thought so all the while," and then he tells you where he wants to go, and shows you his check, and asks you if you think it is good for the trunk, and how far it is, and when he will get there, and you tell him. The conductor returns, he makes a grab at him, and he wants him to tell him when he will get there, and who keeps the best house, and how far it is from the depot, and whether that is really the best house or some other, and whether he meant three o'clock in the forenoon or afternoon, and the conductor doesn't tell him. ”

“ CONDUCTOR. A conductor occupies a difficult and trying position, and will always appreciate any courtesy shown him by a woman. If a woman desires a transfer, she should let him know in ample time; if she wants any information from him, she should ask him when paying her fare, and should indicate her desire to leave the car at least a block ahead of her street. ”

“ The driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. ”

“ To them, generations of men and women only live from eighteen to twenty-four hours. They pass on, and are seen no more. But during those hours the conductor has human nature under a microscope. He discovers things about people that they themselves had only guessed at. He discerns traits that their neighbors never detected. The average conductor is a shrewd man. He reads faces like a book, and remembers them always.
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE SADDLE.
The engineer and the brakeman are as often and as truly heroes as the average veteran army colonel under fire for the tenth time. ”

“ The performances obtained by the old method of study are merely approaches to achievement; beneath which so very many masterpieces have succumbed. The superintending conductor, after the butchering of a master, none the less serenely lays down his stick with a satisfied smile ”

“ A good conductor, interpreting the thought of the composer, does twenty things at once: reads the score, waves his baton, watches the singer, makes a motion sideways, first to the drum then to the wind-instruments, and so on. ”

“ The conductor of an amateur ensemble group will find it very greatly to his advantage to be able to tune the various instruments, or at least to help the players to do it accurately. This involves not merely a mechanical knowledge of what to do to the instrument to change its pitch, but, what is much more important, a very high degree of pitch discrimination on the conductor's part. ”

“ Oh, conductor, I left one of my gloves in the car. How long does the train stop? Do you know where Mrs. Tompkins lives? Merciful heaven, I left my baby in the car! Where can I find a good restaurant? Say! Conductor, watch my valise till I get a cup of coffee! Is my hat on straight? Oh, have you seen my husband? He’s a tall man with link cuff-buttons. Conductor, can you change a dollar? What’s the best hotel in town? ”

“ I’ve been puzzling it out, and the best thing is for you to go to the nearest car-line you find; then ask the conductor how nigh it will take you to the Place. He’ll be kind to you, I know. They’re always obliging, the conductors are, and when it’s anybody like you, why they just seem to tear themselves to pieces to be nice. You’ll have no trouble, honey, not a mite. And when you get there, don’t forget to make your manners, pretty, like I’ve taught you. Say everything to cheer the lady up, if she seems down-hearted a bit, and good-by, good-by. Bless you, Mary Jane! ”

“ This means that they must read at sight, that the conductor must follow every movement of the artist, in order to catch his spasmodic cues for band or patter, and that the boys must keep one eye on music they have never seen before, and the other on their old man's stick. ”

“ For instance, one conductor going his way will whistle to a mate going the other, and then go through the pantomime of opening his mouth very wide, placing his hand about a foot above his cap, holding his badge up to his eye, and lastly motioning to the left or right, and raising his hand to his mouth in imitation of drinking. ”