How to Begin Conducting an Orchestra Piece

Video Transcript

"In this clip we'll be talking about the various things that a conductor is going to need to look for when they start a piece. Start setting for conducting a piece in rehearsal or concert. The first thing is the time signature. That is located right next to the key signature. It's two numbers on top of each other. So, in this case it's six eight. You are going to look for a tempo which is right up there. This is Adagio and seventy six. That means an eighth note gets one beat. Six eight is the eighth note gets one beat. So seventy six equals an eighth note means the beat is seventy six. So there are 6 beats to a measure in this piece. The next thing you are going to look for is entrances. What's your first instrument and you're going to cue that section or instrument. You're going to look for entrances of various instruments throughout the score. So you're just going to follow along where everything comes in and cue them appropriately. This is what a study score looks like on the inside. It can be very long and get very busy and sometimes hard to read. So you never want to perform from a study score obviously because they are just too small and it's too hard to see."