I’ve developed the habit of creating a few secret signs I can give my singers to give a message that isn’t easily communicated with a conducting gesture. Agreed upon in advance, I can use these to encourage better performance – before or even during their singing.
A couple of examples:
- I touch the knot of my tie to remind them to do a toe-to-head posture alignment. We’ve practiced a method that gets them well aligned in just a few seconds, and if I notice bad posture creep in, I can just touch my tie.
- I might touch a shoulder to remind them to focus on expressing the meaning in the words. If I notice the blank rote-performing look in their eyes, my hand might calmly move to my shoulder to remind them to reengage and deliver their best performance to the audience in front of them.
Of course, I can’t create too many of these hand signals–I don’t want to become a third base coach delivering complex signal patterns!–but a couple, tailored to address persistent challenges in the ensemble, can be a game changer. And then, next year the secret signs might mean different things!