My choir/orchestra members don't look!

This is a common complaint of conductors. You do your best to make sure your gestures are okay but hardly anyone is watching. At least, it appears that way. First, try to make sure your choir / orchestra members *really* are not looking at you. They might look, but maybe they don't see anything worth responding to.... Let's assume that you conduct everything as it should, but you orchestra / choir members are indeed not looking at you. That does not happen without a reason.

The two main reasons are:

1. Counting aloud
2. Too much / too large conducting

1. Before starting, you count aloud: "Three, four ..." In itself, nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it is even necessary. For instance if you play the piano during choir rehearsal and you have to play with two hands. However it can become a problem if you count aloud *every* time you start. Both at the beginning of a piece, as after every interruption. People don't have to look at you because they will hear whenever you like to start.

This eventually causes an extra problem: your singers / players are not accustomed to see how you indicate a start. Thus the chance of something going wrong if you try to start without counting aloud, gets bigger!

Note: If you're used to count out loud and suddenly you do not, you will find that your orchestra/choir does not react at all the first time and probably reacts badly the next time (or only a part of the singers/players will start). Over time, they will look at you more alert!


2. Many conductors conduct too large or with too many gestures. This causes a "devaluation" of your gestures. The conductor who conducts quite restless and with many gestures and movements and asks the choir to sing a "nice, quiet legato", will find his singers less and less alert. They see you from every corner of their eyes anyway! Moreover, you risk that little or nothing happens if you try to conduct 'smaller'.

Also remember that singers and players, for instance because of many interruptions, may get tired. Concentration becomes less, less attention is payed and they will look less at the conductor.

Apart from what is described above, it is of course important that the singers / players are able to see you: make sure that you can see every member of your orchestra or choir clearly. In that case they can usually see you.

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