BODY MOVEMENT EXERCISES FOR CONDUCTORS BEGINNING WORK

By Dr. Alexander Jimnez

1. Posture and imagination
a. Stand comfortably with your feet approximately six inches apart and your arms hanging
loosely by your sides. Close your eyes.
b. Imagine a beam of light six feet long and six inches in diameter passing equidistant through
your belly button.
c. Hanging at the ends of that beam are five pound weights, causing the beam to create weight
in the center of your body.
d. Allow your knees to break ever so slightly. Dont lock them.
e. Imagine a kangaroo tail coming from your rear end and going all the way to the group. It is a
large, thick tail that supports your added weight.
f. Imagine that a very thin filament of string is attached to the top of your head (towards the
back) and is being pulled up ever so gently. Feel the vertebrae of your next gently stretching.
g. Stand in this position for at least one minute while breathing in slowly through your nose
and exhaling slowly through your mouth. Relax.
2. Taffy-pull
a. In your newly acquired posture, place your right hand over your left hip.
b. Imagine that you are pulling taffy up from your left hip diagonally across the front of your
body past your right shoulder.
c. Once your arm is fully extended above your body and to the right of your head, fluidly
change direction and come back down the same way to your left hip. Make sure the hand
turns in a palm-out direction on the way down.
d. Repeat with the left hand starting on the right hip.
e. Repeat the exercise evenly dividing the trajectory between both points using a metronome
(count 16, 12, 8, 4).
3. Shine the glass table
a. Imagine that a glass surface is running left to right in front of you that is level with your belly
button.
b. Beginning with your left hand, place the hand palm down on this table at the center of
your body.
c. As if shining the table, move the hand left and right being careful not to smudge the ends
as you change direction.
d. Repeat with the right hand.
4. Paint the wall
a. With your arms hanging loosely by your sides, turn the palms of your hand towards the
back.
b. Imagine your fingers to be bristles on a paint brush and paint an imaginary wall
approximately six inches in front of you.
c. Using both arms begin painting the wall all the way to the top of your head and back
down. The bristles cannot leave the walls surface at any time.
d. Repeat using individual arms and a metronome. Be fluid.

5. Arm, hand, and finger movement to music.

a. In your conducting posture, move your arms, hands, and fingers to any music of your choice.
Start with slower music.
b. Remember not to move any other part of your body other than those mentioned above.
c. Move the arms independently, as well as together.
d. Remember to use the horizontal plane for shaping melodies and phrases, and the vertical
plane to describe volume and articulation.
6. Adding the torso
a. Using recorded music, add the torso to your exercise.
b. Remember not to shift your feet.
c. Rotate your body in different directions from your waist.