Golden State Pops Orchestra (Second Rehearsal)

Another rehearsal with the Golden State Pops Orchestra last night. This time I got up on the platform and conducted myself!

Conducting is a great love of mine. I was never able to study it as much as I wanted to during college and conservatory, but any chance I got I snuck into conducting classes.

My greatest skills were always as a composer, but I have to say that conducting very closely rivals the joy I get from writing music. To be perfectly self-critical, though, early on I realized I had bigger gaps in raw ability as a conductor than as a composer, and so that's partly what guided me down my composition path. For one thing, I'm not particularly good at picking tempos out of mid-air. I get excited on the podium, and typically that means the music gets played a tad faster than it should be. It's something I could work on, though, should someday I start to take conducting more seriously. Where I did always excel in class, however, was my ability to convey the musicality of a piece. So I suppose if there's any sort of consolation to be had, the spirit is there... the technique is just a little raw at the moment.