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Summary: Curl your fingers around the conductor's baton. Learn more about holding a baton in this free conducting lesson from an experienced conductor and composer.
Views: 199 | Tags: classical, ballet, orchestra, symphony, conducting, conductor, opera
About the Expert
Lennon Leppert Lennon Leppert is a film composer and songwriter. He has worked on projects produced by The Discovery Channel, The History Channel and The Learning Channel. H... read more
In this clip we will learn how to hold the baton. So first of all, you're going to, you're going to, flip your hand over and you're going to make a little bit of a, a cup in your hand and you're going to have your thumb right there, and you're going to lay the baton in and then you're going to curl your fingers up and around it. And you're going to have your pointer finger right next to your thumb. And you're going to grip it. The baton should fill comfortable and firm. And you don't need to squeeze it too hard, just let it rest there and feel nice and loose. And when you flip it back over the baton should lay correctly. And you don't want anything where the baton sometimes when you first start, your baton might end up going to the left a little bit, just because of how your hand is, you know how it's, how it's shaped and stuff and how it fits in there. You're going to want to try to straighten it out so that it's like that as straight as possible, and so that your, your pattern is always pointed to the back of the room. And it can, it can go around a little bit, but you want to keep it basically straight. So you just, you want to curl your fingers around it and be nice and loose and comfortable. So, you never want to be too tense in your hand.