How to conduct a choir

How to conduct a choir

Hold your hands at chest height,

said the bass singer at the back,

We can see the beat better that way.

You don’t need to raise your shoulders,

just the eyebrows will do, and a smile.

We will follow you.

And they do.

They watch for the anacrusis,

I breathe up into the top of the beat

They wait for the moment of descent,

the ictus

And they come with me

From the first bar to the next

Then from that system and over the page

My hands draw a line of waiting, a pause,

A fermata.

Into the silence a soprano calls out her melody.

From that one note, the men

And the deep altos find their harmony

And hum it into existence.

We are all suspended in this moment

Of intonation so perfect

That a harmonic emerges in the high ceiling.

I stretch my arms to hold the chord longer

We all take tiny unheard breaths

as I smooth the resonance down into pianissimo.

They watch my fingers close off the sound,

As if I am holding up a piece of finest silk,

then placing it over my heart.