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Masterful Choral Conducting

A tutorial from Ronald Staheli and Rosalind Hall of Brigham Young University
Masterful Choral Conducting is a tutorial designed to expand understanding and enhance the skills of choral music conductors. Build confidence and add technical precision to your conducting through this innovative series from the choral directors of Brigham Young University.

Refine your conducting skills and explore new techniques through this pioneering program. Learn to manage music’s smallest details—the hallmark of every brilliant choral performance.

  • Acquire meaningful and efficient gestures as you master each of the 18 lessons in this remarkable series. Ronald Staheli and Rosalind Hall will help you achieve the musical precision and compelling artistry that have become a choral tradition at Brigham Young University. They will give you unique, ingenious tools to successfully meet each score’s demands. They will lead you through the labyrinths in which so many conductors get lost. Learn new ways to tackle breath releases, fermatas, and phrase shaping. Pick up new tools such as the fool-proof prep, lingering/accelerating travel, and the multi-purpose SuperClick. Build confidence as you master everything from legato/marcato styles to irregular and asymmetric meters.

  • Honed through decades of working with exceptional choirs and preparing graduate student conductors, this series follows a methodical and logical approach to choral conducting. You can progress at our own pace, stop and review, or easily skip ahead.

    • Watch simultaneous front and back over-the-shoulder views of the conductor on split screens.
    • Follow along in the score provided on-screen and in the accompanying workbook.
    • Learn at your own pace. Practice along with Professors Staheli and Hall.
    • Conduct as a BYU choir sings each piece

  • Unit 1: Essential Theory Review

    • Firming Up the Foundation

    Unit 2: Beat Patterns, Stroked and Clicked Icti

    • Getting It Straight; To Stroke or to Click?

    Unit 3: The Legato Gesture: Learning to Resist

    • Abandoning the Flippant Yank

    Unit 4: The Marcato Gesture

    • The Supple Accent

    Unit 5: The Conducting Mechanism

    • Aligning the Sinew

    Unit 6: The Preparatory and Final Release Gestures

    • The Fool-Proof Prep
    • The Right Release

    Unit 7: Breath Releases

    • Is It Stop/Flick or Accelerating Travel?

    Unit 8: Melding

    • Timekeeper or Phrase Sculptor?

    Unit 9: The SuperClick

    • That Subtle But Vital Ingredient

    Unit 10: Student/Teacher Demonstration

    • The Basics - Shenandoah
    • One-on-One - Round One

    Unit 11: Subdivision

    • Sweating the Small Stuff

    Unit 12: Fermatas

    • Head-to-Head With the Peskiest Fermatas

    Unit 13: Dynamics

    • The Myriad Possibilities of Size and Color

    Unit 14: Cuing

    • Tour Guide or Traffic Cop?

    Unit 15: Shaping and Phrasing

    • Music’s Exquisite Life Blood

    Unit 16: Student/Teacher Demonstration

    • Beyond the Basic - God So Loved the World
    • One-on-One - Round Two

    Unit 17: Irregular Meters

    • The Dips and Dashes

    Unit 18: Conclusion

    • Christ the Lord Is Risen Today: Getting It All Together . . .

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