Who is your "Main Character?"

Who is the "Main Character" in your work? 

For a responsible, effective, service-based conductor, it will be your audience, your orchestra, or your community.

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Episode Transcript

Jeremy (00:00):
Hi there everybody.
Jeremy here.
And today I want to talk aboutthe role that we serve in
relation to our differentconstituents.
So yesterday was May 4th, maythe fourth be with you and
thinking about star wars.
Are you placing yourself in yourlife and in your work and in
your music as Luke?

(00:21):
Or has OB one.
In the hero's journey framework.
Are you the hero?
Or you the guide.
For the people around you.
And I want to talk about thethree different.
Constituencies.
That we have as conductors.
In our communities.

(00:41):
In our orchestras and theorganization that we work with
and our students are in ouraudience.
Each of us has three differentgroups of people.
That we should be serving as theguide for that.
We should be serving as OB one,serving as Yoda.
Instead of being the maincharacter of what we do.

(01:02):
We want to have that activehumility.
To make sure.
That we are supporting people.
Because that is our job.
Our job is to lead people andhelp them.
Create great music and have.
Incredible experiences.
So first the obvious one, I wantto talk about.

(01:22):
The audience.
How are you guiding theaudience?
To having a great experience tochanging who they are by
experiencing music by having agreat evening.
You know, I like to think thatwe can have, we can give
audiences a like transformativemoving experience.
Like a big Mahler symphony or anAdagio for strings.

(01:46):
Or we can.
Give them fun.
Excitement, relaxing.
Something that doesn'tfundamentally change who they
are, but take, lets them take astep out of life.
To connect.
With.
Friends to connect with.
Uh, Good evening.
To have a good time.

(02:08):
But with either of these,whatever you're giving to your
audience, through the music thatyou programming through your
performance.
Is your guiding them to becomebetter on the other side, in
some way, you're guiding themthrough the experience.
And if you guide them through anexperience with low energy, and
if you guide them through thatexperience, by getting angry at

(02:28):
the orchestra and shaking yourhead during the performance, you
take them out of it and you arenot.
Guiding them.
As well as you could be.
And we also have to guide.
The orchestra.
For teachers, this is going tobe a big part of your audience.
For more professional.

(02:48):
Level conductors.
Is there of course going to bethe orchestra members.
How are we guiding them?
This is, this is the, this iswhat we talk about a lot on the
podcast already.
How we can guide the orchestras.
Go listen to our episode withTiffany Chang.
About how we can be betterleaders to the people under us.
But just like the energy that webring.
And the passion that we bring toour live performances for the

(03:10):
audience.
This happens for the orchestraas well.
Whatever energy you bring intothat.
Rehearsal into that concert.
You're either bringing people upto your level.
Or if you come in low energy,you are pulling people down.
To your level.
So I encourage you to consider.

(03:31):
What you're bringing and don'tbe the kind of conductor that
comes in and pulls the orchestradown.
Don't be the kind of conductorthat lets the crap in your
everyday life.
That stresses you out.
Don't let that affect your work.
Be a professional.
If you're a teacher that's superimportant because you are
shaping these people.
These students' lives, not justthe day and not just the

(03:52):
concert, but you are showingthem how you show up.
Every day.
And having that influence.
And the third constituent that Iwant you to think about.
Is the organization that youwork for?
Or your larger mission.
Your impact.
On the.
Orchestra your impact on theworld, your impact on the

(04:13):
community.
What are you bringing to that?
What energy are you bringing tothat?
How much.
Good work.
Are you bringing to that?
How much motivation?
How are you lifting people up?
How are you setting yourorchestra up for success in the
future?
How are you setting yourcommunity up to be transformed
by the orchestra?
How are you building thoseconnections?

(04:36):
And how are you guiding them?
Into a better future.
As conductors, we get so focusedon us, us, us.
We get so focused on this iswhat I want to conduct.
This is what I want to conduct.
This is what I want to conduct.
We trick ourselves into thinkingthat what we want to do is also

(04:56):
good for the community.
But I challenge you to considerwhat's actually good for the
community.
And then do that better.