I’m Becoming a Symphony Conductor Like Marvin Hamlisch

Last month Scott and I went to Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall to see “The Fabulous 50’s With Marvin Hamlisch and Sha Na Na.” The orchestra played and Sha Na Na sang hit songs like “Blue Moon”, “Whole Lotta Shakin”, “At the Hop”, “In The Still Of The Night”, and more. The performance was followed by a sock hop so the night was an on-going party. It was just what we were promised – fabulous!

Attending this symphony was something new for me and Scott so I thought it would be important for us to understand the difference between the regular symphony orchestra and the Pops Orchestra. A Pops Orchestra plays popular music and show tunes in addition to well known classical works. The Pops is usually less "highbrow" than the other symphony orchestras, but they have the same instruments and about the same number of musicians: 80-100 people playing string, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections. We sat and raptly watched and enjoyed the music, the conductor, the musicians, and of course, Sha Na Na singing and entertaining.

I was mesmerized! I decided right then and there that I am going to become a symphony conductor.

Mr. Hamlisch is the principal POPS conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and he has a great stage presence, is pretty darn funny and very personable. He has quite an impressive music background with a lot of success and accomplishments to his credit, having won every major award that exists for his music: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards. He even received the Pulitzer Prize for “A Chorus Line”. Since he’s done well, and seems to know what he’s doing, I watched him very closely to begin my symphony conductor training.

The music conductor’s job is to indicate the beat of the music with the baton going down, up, left, right, and so on making the beat as clear as possible. As it turns out, the conductor does not play an instrument at all. They make decisions such as whether the music needs to be slow, fast, soft, loud, smooth, aggressive, and so on. The conductor communicates these decisions during the performance using the baton, different gestures and facial expressions.

All the musicians sat down and picked up their instruments. Mr. Hamlisch walked out and took his place on the conductor’s stand and lifted his baton up. As his baton came down I noticed that the musicians were no longer watching Mr. Hamlisch. They seemed to know what they were doing without any help from Marvin. All the musicians don’t play their instrument all the time. In between their instrument playing they were reading their music, watching each other, looking at the audience or each other, tapping their toes, adjusting their music stands, looking over their outfits and shoes, etc. Meanwhile, Marvin kept moving his baton around directing those musicians who were playing an instrument, and waving his free hand around at those musicians who weren’t playing their instrument at the time and trying to get their attention, I suppose.

Since I can’t play any instrument, but do know how to gesture and make faces, I feel confident that I have a pretty good start on becoming a symphony conductor. I figure I really only have three major challenges to my quest: 1) I do not have a conductor’s baton, 2) I don’t have a tuxedo, and 3) I can’t read music. Reading the music could be a challenge that I might not be able to overcome easily even though music is in my background.

My dad, Jim, loved all kinds of music. In fact, he even painted the basement of our house with red walls, gold and silver musical notes, staffs, clefs, bars, and so on. He always had the radio or record player on and was always singing. He had a wonderful voice and my mother told me that when they would go out for an evening, or were with a large group of people, he was often asked to sing solos.

Norma Jones lived next door to us and she taught piano lessons and played all the music for my mom’s dance school recitals. My parents thought some piano lessons would be a great addition to my cultural education and I faithfully went each Saturday to my piano lesson right after dancing school. I learned that middle C on the piano keyboard is found by sitting on the piano bench exactly at the middle of the keyboard and lining one’s belly button up with the central most key.

Practice makes perfect and I wanted to be a successful piano student so my parents would feel good about their effort to raise my musical appreciation and abilities and become a skilled and sophisticated pianist. So after each lesson I would come home and begin to practice what I had learned. I sat down on the piano bench, found middle C and positioned myself, closed my practice sheet music booklet, chose a piano roll, put it in place, and began to pump the pedals on our player piano with my feet. Soon, my parents realized that I was not actually playing the piano as well as it seemed and Norma Jones’s piano student roster was down by one.

Every Saturday for several years, my dad and I would go to a store in the Brushton neighborhood and pick out some piano rolls. It was always exciting to find some treasured song that my dad loved and when we got home he’d spend a few hours playing the new finds and singing along. We frequently had family and friends at our house and time was always spent around the piano with everyone taking a turn pumping the pedals and singing. It was a very musical house with the player piano, my singing dad, and my dancing mother.

In March, the Pittsburgh Pops will perform “Marvin Does Marvin” with some of Mr. Hamlisch’s best original music. Then in June Michael Feinstein will be both the pianist and vocalist while Marvin conducts the Pops Symphony for “The Sinatra Project”. I’m hoping to be ready to step in for these performances and help with the conducting part. I’ll be Marvin’s intern, if you will. I still won’t be able to play an instrument or read music, but I’ll get a baton at the music store and I’ll have enough time to practice my gestures and facial expressions.

So actually it seems all I really need is a tuxedo.