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Elizabeth Green and Mark Gibson’s The Modern Conductor (2004)(7th edition)
was overwhelmingly the most used textbook from the surveys, used by thirty-
seven university conducting teachers (42%) and ten experienced Melbourne
secondary school conductors (24%). The reasons for its popularity could be a
combination of familiarity, tradition of usage, and the clear format, although the
fact that other textbooks by Jordan, Garofalo and Battisti, and Maiello are more
kinaesthetically effective, indicates that expressive conducting instruction, as will
be shown, continues to be dominated by traditional methods based on technique
over kinaesthetic comfort. The previous six editions of this textbook had been
authored by Green alone, but following her death in 1995, Gibson included
‘expanded sections devoted to score study, opera conducting, rehearsing, dealing
with new scores and composers, and advice on establishing a professional career.
… Some references to conductors of the past have been replaced by more timely
examples’ (Green and Gibson 2004:xvii).
In an article in the Music Educators Journal Elizabeth Green states that the
human response to gesture is a psychological one, and that when the gesture is
correct, the musicians can understand and respond to it. Teaching conducting,
like any other activity requiring muscular skill, is a matter fundamentally of
understanding what good technique is, of knowing how to acquire it, and then of
correct practice and plenty of it (Green 1961:55).
The Modern Conductor is one of the clearest and easiest to follow textbooks in
terms of basic technique, although it is rightly criticised by Lonis for attempting
to teach physical skills through conceptual wording:
Teaching a skill through the use of written language is difficult. A videotape, or the use
of visual imagery would be helpful to get the ideas across. … The book makes
conducting seem more complicated than it need be for the beginning conductor even
though some of the exercises are very helpful. Green has some interesting ideas on
conducting, despite the fact that everything she meant to say is not clearly conveyed
through the written word, and perhaps cannot be (Lonis 1993:28-29).

Chapter One entitled ‘So You Want to Be a Conductor?’ contains useful

information about the brain and sharpening the physical tools for conducting,
Green stating: ‘The more you reinforce a pattern by repetition (practice!), the
more powerful it becomes. After a while it works automatically, and it is at your
service thereafter’ (Green and Gibson 2004:1-2). Green introduces good physical
training exercises throughout the book, initially to train the arms by experiencing
relaxation and tension, but these exercises fail to have any connection with