First time I ever conducted was when I was in junior highschool in Chiba, Japan, suburb of Tokyo. As I was growing up in Japan in 1980s, 90s, each class room had to sing a song for a yearly singing competition. Back then, our generation was probably like Dragon Ball Generation, or Generation X (unlike one in US) where there were so many babies born during the time. 1.6 million babies were born in Japan in the year of 1979. (0.6 million babies were born in 2026.)
I remember my class room was Class E and there were classes up to H. So, if they had 40 kids in each class room, ABCDEFGH, 320 kids in the year. I was one of many suburb kids who was not paying attention to the class study and was playing soccer every chance I got. I wasn’t very good at it, and I didn’t make a A team. But, I enjoyed the soccer practice.
One day, my class room teacher and music teacher asked me to conduct a class choir. We were learning two pieces of music for a singing competition. My classroom teacher said that if I conduct, bad classmates who were messing around in the back would join to sing. I had that kind of leadership, I guess. Until then, there was a smart girl who could play piano well was conducting the choir, and my friends were not paying attention. They were messing hair and kicking other kids rear-end etc. I had to manage the situation while I was in charge. To be honest, I was good friends with the bad boys in the class, so all I had to do was to stare at them. In short, I managed conducting a classroom just fine. So, I probably made impression that when I conducted, everybody sang…
The chorus piece I had to conduct was about aftermath of the Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima. It was a heavy and dark subject. I wonder if I can add a link here.
https://youtu.be/f33pjc3qA78?si=Br_fN3vqCCOp5o6U
For me, if I listened to music for a few times, I could pretty much have it in my memory. So, when I was picked to conduct, I already knew all the parts, for example, I could sing soprano, alto and tenor parts. I could tell who was breathing in wrong place, where the pitch gets bent, which key the grand piano in the music room is out and so on. I was in Yamaha Music School with my sister in very young age. We played music like a toy, like hey what pitch is this? Can you sing this song etc. My brother had me listen to so many western pop music, Van Halen, Metallica, Stevie Wonder, Beethoven, Simon and Garfunkel etc. My sister was constantly listening and singing musicals, ballet music, oldies, and J-pop. I absorbed them all. I am guessing that my classroom teacher and music teacher could tell I had decent ears!
After that, I was picked to conduct a graduation ceremony and then later I was picked to be a student conductor for a brass band in High School. So, somehow, I was able to conduct for more than 3 decades!
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