Expressive Conducting shows how the conductor's gestural language can communicate the essence and detail of the score. The principles of gestural communication--initially addressed by Max Rudolf in his landmark book, The Grammar of Conducting and then by Elizabeth Green in The Modern Conductor--are presented herein with considerable elaboration and thoroughness. Organized into syntactic modes, the conductor's gestural language--which otherwise might seem to be an array of capricious and illogical motion--is given a conceptual framework. Using the power of multimedia, the author leaves little doubt regarding intent.

Expressive Conducting, Version 3.0--the first multimedia resource for conducting--is designed to help musicians learn to conduct. The software provided on DVD rom is the primary tool and contains text, scores, video, and animations in the context of interactive multimedia. From within the software, the scores and instrumental parts may be opened, played, printed and edited with Finale NotePad 2004. The text can be opened, read, printed and searched with Acrobat Reader 6.0. The video clips can be played with QuickTime 6.5. Finale NotePad, Acrobat Reader and QuickTime are included with the software. Principal authoring software: Macromedia's Director 8.5. Two books accompany the software: Scores (137 short scores, 270 pages).and Text (14 chapters with step-by-step explanations, graphics and annotations for conducting the scores, 330 pages.)