Ted Talk Analysis: Lead Like the Great Conductors

Link to Video: Itay Talgam: Lead Like the Great Conductors

Von Karajan

In July of 2009, Mr. Itay Talgam gave a speech at TEDGlobal, a conference where speakers from around the world gather to give speeches on their area of expertise.  Talgam analyzed how 6 of the greatest conductors led their orchestras -- Carlos Kleiber, Riccardo Muti, Richard Strauss, Herbert Von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, and Peter (no last name given).  The audience seemed to have some background in music; at least enough to understand what Talgam was talking about.

Talgam had plenty of visual aids.  About a quarter of his time on stage was videos of different conductors leading their orchestras through different pieces so that the audience could see what those conductors did themselves, instead of relying on the speaker to tell them and describe it.  He got the audience to participate in following his imitations of some of the conductors, keeping them engaged throughout most of the lecture.  He showed them the conductor’s style, and then talked about it instead of the other way around.   By doing so, he kept the audience’s attention by forcing them to see and judge for themselves, instead of giving them the answers right away.  He made eye contact with different sections of the audience consistently while talking, he provided plenty of diverse evidence, and he kept his speech very organized: Talk, video, talk about the conductor, repeat.  It was very easy to follow and he was engaging enough that I was able to keep with the program.

Leonard Bernstein

Although he was very good at keeping the audience engaged, there were some moments where he lost my interest.  I feel like he went off script closer to the end because he seemed to be rambling, since he knew the last two conductors personally and wanted to talk about them as his friends instead of as professionals.  His delivery and content was very strong, but to even further improve them, he could have used higher quality videos (the poor quality was distracting at times), videos that only showed the conductor (there were shots that covered the entire orchestra and missed the conductor), had one of the videos silenced so that the only thing we were observing was the conductor and not the music, and he could have compared two conductors leading the same piece.  The first two things he could do very little about – the videos are the fault of the people who filmed and the equipment they used, but using the same piece and analyzing how two different conductors conducted it would have been telling. Doing that would have highlighted the differences between each conductor.  Using different pieces added another element because how conductors lead a piece is very dependant on the mood and story of that particular piece.  Nobody would conduct Nimrod for Enigma Variations and the finale from Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony the same way.  Nimrod is an extremely slow, loving piece, whereas the finale is fiery, loud, and ‘in your face.’  Yet, Talgam decided to display many different moods of music, which would affect how the conductors conducted.  Using similar or the same piece would really show off the difference and give the audience a deeper understanding of how conductors lead their orchestras.

Richard Strauss