Class is a busy, sometimes noisy place where you and your pianist need to send unequivocal messages and react quickly. Once you’ve established a good working relationship and understand each other, shortcuts such as hand signals, non-verbal noises & facial expressions are often more useful than words for getting a message across. Some examples:
- a smile tells your pianist the tempo’s good
- “Mmm tut tut Mmm tut tut” counts a rhythm in three without needing counts
- gently lowering a downward-facing palm indicates ‘take the speed down a bit’
- a flamenco gesture says ‘something with a bit of Spanish character’
- two clicks is all you need to set a tempo
- Depending on context, the ‘it was this big!’ gesture might mean ‘a nice big waltz’ or ‘stretch it out’
- Likewise, if you then reduce the width of the gesture, as in the photo above, this might mean ‘not so big’ or ‘medium speed’
