Baton Basics is a unique approach to the teaching of conducting, based upon the concept of conveying weight, resistance, and energy, combined with size, beat placement, and speed, through gestures and motions that you already know, in order to communicate a better concept of musical sound to the musicians.Learn how to communicate music through gestures, by training the muscles of your fingers, hands, wrist, forearm, and full arm. Release body tension, improve your posture, and develop a deeper sense of calm on the podium through overall body and breathing exercises.Explore the concepts and diagrams of Max Rudolph, and the Ilya Musin and Hideo Saito conducting methods, and learn how to best incorporate these into your own technique, along with excercises for conducting cues, fermatas, recitative, controlling tempo, showing dynamics, and conducting crescendos and diminuendos. Learn which gestures are most effective in producing specific types of sounds, musical attacks, and releases.Baton Basics features over 60 video examples on a companion web site and 120 detailed illustrations to help you improve your conducting technique. Baton Basics can be used by a student just starting out, or by professional conductors who have been conducting for many years. It is a valuable took for anyone interested in expanding their vocabulary of conducting gestures.