The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of a method designed to enhance the musical expressiveness, specificity, and comfort of student conductors through the use of acting exercises. The principle aim of these exercises was to develop a conductor's physical gestures and movements. Specific questions investigated included: Do acting exercises help novice conductors feel more comfortable about conducting? Will novice conductors find acting techniques useful in improving their ability to perform physical conducting gestures? Will studying acting exercises hinder students' knowledge of traditional conducting patterns? Do acting exercises help novice conductors appear more comfortable, allow for better breathing habits, create better connection to an ensemble, move more expressively, and move with greater specificity in the evaluations provided by qualified judges?

Volunteers for this study (N = 33) were members of a beginning conducting class in a large Midwestern University. One treatment group received instruction in the area of theatre based movement exercises. The other treatment group received traditional instruction in conducting gestures. To assess changes in volunteer attitudes, questionnaires were used with the groups concerning the experiment both prior to and following its implementation. Additionally, the expressivity and specificity of the volunteers were assessed through review and scoring of videotaped conducting performances by a panel of experts. These scores were used to examine any effects of the treatment. Through statistical analysis, the results obtained from this study had the following implications: (1) Theatre exercises designed to improve the expressivity, specificity, and comfort levels of novice conductors have a positive effect on the ability of the conductors to perform physical conducting gestures. (2) Students are open to and act favorably to incorporating exercises designed to increase a conductor's expressivity. (3) Students are open to and act favorably to incorporating theatre exercises designed to increase a conductor's expressivity into a beginning conducting class. (4) There were no significant interactions between the control and experimental groups among any of the research questions. Both experimental and traditional methods seemed to allow for student growth equally.