Our summer Chant Intensive courses (next summer will feature Jenny Donelson teaching) are also great for that... also Fr. Mark Bachmann will begin working with people on the Solesmes method kicking off a first class (in English) next summer, to be followed up with correspondence work. Both courses will be at Duquesne University next summer.

I know you mentioned you cannot attend the Colloquium this year, but if you could, we have a new chant choir that will focus on chant conducting -- this year it will be led by Scott Turkington... (just sayin').

Last idea... if you cannot go somewhere to get the training, maybe you can sponsor a workshop and bring in a fine chant conductor to your area. Perhaps if you allow a little time in the schedule, the guest conductor would give you and others who are interested some personalized instruction.

What I learned myself is basically traditional Solesmes method, and without a lot of workshops.

Solfege I got from majoring in music. A resource I would refer to is the FSSP's page; basically, however you go about it, you want to have the skill of being able to sight-sing, and conversely, to hear things and be able to write them down / identify them. That way, you are not tied to an instrument or recording, but can learn any new chant straight out of the book. Singing exercises, simple melodies, intervals, scales on solfege is the sort of thing to do; also taking dictation, as it were.

How to do Solesmes counting and place the ictus is the sort of thing you can read in any number of places; I usually direct people to the summary in the back of the Parish Book of Chant for a concise explanation of these rules. At first, it is a good exercise to mark up a copy of a chant so that all the counting is figured out. Also to sing the counting. Eventually, you want to be able to sight-sing while also observing the correct counting, on the fly.

How to do Solemes arsis / thesis conducting I learned about from The Technique of Gregorian Chironomy. Basically, one of the main points of worrying about the ictus is so that you have a framework on which to hang your conducting gestures. Each ictus can either be conducted as a sort of rising, or falling. A problem that I remember having when I read this book was that I could not understand from the diagrams how the gestures ought to be made. I think I finally saw this simple video, which rather cleared things up. [Or as another example, here is a random video I came across recently which has some clear shots of Solesmes conducting.] I should mention, when you are working on this arsis / thesis stuff, you mark up your scores with those peculiar wave-lines (or else A's and T's) to show the results of your analysis of how a particular chant should be conducted; and you eventually learn to do this more on the fly.

So, that is partially how I mostly self-taught myself chironomy.

This summer, I attended the CMAA's Summer Chant Intensive for Directors, which was useful. The interesting thing was to see how Mr. Brouwers would use Solesmes arsis / thesis conducting as a foundation, but then overlay with semiology from the Graduale Triplex. The two are not incompatible: you can keep your gestures tied to the counting of 2's and 3's, but then simply make the rate of counting quite variable, and the gestures rather customized and indescribable.

Another interesting thing was way Solesmes conducting was covered concisely, in just one class period, at the end of which we were told, "This is all [of] chironomy. Is this clear?"

Anyhow, I would contend that anyone interested in conducting chant ought at least to know the basics of how the traditional Solesmes method works.

Do read, though, the chapter "Fundamental Concepts" in the Textbook of Chironomy for the author's opinion of where you ought be skill-wise to be considering wanting to conduct: whether or not you happen to measure up at this time, it is a refreshing perspective.

The Colloquium will be in St. Paul, MN at the University of St.Thomas. June 19-24, 2017.

In some ways, you really don't have to conduct chant at all: it is sometimes better not to conduct, and let the singers sing (even better, you can sing with them). If all else fails, you can simply give start and stop gestures and sing the chant with the schola.

I agree with Clerget. What it boils down to, and about the only thing I feel the need to somewhat direct anymore, are expressively extended tones (episemas, mostly, because bi- and tri-strophas should be obvious).