
What do conductors do? - zck
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10782663/What-do-conductors-do.html
======
tunesmith
(I was expecting an article about electricity.)

Having done a little of both, I found it easier to write for full orchestra
than to conduct one. Conducting is extremely hard. Just the simple practice of
conducting ahead of the beat (where you're motioning beat 1 while they're
still, roughly, on beat 4) is a bit of a brain bender. The first time I tried
to conduct a student orchestra, that alone was enough to make the tempo get
slower and slower over time, as I kept trying to correct to their beat while
they would in turn correct to mine. Add on to that all the emotive
requirements - you need to be a special kind of extravert to take to
conducting naturally, I think.

At any rate, conductors are essential to the rehearsal process, as they're
responsible for the interpretation, which is rehearsed. By the time
performance comes around, the conductor is less essential, serving a more of a
coach that gives cues, triggers, and reminders about the shape and
interpretation that the ensemble has worked up.

~~~
malkuth23
I sometimes operate media servers that deliver video for several classical
pops concerts including Fantasia and a number of more modern Hollywood type
movies. The conductor gets a special synchronized video feed with white dots
flashing to indicate tempo, colored lines to show when changes are coming up
and bar numbers, all superimposed over the movie. The conductor has to speed
up and slow down the orchestra in order to match the music exactly (or as
close as possible) to the original video. I never change the speed of the
video. Some pieces seem to be harder and also require a click track. These are
shows that obviously require very close attention to the conductor.

I always wonder if all the orchestra was given a click and a copy of the
modified video, if the conductor could just sit down and eat a sandwich. Of
course, that is kind of like contrasting watching a DJ that selects mp3 tracks
vs someone who can adeptly spin vinyl.

Curiously, I can tell you from listening to the conductors speak candidly,
they often consider this sort of conducting much harder despite these added
tools. Even when they are playing very familiar pieces like the music from
Fantasia, it is very difficult to match it so exactly to the original. They
compare adjusting the speed of an orchestra to speeding or slowing a freight
train.

With professional orchestras, most only do 1-2 rehearsals before the shows I
control video. It is amazing how fast the musicians take notes and adapt to
the direction of the conductor. There is almost always a marked improvement
between 1st and 2nd rehearsal and the actual show.

I will say that having stood at the conductor's podium at many of the top
theaters in the U.S. (while empty) - it is an incredibly intimidating thought.
Every seat points straight at you. It is much more singularly focused than a
dramatic stage. It definitely has given me (someone with very little musical
understanding) a great deal of respect for their responsibilities.

~~~
JanezStupar
Mixing MP3s is no less of an art than mixing vinils...

~~~
malkuth23
I am sure that is true (I don't have a music background). I just think it is
usually much more interesting to watch someone perform with vinyl. More
showmanship or something.

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stevetjoa
You can think of the orchestra as a meta-instrument. Just like a violinist
plays the violin, a conductor plays the orchestra.

 _Someone_ has to make the musical decisions. In a string quartet, it might be
the first violin. In a baroque ensemble, as the article stated, it might be
the harpsichordist. In a symphony, it's the conductor.

Sure, a conductor keeps time, but not so much during the performance itself.
With enough practice, any professional orchestra should be able to keep time
on its own, but during rehearsal, someone still needs to say exactly what that
tempo is in the first place.

Having played with many amateur orchestras, currently rehearsing with one
weekly, I've seen good and bad conductors. Just like a CEO or basketball coach
or political leader, the conductor shares his/her vision of "success" yet
knows the low-level technical details of the craft required to lead them
there. The part about waving one's arms on stage has little to do with it.

An organization -- any organization -- acquires the characteristics of its
leader. Therefore, one must not underestimate the importance of a good
conductor.

~~~
sgeisenh
What is excellent about chamber music, in particular, is that no individual
makes the musical decisions. Each musician is talented enough to be able to
react and expound upon the decisions of each of the other players. Honestly,
chamber music is often more of a social challenge than a technical or musical
one.

~~~
solistice
I've been told the same thing by people who do Jazz, that they just sit down
and go with it because everyone there is talented enough to run with it.

------
bane
I played in orchestras from 6 to about 23, from small professional quartets to
huge 100+ piece complete symphonies - mostly enthusiastic amateur ensembles,
but I did manage to get hooked onto a small tour ensemble that hit a handful
of cities in just post Iron Curtain Russia and took part in some national
level Orchestra competitions. plus made a little bit of spare change playing
weddings and benefit events for a while. Had to give it up due to medical
issues, but nothing beats sitting in the middle of a Symphony Orchestra going
at full-steam.

I'm pretty convinced that the act of a symphony doing their thing is one of
the most impressive split second coordinated acts of cooperation humans have
every achieved. A conductor is really important for this, especially as the
number of players gets larger.

A small trio/quartet can get by just by themselves. Even moderately sized
chamber orchestras can manage "ok" with maybe a lead instrumentalist kicking
off a tune with an exaggerated nod -- you just rehearse a lot and listen to
each other. But once you break maybe 30 or 40 people trying to synchronize
complex sound production, manually, with 1/100th of a second precision, it
starts getting hard.

Conductors are really critical also in setting the "tone" or interpretation of
a piece and the program that the orchestra plays. It's why some orchestras
play a piece soft and loud in some bits, or another might play quiet and fast.
Or one might use a version of the piece where the oboes pick up a flute
harmony in the third movement, etc. In many orchestras they also set the
position of players, usually through section auditions. It's how one violinist
ends up near the conductor and another one ends up in the back row of the 2nd
violins trying to hear themselves play over th e bassoons.

Rehearsal is harder at scale. It's hard getting 100 people together over and
over, so there's section rehearsals where maybe just the violins break off and
work, or just the brass instruments. At that level maybe just the section
leader runs the rehearsal with the conductor dropping in to set vision.

Then you build a bigger part of the orchestra and rehears that, maybe with an
assistant conductor or the conductor proper. And maybe you do the full thing a
couple of times than go out and perform. A pro-level orchestra can get an all
new program of music and turn it around into a performance inside of a week or
two.

Think how hard it is to coordinate just a half dozen programmers.

~~~
politician
After reading your comment, and considering Serf (the docker coordination
thing), I wonder what it would sound like for musicians to coordinate over a
gossip protocol (rather than through a centralized conductor which as you note
struggles to scale). What would that even look like?

EDIT: Or, as sgeisenh points out below, that's chamber music.

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theorique
Well, in a metal, it has to do with free electrons at the Fermi surface ...
oh, you mean _music_. Never mind.

But more seriously, cool article. I think I understand the conductor's role in
the orchestra better now.

~~~
logfromblammo
HN readers, please raise your hand if the first thing you though about when
reading the headline was _not_ electricity. Now put your hands down if it was
something to do with thermal energy. Now put them down if you were thinking
about trains. If your hand is still up, please remove all metal items, swallow
this, step into the fMRI, and hold still.

~~~
StavrosK
So, basically, whoever thought "orchestra conductors" needs an fMRI?

~~~
logfromblammo
The elements of the joke are as follows. I assumed that HN readers have a
higher probability than the general population to associate words with
scientific or engineering meanings. I further assumed that as this site has a
high association with electronics, the electrical meaning of conductor would
be most prevalent. This was reinforced by the parent post, who stated nearly
exactly what I had been thinking, right down to the smirking overcleverness
with which it described to motion of elecromagnetic charge. Before clicking on
the link, I thought of other things that could be meant by "conductor". I came
up with heat transfer and train tickets. I didn't even think of orchestras,
probably because I had always been in bands, where the leaders were
overwhelmingly _directors_ , _band leaders_ , and _drum majors_.

The second element of the joke is that I presumed that HN readers, having a
variety of esoteric hobbies, might also have an interest in cognitive science
and linguistics (particularly the AI folks), and might want to analyze the
brain of an outlier. I then decided that, while less accessible to a home
hobbyist than brain surgery or in-depth psychological profiling, fMRI imaging
conveyed the point of the joke in shorter, more recognizable wording, without
actually being a very probable outcome.

In reality, you would probably be wired up to a home-made sensor array and
presented with a series of time-indexed sensory inputs via headphones and a
computer screen, and perhaps asked to press certain button sequences in
response.

So, in short, no, those people do not need a fMRI. You, however.... I would
like to analyze your physiological response to traditional comedy and contrast
that with nerd jokes....

------
bananas
My music teacher at school called conductors "meat sequencers". After reading
this, perhaps it was a little bit of an understatement!

------
PaulJulius
The drum major of Stanford's Band is pretty exceptional:

[http://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/Stanford-
band-s-...](http://www.sfgate.com/collegesports/article/Stanford-band-s-
spiritual-leader-drum-major-5102715.php)

I auditioned for the job this year in a King Tut costume but didn't get it. I
can't say that I know exactly what the drum major does either, but I think
spiritual leader is a good way to put it.

While it may be hard to describe the exact purpose of the drum major, some
definitely stand out. This year was the 50th anniversary of the Band and many
old drum majors came back to play with us. At one point each of them got to
conduct a song, and some of them were just incredible.

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GoRudy
The Grammar of Conducting: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Grammar-Conducting-
Comprehensive-I...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Grammar-Conducting-
Comprehensive-Interpretation/dp/0028722213)

------
lam
They're also called maestros (to disambiguate for those technically inclined).
Great ones are heard instead of being seen. By the time we see them on stages,
most of the things great conductors do have already been done, and they're
basically metronomes. The even better ones have a showmanship in them to help
the audience to appreciate the music even more. Check out (rehearsal)
performances by Szell, Solti, von Karajan, and our very own Michael Tilson
Thomas.

------
moioci
Here's a worthwhile TED talk on the topic:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam_lead_like_the_great_con...](http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam_lead_like_the_great_conductors)

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mike_esspe
Where can I listen to the same composition, by the same orchestra, but with
different conductors?

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jberryman
> They know that at bottom, there is something deeply primitive and
> instinctual about the ability to make 70 people breathe, move and feel as
> one.

This is absolutely true. The rest of the article is random observation that
explains very little.

