Seems like the musicians are all professional and could play the music without direction. What exactly is the point of a conductor?
He uses the baton to indicate the rhythm. He also cues the various sections when to start playing. For example the first violin section, viola section etc. I played second violin in junior high and high school orchestra. We’d often play a little, stop, and then resume when the conductor cued us.
Obviously, he also leads the rehearsals. Choosing which sections to practice and deciding on the approach he wants to take with the piece.
The conductor does lots of things, like set the tempo/speed, which can vary during a piece. The conductor gives cues about dynamics (soft/loud) and stylistic aspects of play. The conductor coordinates the musicians during practices, saying things like “more cello here” or “trumpets are anticipating their entry in this part,” or whatever.
what does a movie director do? professional actors can recite the script just fine on their own.
the director is the artist who interprets the work, using the orchestra as his/her instrument.
I only have second-hand accounts from amateur orchestra members, but as I understand it, certain sections have inherent tendencies (or at least reputations) for going wrong in the same way every time, if left to their own devices - for example (and from memory), I think drummers have a bit of a reputation for straining to increase the tempo, and string sections have a tendency to dominate.
Maybe I got those examples wrong, or maybe they vary from one orchestra to the next, but in any case, part of the conductor’s job is to keep it all under control.
It depends a lot on what level of orchestra you are talking about. But for most major university or professional orchestras, the vast majority of work performed by the conductor occurs during rehearsals. This is where the conductor sets the overall tone for the piece, establishes tempo, and outlines dynamic variations that he/she is looking for. All the little details about how each section approaches the piece are covered - everything from little technique issues to be used by various string members, to where a brass player should take a breath - there are thousands of decisions to be made - and they all happen during rehearsals. Once they actually get to the performance, the conductor really becomes secondary and is there mostly for starting/stopping, correcting anything that goes wrong, and reinforcing what was taught during rehearsals.
Again, first, and most importantly, the conductor makes the artistic choices about the piece during rehearsal and tells the orchestra how to play – for instance: slow down a hair here, and play the oboe part mournfully, but the violins and piccolo more sprightly, to emphasise the contrast between them, at the same time the cellos and bass should play a little more quietly. The notes on the page don’t covey everything about how to play a piece, you know.
Secondly, the conductor sets the tempo during the actual performance, so that everybody slows down the exact same amount (and starts at the same time). Unless it’s a march or a very short piece, tempos should vary slightly during the piece for artistic reasons.
At the same time, during the performance she or he can add a little emphasis to convey or re-iterate the artistic directing, though it’s generally not as important as what they say during rehearsal.
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I moved this over to Cafe Society, where we have more musicians and music fans to answer this kind of question.
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It sounds, then, like the conductor’s role is analogous to that of a pro football coach - a limited role guiding the course of actual games, but the emphasis is on training.
Having studied some conducting in college, I can say this:
Conductors have an extremely difficult job, and the difference between a mediocre and great conductor is astonishing.
I did all of my conducting in a choral setting, but it’s the same basic concepts, so I’ll try to give a brief rundown here.
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Every instrument sounds different, regardless of the performer’s skill level. This includes the voice, strings, woodwinds, or whatever. Two great performers may have conflicting instrumental timbres (tones) that interfere with each other, especially when there’s vibrato involved, even if they’re hitting each note perfectly. A good conductor can hear this type of interference and place them accordingly in their sections. Sometimes we’d switch the positions of people between different songs – their placement relative to each other produce completely different aural palettes which may be suited for some songs but not others.
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Synchronizing tempo changes between 40+ different people requires precision and very clear gestures.
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The breadth and style of gesturing can and will influence the tone of the performers. Sharp, precision movements will create sharp, precision sounds. The quality of the conductor’s gestures will affect the emotional and artistic tone of the piece. Individual performers cannot hear what the entire body sounds like as a whole, while the conductor can, and he/she will adjust gestures accordingly to create the appropriate sound.
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Footnote to the last bullet: wherever you’re placed in the group, what you hear is completely different from what someone on the other side of the group is hearing. You need that centrally-placed conductor to manage the overall sound of the group – the conductor is the only one who hears what the audience hears.
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Everything else people have stated, with one exception: Even after extensive rehearsals, it absolutely does matter what the conductor does during a performance. Depending on the performers, it’s possible to rehearse a certain way and remove the conductor element during a performance (this works best in small ensembles), but the more complex a piece is, the more dangerous this becomes.
It’s very hard work. As a performer, it’s frustrating to have a poor conductor who isn’t clear with his/her vision for the piece. My interpretation of the piece isn’t going to be the same as the person next to me. The conductor is required to unify this vision (as I noted, exceptions can be made in ensemble settings, but for large orchestras, this is next to impossible).
Strongly disagree. Conducting happens very much in real time. Words such as “a little less brass here” or “cellos, please use a little more vibrato” pale in comparison to the subtle yet powerful language of the baton.
Let me illustrate with an amusing anecdote: 
A few years back I was rehearsing an orchestra, chorus, and soloist for an upcoming performance.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am no Seiji Ozawa, but I had some 45 performances and hundreds of rehearsals under my belt, as well as years of formal training. The vocal director had read a few books on the subject and conducted his high school chorus once or twice.
The piece we were rehearsing began with low stings and a timpani roll that was ff, big, and full. It was an explosion of sound.
We were sounding pretty good. At one point, the vocal director wanted to show me what he wanted to get from the singers. He couldn’t explain it in words – he had to demonstrate it through the language of the baton. So he took the podium and started. The first note was a little imprecise, weak, mealy, soft. It failed to inspire.
I stopped the orchestra and pulled him aside. The orchestra didn’t hear what I was saying, but they saw me showing him the difference between various types of gestures. I pointed at the timpanist and demonstrated a strong gesture.
Let’s start again. The VD looked the timpanist straight in the eye, took a deep breath, raised his baton up high, and brought it down like a war hammer. The explosion of sound was glorious! 427% improvement over his last try. Every single person in the room broke out into a huge grin. Everyone knew, in that instant, the value of a strong gesture.
Later in the song, he was giving the chorus cutoffs that were crisp and precise, cutoffs that put mine to shame. I knew I had to make some immediate improvement to my technique to make them sound as good.
There is no way that we could have conveyed those sounds by saying “Could you guys maybe play a little louder?” or “Clean up the cutoffs pretty please.”
You can’t hear what the other sections sound like. You’re surrounded by others playing loud instruments. This is especially true when you’re seated next to a person playing a french horn pointed at your head from only 2 feet away.
Another amusing anecdote, mostly because I’m fondly reminiscing…
I was doing an opera back in 1995 with a group from Harvard/Radcliffe. We were giving 9 performances in two weekends. Exhausting!
We had no chance to rehearse in between the two weekends. On a weeknight after the first weekend, the orchestra manager called me to lodge a few complaints. (Actually, he had 30 or 40 of them. Whiner.) One of the complaints was that he didn’t like the way the strings were playing a dotted eighth-sixteenth passage. Too sloppy. He asked if I could square it off a bit. Now, I didn’t have a chance to rehearse it the new way or tell the musicians a thing. There was no time. But I practiced my gestures a bit and came up with something new. It wasn’t anything big or fancy, just a subtle little finger squeeze on the baton in between beats.
On performance night, I tried the new gesture. On the very first beat, the strings got it absolutely right. They all looked at me like “You changed it! And it’s way better!” The orchestra manager beamed. He knew I got it. During the intermission, a bunch of cast members commented on the improvement. It didn’t escape anyone’s attention.
No words, no rehearsal. I had a much more effective language for communicating my intentions.
The conductor is also the public face of a city’s orchestra. Most people associate John Williams or Arthur Fiedler with the Boston Pops. People that attend local performances generally know who the conductor is. The conductor is usually the one that handles interviews and sets the agenda for the orchestra.
Thanks for the link KneadToKnow
Uh… thanks audient
Thank you Headrush for the inside scoop.
Thanks everyone for your input. I had an idea that the conductor controlled tempo and volume (forte?), but I wanted to get more personalized information. One of the great things about The Dope is you can get much, much better information than a Google search. Inevitably there will be a person or persons with first hand knowledge and I’d much rather hear that than read a wiki page.
What prompted the question is that apparently we have some kind of new hot shot conductor here in town that is only 20-somfin years old. I’m not sure how, but a bunch of us dorks in the bar last night got into an argument on what a conductor actually does.
If the conductor does all that what is the sheet music for? Doesn’t the music tell you the tempo, the rests, the notes to be played, how to play each note, etc etc
I’ve been singing choral music for 35 years at least but I’ve never experienced anything like singing under the direction of a big name choral conductor of great renown.
The program included “Howl Ye” and several other pieces from Randall Thompson’s Peaceable Kingdom. In the work, one of the motifs is the word “howl” sung in descending notes over several measures. The conductor instructed two of the sections to sing the word “howl” as “ha-oh-ah-oh-ah-owl” while the other two sections sang the word as “ho-ah-oh-ah-oh-ahl.” The effect was kind of ululating and very… howl-y.
In no way was any such interpretation indicated in the score.
That was but one of the amazing subtleties the conductor brought to the performance.
The sheet music gives a framework around which musical interpretation may be established. If the black and white dots on the page were all that mattered, then all you would need is a computer program and professional performers would be out of work (particularly now that technology provides us with near-realistic sounds to use). Thankfully, this is not the case. Even Baroque pieces (which are often performed strictly as written with no interpretive flourishes) benefit from good performers and a good conductor – a sostenuto marking still requires someone to indicate a clean cutoff. Forte means loud, but exactly how loud? Largo means slow, but exactly how slow (there’s an accepted range, but where to fall within that range – the conductor decides)?