So this past weekend I’m watching Bugs Bunny conduct an orchestra. A fly starts to buzz around him, and as he uses the conducting baton to try the shoo it, the orchestra starts playing at high speed to keep up with his motions.
And this made me wonder. Could a conductor do that? If he suddenly starts waving the baton around faster does the orchestra have to try and keep the pace? Could they?
I played saxaphone in school for a while, and from what I remember, the pieces we were playing had definitely pacing, with all of the instruments supposed to be playing the speed specified on the sheet music. Granted, it was just a school band, but wouldn’t orchastra’s follow the same idea? No matter what piece you’re playing, you’re still playing it the way it’s written on the sheet music. If you don’t, then different instruments start playing out of sequence.
So what does a conductor actually do? Why are the good ones accorded such respect?
Well, playing what’s on the sheet music is expected, but if you’ve got a giant symphony orchestra, it’s pretty hard for everybody to stay exactly in synch with one another. Some guy has to be in charge of saying when each beat occurs, and that’s the conductor. That said, most musicians don’t watch the conductors hand motions to time every single beat in the piece. The conductor also signals different sections of the orchestra to come in at various points. Of course the musicians know when they’re supposed to start playing, but the conductor makes sure they all start at exactly the same time.
The conductor’s role is also somewhat interprative. He decides which parts to play softer or louder, when to increase or decrease the tempo, and may even re-arrange harmonies as he sees fit.
I am not a music theorist or anything, but I don’t think orchestral sheet music typically has any absolute timing information on it. I mean, you don’t actually know how fast “allegro” is supposed to be, do you?
Questions of interpretation aside, a conductor is required to maintain tempo. Without this a group of musicians typically “surge” the tempo. It is incredibly hard to delay playing a note a little, so typically the group plays faster and faster until the problem is obvious, then they start doing the hard work of trying to slow down, then fail, then try again.
ONE person must be in charge of selecting, maintaining, or intentionally changing the tempo. In a rock band, this is the drummer. In a chamber orchestra, it is the first violinist. In these cases, the other musicians can hear, and identify by sound the “tempo leader.” In a symphony orchestra, this is not the case. Also consider it may require half a beat for sound to travel from the rear of the first violin section to the far side of the stage. Even if they could identify the tempo leader, If they try to stay on the beat by listening, they will end up behind. Light travels much faster than sound, so by using sight, the musicians can stay in sync.
So large groups of musicians need a leader who leads by visual cues. A choir director, a symphony conductor, the Drum Major of a marching band, Laurence Welk, etc.
Speaking of which, ever notice that the Drum Major has no drum, and is separated from the drums by the whole rest of the band? The Drum Major is setting the tempo for the drums, which all the other musicians can hear. If they stay in tempo, the rest of the band can easily follow. Putting the DM at the front also allows him to steer and otherwise control the marching of the band.
And even if you do know, how precisely do you think humans can keep track of time? If my “allegro” is .250 seconds per beat, and yours is .251 seconds, then after a minute, we’d be a full beat off from each other. We have to be keeping to the same beat as some reference, and that reference needs to be visual, to avoid speed-of-sound problems. And that reference is the conductor’s baton.
In a professional symphony, the musicians are expected to explicitly follow the conductor. If he speeds up, the musicians must speed up. If he slows down, the musicians must slow down. The musicians (if they’re competent) are constantly looking up and the conductor and then back down at the music. This is especially important in opera and in concertos, where the conductor is actually following the soloist, and the orchestra is in turn following the conductor. If any part of this chain fails, it will sound as though the soloist is off from the orchestra.
The conductor is also responsible for the interpretation of the music. Starting the group together and at the correct tempo is just one part of the job; there are also lots of subtle changes in tempo, volume, articulation, and mood throughout every piece of music. The conductor is largely responsible for coordinating these things so the whole group does them together.
But there is a limit to what a conductor can do. In a professional group, if the conductor did something crazy like swatting at a fly, the musicians’ training would take over, and they would most likely continue playing at the normal tempo. There are also different styles of conductors. Some are very flamboyant, and might exaggerate their gestures to the point where they aren’t always literally followed by the group. And if the conductor is incompetent, he’s going to be ignored when he does something completely wrong. There are two main directives for a musician: following the conductor, and keeping the group from falling apart. If those two directives conflict, they’re going to try to “save” the performance at all costs, even if it means ignoring an errant conductor.
The reason you don’t notice this much in an amateur or school group is because it takes years and years of experience to be able to follow a conductor. You have to be able to read ahead in the music to a certain degree and instantly memorize the next few notes in order to allow yourself to constantly glance up at the conductor. Then you have to be able to find your place in the music again when you look back down. For intermediate players who are still struggling to read the music and finger the notes correctly, the best the conductor can do is start the piece off and try to keep it going at the correct pace.
A good conductor must know the music intimately, have his/her own ideas on the interpretation of the music, be able to communicate these ideas to the group using accepted conducting technique, and be able to command respect and be a strong leader. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
I’ll point out that one critical duty of a conductor is to rehearse that peice over and over again until the band plays it the way he wants it. Thus, what he does on the day of the symphony is almost moot. Making the role of “guest conductor” a honor not a job.
Hear, hear. Like a coach, most of the conductor’s job is done before the performance. During the show, her/his main jobs are being a metronome for the orchestra, and giving the audience something to look at.
I’ve been wondering about the OP for many years. I’ve always understood the “interpretation” part of the job, like when part of the orchestra should be louder or softer, but I’ve never understood the “timing” part of the job, and this explanation is simply superb. Thank you.
Stages are really that large that sound from one side can take a half a beat to reach another side? What of audience members that are closer to one side than another, then? Won’t the music sound out of sync to them (as the sounds from one side will reach them noticeably sooner than the corresponding sounds from the other side)?
I just find it difficult to believe that speed of light vs. speed of sound issues have much to do with the matter. The other explanations are perfectly satisfactory to me.
I find this a bit hard to believe, too, because, while I’m not formally trained in music, I’ve been to concerts where I could guess from the “coolness” or “hotness” of the bass timing relative to the drums who exactly was playing the bass*, an effect subtle enough that it would probably be drowned out by an effect big enough to mess with professional musician’s timing.
That said, I have been at stadium concerts that were extremely annoying since the drums were out of synch with when you hear them, I was so far away. Gaaahhh!
*Scott Schoenbeck, playing with Dashboard Confessional, after I had already heard his work with The Promise Ring. I didn’t guess it was him, but I did recognize similarities in his bass playing style to Dashboard’s. He’s not that great a bassist but his work on Best Looking Boys is probably my favorite bass playing from any modern rock song. The downbeat, slow, and loud style is exactly suited for that song.
If it’s a fast enough beat, yes. More importantly, there is often enough reverb, which is considerably behind the beat, to confuse the issue. How do you know whether the timpano strike you’re hearing is the one just played, or the one bouncing off the back wall?
As for audience–I suppose being in orchestra front way off to the left or right could result in a bit of a ragged tempo. There’s a reason that the most expensive seats tend to be in the middle of the lowest balcony level–that’s where the best sound is.
Taking a rough figure of 330m/s for the speed of sound…that’s 0.027 seconds across a small orchestra. At crotchet=120, that’s more than a seventh of a semiquaver (16th note for those who don’t know the real words ).
And anyway, think of playing instruments with the parallel of a golf swing, or kicking a football (any version of the sport), or whatever. For the required effect, much of what is needed comes before the impact. The ‘backswing’ of instruments is part of what is being indicated - if the oboe has an entry on beat 1, the conductor will give them an indication not on that beat, but on the last beat of the previous bar. If you are able to watch them in action, you will often see them breathe in time with this cue. Similarly string players preparing their bowing action for the entry, etc.
I sang a choral piece in high school that called for eight voices, divided with four of each voice into two half-choirs. We had sixteen singers, so it was two-to-a-part. We ordinarily performed it standing on opposite sides of the altar in a church, so that the effect was just barely “stereo”. The impact of the piece came from the call and response format of the song, where one half-choir would finish a phrase at a particular volume, hold the note, and then the other half-choir would come in on a complementary chord singing a different phrase. The piece had alternation between the two half-choirs as well as places where the two half-choirs overlapped by quite a bit.
When we toured in Europe, we got to sing the piece in some impressively large cathedrals. Our director told us to watch his hands closely, and placed us at opposite sides of the cathedral’s transept (the short arms of the cruciform floor plan). This particular cathedral had something like a ten-second reverb, and we were almost 100 feet apart, and from where we stood it sounded horribly glaring and out-of-sync. The visitors to the cathedral, though, who the conductor asked to stand near him, heard us singing together – you could tell from their faces that it was impressive to see. Later the conductor told us that it had been difficult for him, too, because he had to watch our mouths to know whether we were on the beat or not.
It’s not always a factor, but it definitely can be one.
Is it true that the conductor originally used a staff that was tapped against the floor until one conductor shattered his toe, contracted gangrene, and died?
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