Conductors

[RizzoTheRat]

We went to see Star Wars In Concert on Friday night. A New Hope shown on screen with an orchestra doing the music live.

From where we were sat I could see the screen/tablet on the conductors lectern, with a bar moving from left to right that presumably gave him timing in relation to the film, but between each pass of the bar (maybe 4 or 5 seconds), there was a big (half the heights of the screen) circle that popped up in the middle of the screen. What would that have been for?


Preferably not too technical in the replies, I achieved the dizzying heights of grade 1 percussion so while I have an idea what music notation is, I mainly just hit things with sticks.

[RizzoTheRat]

By "Click Track" do you mean like a metronome to give them a timing cue?

[Mars]

I'm a drummer and I've always wondered what the orchestra looks for from their conductor.

[Magnum 475]

Mars said:

I'm a drummer and I've always wondered what the orchestra looks for from their conductor.

They don’t just conduct live. They spend ages rehearsing the orchestra, improving performance, making all musicians work together perfectly. If you really want to understand, there are some great DVDs of Celibidache working with his orchestra to achieve his version of perfection that are well worth a watch. Conductors in concert don’t just provide timing, they’ll also give signals on volume and style to different sections of the orchestra.

[Roofless Toothless]

Frank Zappa once said that it was a miracle to get a hundred people doing anything at the same time, let alone play music. I suppose it is the conductor’s job to make that happen.

But then on the other hand, wasn’t it Sir Thomas Beecham who said that it was important for everybody to start at the same time, and to end at the same time - whatever happened in between didn’t really matter.