I'm watching this video of the Prague Film Orchestra playing the Star Wars Imperial March, which was pretty awesome...but what is the point of a conductor? Not one Single musician was looking at him or taking queues from his gesturing...
del_icious_manager
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Imagine this: 80 musicians playing a wide variety of instruments in very complex and challenging music. There is a piece of music on their music stands. Some musicians might not know the piece at all. Those that DO know it each has his/her view on what this piece is about and how it should be performed (even down very basic matters such as what speed the music should go).
Now, even if all these 80 musicians could agree on how to perform the piece (and THAT's very unlikely), they would still need to be able to play it perfectly together. Imagine an orchestra - it's BIG. Imagine you are in the viola section. You are one of maybe 12 musicians in the section. You can hear the rest of your section playing. You're vaguely aware of the cellos to your left and the violins to your right. You also have the trumpets and trombones behind you blowing down your ear. You have NO idea how the music sounds from the audience's perspective; you can't even really tell if the orchestra is playing together. If everyone in the orchestra was in this situation, the result would be an unholy mess.
That's what a conductor is for. The conductor is the person with the vision of how a piece should go and who beats time to keep everyone together and to give musicians cues when they're due to come in (there can be a lot of bars/measures rest when certain people don't play). He/she also will have rehearsed the piece to ensure that the performance is as professional as possible. The musicians keep an eye on the conductor with their peripheral vision – even when reading the music. You will also see them glancing periodically right at him. The law of averages are that, at any one time, there are enough musicians in enough eye contact with the conductor to keep everything tightly together.
Cellogirl
Well, it goes something like this:
-Your instrument is in your hands/mouth
-Your stand partner is next to you
-Your section leader is in front of/next to you
-The conductor is if front of you
-Your music is in front of you
-All the other sections are all around you
These are all the things an orchestral musician is concentrating on, taking cues from, and leading at once. It's like multitasking gone wild. If you had your eyes glued to the conductor, you wouldn't be able to focus on any of the other things that need attention. The conductor is in everyone's peripheral vision--school orchestra teachers are always telling their students to look at the conductor, but if you're playing a particularly difficult piece, that isn't always possible. There's a reason why the baton is bright white: it stands out so the musicians can see it clearly without looking up. On the off chance that somebody gets lost (which, by the way, doesn't happen in the Prague Film Orchestra), the way that the conductor waves the baton indicates where in the measure he is. He's giving subtle cues to the orchestra, and yes: everyone is watching him. :)
Ron
An individual musician, for example a guitar player, chooses what note to play next, and how to play it (attack, release, tempo, etc.). A conductor tells each musician when to play and how to play, but not which note(s) to play. Thus the conductor is integrating the group to produce the musical work that was written (or arranged) to be played by multiple musicians similar to the way in which an individual musician produces a piece intended to be played by a single musician.
You might not see the musicians watching the conductor for many reasons. For example, they may have practiced so many times that they know where the piece is going next by listening to the other musicians, and/or they may be glancing at the conductor without you noticing.
And, many of the conductor's motions are there simply to hold the tempo together so that if an individual musician loses their place, they can pick up the tempo without damaging the performance.
If you watch a rock or jazz performance by a small group, you may notice that one musician, perhaps a piano player, is actually directing the other musicians, and you may notice that they glance at them, or change the way they are playing, to give cues to the other musicians.
lainiebsky
They were most certainly looking. You glance up at every transition point and at various points while you're playing. No, you don't memorize the music and then stare at the conductor, but every one of those people had the conductor in his or her peripheral vision and glanced directly at him when necessary.
Most of the conductor's work is done in rehearsals. During a performance the musicians already know what he wants. They don't need to have every nuance given to them once they've rehearsed a few times.
Lesus
The musicians may know their parts well enough that they don't need to watch the conductor during a concert, but he works hard in rehearsal to get them all following the same interpretation of the music.