Purpose of conductor in orchestra...?

It's not for show, as anyone who has played under both bad and great conductors can tell you. If you're just playing the notes in front of you you're not making music. A good conductor interprets the music so the notes on the page become great, emotionally-charged music. A good conductor will spend hours tweaking the exact balance among instruments, telling the musicians when a figure isn't quite together, shaping phrases, bringing out counter melodies, using dynamics to enhance the piece, bringing out energy when appropriate and calm when appropriate, and much more. The orchestra is a conductor's instrument. Any conductor who just stands in front and beats time is either a very bad conductor or is working with a group so elementary that the members can't do anything musical and have trouble just playing the notes at the right time. A conductor working with good musicians can work miracles.

They are really used for about 4 things.

Rehearsals to give the style and speed to the piece

Start the piece

End the piece (sometimes)

Tempo changes

The reason I say that is because, a large number of musicians (in professional orchestras) look at the conductor once of twice in the whole piece being played. The reason being, they can hear the music, and the conductor isn't always right, i.e. I saw the Dresden Staatskapelle and they were playing one piece, and the conductor was conducting another. You never would have know if you did not know the piece, because they played it so perfectly even though the conductor was wrong.

They are though, very prominent for pit orchestras, because the musicians cannot see the stage, so the conductor must keep them on time with the acting, singing or dancing.

Why is there a leader for anything.

Why a chief of police?

Why a president?

Why a store manager?

Why a foreman?

Why a teacher?

One person is needed to make the final decisions about how it is all put together. One person has to be in charge.

Just because the trumpet player thinks his part is the most important, does not mean that it should be loud.

Staccato styles by one player may differ from another. The conductor has to decide which style is to be used.

Watch videos of great orchestras and watch what the conductor is doing. Youtube for example.

The question about different parts of performance come up frequently. I have always wondered, Why don't they just have one player for each instrument and then put microphones in front of them and adjust the volume as needed? It would be a lot easier to control 12 players than 80 and you could have the 12 great players instead of some that were not that good.

Conductors spend years in college learning to do what they do. They don't just wave a baton around - it just may seem that way from the outside when they're doing a good job, because the orchestra stays together and follows the axioms they're given.

I'm taking a conducting class right now and it's more challenging than I could have imagined. People don't pick up on what they're supposed to do all by themselves, as it may seem when you're part of the ensemble.

the conductor keeps the orchestra in time they also give people cues such as percussion who could have been sat for 100 bars not playing. Also a really good conductor can make an orchestra work very well together.

Get a group of 60 musicians together. Give them their music, and tell them all to play without a conductor. Note the results.

You try taking 100 people, put them in a room, and with out giving them any prior knowledge of the speed, have them all count to 4 over and over again, with periodic stops and entrances that are strategically placed, so that it sounds good, and see how that turns out.

To keep the band in unison.

Just to give a clue if some palyers was not following.

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