Conductors...

[imamartian]

and before you start... not bus conductors, and no, don't move this to electrics..

orchestral conductors... what do they do? they get all the plaudits, yet, do virtually nothing... they might keep a check on the timing, but a good musician should be good at this by themselves... am i being too harsh?

 

[kevplumb]

na i agree

not that my opinion is worth shaking a stick at

 

[imamartian]

na i agree

not that my opinion is worth shaking a stick at

no, kev, your opinion is worth a lot (especially as it agrees with mine !! )...

 

[ColJack]

woosh, straight over his head there Kev...

they control the tempo, the volume and any other number of little tweaks that they can make to make it sound alright.. ( a little louder on the viola's, a little quieter from the oboes and so on.. )

as a performer, you're not in the beat position to tell if you're playing a little bit louder than you should and drowning out someone on the other side of the group..

they're the live equivalent of that guy behind the mixing desk in the booth at a recording studio..

 

[oompah]

And they get to appear on The Morecombe and Wise show.

 

[imamartian]

woosh, straight over his head there Kev...

they control the tempo, the volume and any other number of little tweaks that they can make to make it sound alright.. ( a little louder on the viola's, a little quieter from the oboes and so on.. )

as a performer, you're not in the beat position to tell if you're playing a little bit louder than you should and drowning out someone on the other side of the group..

they're the live equivalent of that guy behind the mixing desk in the booth at a recording studio..

alright clever clogs... i get he stick shaking thing now!!

but just like the guy on the mixing desk... the conductor should get zero applause.... IMO!

 

[kevplumb]

And they get to appear on The Morecombe and Wise show.

isn't that andre preiview

 

[Blasphemous]

I'm with Martian. There's nowt clever in shaking a stick. And before you start, I'm NOT interested in the subtleties, mechanics, technicalities etc etc of the job. He's a Stick Shaker and I'm fully entitled to my opinion as ignorant as you may think it is.

As to the Eric and Ernie sketch above, I admire Andre 'Preview' for his sense of humour. Loved that sketch and when Eric gets a hold of him and says, "i'm playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order!", I nearly wet myself! Brilliant! Loved Eric.

 

[kevplumb]

burly chassis was a classic when the gits put the polystrene step at the bottom

 

[Blasphemous]

"The introduction's too short".

"It's too Short? By how much is it too short?"

".......I'd say about..... that much".



Excellent!

 

[wotan]

Conducting an orchestra is a bit more involved than just waving a baton, a good conductor can by use of expressions, and body language do far more than just control tempo and speed, his very presence can have a dramatic effect on the general sound of the orchestra.
Observe James Levine, Metropolitan Opera New York, a true master of his profession, second to none conducting, Wagner.

Wotan

 

[Nige F]

body language , his very presence can have a dramatic effect , Wagner.

Wotan

Is that a packet of quavers in your pocket, big boy. That would get the oboist blowing

 

[wreckedit]

orchestral conductors... what do they do? they get all the plaudits, yet, do virtually nothing... they might keep a check on the timing, but a good musician should be good at this by themselves... am i being too harsh?

For all of you who agree with Ima you shouldn't knock it before trying it.

After all what if you called round to price a job for an Orchestral Conductor that involved the co-ordination of 20 trades and he said ' That 'aint nothing mate, why should I have to pay you for that? All you got to do is wave a pencil and paper around, job done!!

 

[ColJack]

yes but to continue your analogy, if it was a kit home, and the tradesmen had been practicing for years how to do their part of that particular kit home, and they had a plan and shedule written down for them so they all knew what goes where and when they should be there, then you wouldn't really need a main contractor to organise them..

 

[wreckedit]

then you wouldn't really need a main contractor to organise them..

This negates all that you said. If you had said 'would never need' or 'would not need' then it would have been a better way of putting your case across.

But in a complex build it is always better to have an experienced person at hand to help the project through. Usually a Project or Site Manager to orchestrate the procedure. Bit like a Conductor for a load of musicians.

By the way if you gave a load of tradesmen various tin cans,saucepans,triangles, dustbins etc., it wouldn't take long for a Conductor to get a tune out of them. But without that expertise it would take aeons.
But in the end someone would orchestrate them.