More beautiful music. In my college orchestra, it seems like the conductor conducts ahead of the beat. This question , asked on violinist. I think that the most likely explanation is stylistic convention combined with the collective decision of the ensemble and conductor.
What do you think? When you perform as a musician or conductor do you prefer playing directly on the beat or slightly behind? Leave your comment below. I will be blunt and politically very incorrect. In my opinion the sound should be fully speaking WITH the ictus. Regardless of the tempo or style of the piece…. The string ensembles…. COULD speak with the ictus,,,, and sometime do….. This seems to me to be just a ridiculous stylized exageration much like the breath taking syncopants and their distorted version of the Viennese Waltz.
If a little Wasabi is gets a positive result then let modesty be damned and lets use the whole bottle. To drive my fine point home with w sledge hammer….. Many many years ago…. I was playing as the Tympanist with a good orchestra in Washington DC. Eye to Eye ….. Why does a stringed orchestra play so far behind the ictus? If this disease gets any worse….. WITH,,,, the Ictus. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Proudly powered by WordPress. Design by StylishWP.
Home About Embouchure Contact. Wilktone Jazz, brass, composition, and other things music related. The answer is that you have to know where the beat is in relation to where you should be playing. Depending on the acoustic, you also have to adjust what you're playing to what you're hearing -- sound does not travel instantaneously and you might need to either anticipate or lag. Sometimes college conductors are not that good sometimes they are.
I played in an orchestra under the direction of Herbert Blomstedt before he took over the San Francisco Symphony. This was the largely pro orchestra for his 2-week conducting masterclass that he did in southern California every summer back in the s and the conducting students were mostly college music instructors and conductors - and not so good - but they WERE THERE to learn technique. Blomstedt was a "high beater" whose beat was never obscured by anyone's stand.
And his interpretation of the music was always right there in his hands and his face and his body. But there are conductors who beat too low, or whose beat moves all over the place high-low-in between, enough to make a player sea-sick.
And of course there are the ones who conduct for the audience - these are the ones the musicians try to avoid watching so they won't get confused. And then there are the Jr. With bad seating, high stands and low beating the bottom of the beat can often appear different to everyone except the conductor. But Lydia is right too as always. If you are more than 25 feet from the sound you are following you will be off by a 16th note at about quarter notes per minute.
If the first chair strings are together and with the winds, and the rest of the strings are with their leaders, things should be OK at the audience. From there it was suggested to treat it is as if you were playing chamber music - this is good advice to help you learn the early-beat-conducting. Most orchestras play behind the beat, some more than others. Way back in the day when I played in orchestras it seemed to me like it was expected to be behind the conductors beat - maybe I just played in bad orchestras.
That said, I'm always embarrassed by my string player species when you have a band with a tight rhythm section playing with a string section and the string section has to have a conductor. The other players are using their ears and the string players have to use their eyes? Here's an interesting discussion on Reddit about this very issue, prompted by a question from someone who had just observed this phenomenon at a Chicago Symphony concert there are other links of interest within the discussion.
This is not the first, and most likely not the last time, I hear that conductor is ahead of the orchestra. I wonder if this is in fact an illusion or for real? Note how musicians are more alert, interact with each other and take initiative. Body language is quite different than in most other orchestras.
Tempo is paradoxically not quite metronomic, but rather alive in its flexibility and music is therefore more fluid. Then, just look at this amazing example of fantastic collaboration between a conductor and the orchestra:. Off the topics, but perhaps also relevant That means that you don't get a unified start to the note from the section. It's an okay survival mechanism if you're otherwise lost, but something you want to get past as quickly as possible.
Conductors at best are a distraction, at worst a pain in the A. I don't wait for their bow to start moving, I have my bow in place on or just above the string whichever is required and it starts moving simultaneously with my principal's.
Listening, anticipation and counting are the keys. One good indicator of a conductor who knows their job is that they have eye contact with a player or section BEFORE an entry. A lesser conductor generally eye contacts uselessly when the entry starts, after, or not at all :. A lesser conductor generally eye contacts uselessly when the entry starts, even after, or not at all :.
One moan I have is about a number of conductors in rehearsal who are not always heard clearly when they refer to a rehearsal letter ending in the "ee" sound. Typically, several of the orchestra will have gone to "10 bars after D" when the guy on the podium actually said "10 bars after B". This comment is concerned more with amateur ensembles who tend to have a higher proportion of older musicians, than the professionals.
I think I came close to it once; the guy on the podium's idea of waving the stick was to describe a perfect circle with it. There was no discernible down beat. You are confusing dependent and independent variables, or if you prefer, cause and effect. The conductor is the cause; the orchestra is the effect. You are correct in technical sense that hierarchy must be followed. However, beyond a quite authoritarian and perhaps already bygone idea of an orchestra, there are nuances of human interactions, give and take, and a dynamic interplay between the alpha, beta If we stop for a moment and look at the origin of the word, conductor allows the flow of something.
A great conductor will dance with the orchestra, engage with its members, soloists and groups in a mystery of music making. The conductor is correct, but the orchestra is behind. Fairly common in good orchestras. Also common in situations where the conductor is autocratic or there may be a fear of job loss--in this case there is a group dynamic where no one wants to be the one to initiate or stick out.
The conductor sets a tempo, but can't keep steady and rushes or drags, possibly due to nerves or what they consider to be "spontaneity" or "musicality. A combination of 1 and 2 if there is not a critical mass of very steady players.
All you need are some jokers in the back or front who tend to rush or drag. Different sections of orchestras tend to have different rhythmic tendencies.
For example, percussionists tend to rush, and so do the horns. Not all conductors can feel a consistent pulse when starting a movement or section--some are better than others.
I've had conductors who've had to check a metronome in rehearsal before starting. As a result, each performance can be different, which can confuse an orchestra, especially if different from consistent rehearsal tempi. Also, I've seen some conductors who follow a very predictable arc through a set of concerts: dress rehearsal is very fast, first performance is slightly slower, next performance is very slow, final performance recovers a bit.
Obviously don't tell the conductor he is off beat, but why not just tell him you are confused on when to come in? You have to triangulate with everyone on stage. You can't simply follow the conductor yourself. Don't bother asking him. It won't help. My discussion page can help you be lesser confused about why some conductors look like they are ahead or behind the orchestra Which you will be a very bad conductor then.
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