Entertainment For Lively Minds
What are the things that you don't understand/appreciate? I have no idea what a classical music conductor does.
Posted by Uncle Wheaty on 5 February 2010 - 12:26am.
He/She just seems to wave a stick around to recommend the speed at which to play the notes, It is the Orchestra that does the work and has the talent as I see it.
Please enlighten me.
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No idea
Same goes for jockeys. Sometimes you see a horse without a jockey on it galloping for the line way ahead of the others. Quite rightly, the horse has decided that he doesn't need him.
The conductor..
.."Knits" the orchestra together, and cues the different sections to come in perfectly. They can't all see each other, so in effect cannot cue each other like a four-piece band can.
A really good conductor can also inspire a better performance from the ensemble.
Really..you might as well ask what a film director does..after all surely the actors and cameramen know what they're doing?
You don't have to buy into the "maestro myth" (many don't) but his job is pretty essential.
Good description there Mr Pacey.
Anyone who has sung in a choir will have had the same experience. Everyone knows the words, but conductors are the ones who bring it all together. Otherwise you just sound like a bunch of people.
They don't need to be "cued" do they?
The musicians all have their sheet music to tell them exactly when to come in and they will all be familiar with the piece. A four-piece band may start jamming mid-song and need a nod from the lead guitarist to signal the next bit - but that doesn't happen with Tchaikovsky does it?
Having said that, the orchestra may be inspired by seeing the movements and seeing the conductor feeling the music. So he may not be technically necessary but it seems time has proved that an orchestra performs better with him.
He IS "technically necessary"..
..every musician hears the tempo a little differently, the score can't help them all play perfectly in time. (and they don't often have the luxury of a drummer whacking out a 4/4 beat either).
Believe me..in these days of economic ratonalization, if the conductor was deemed superfluous, he'd be the first to go.
The conductor is the main man!
The musicians play their individual parts on their instruments. I'd bet that a top conductor could play all the parts on most of the instruments. All his work is done beforehand. He'll have sat down with each part of the orchestra (brass, percussion, strings etc.) and maybe even some musicians individually and explained how the (his?) arrangement should be played.
On the big night, he cues the musicians as well as acting like the blokes on the modern day soundboard. Because of his positioning, he can hear the whole orchestra as the audience does and he can tell those loud saxophones and trumpets to turn it down a bit as he can't hear the strings etc.
England Football Captain
Big fuss over nothing. Its the manager does all the shouting and talking
His role
is to motivate the players when they're playing away from home
/coat
Editorial director...?
Anyone? Anyone? Bueller...?
I have never understood what is involved in almost any job
mentioned in the credits of a film or TV programme.
Hear hear!
What, for example, is the Best Boy and how does one prove it?
I believe the Best Boy...
...helps out the electrician. I could be wrong.
Airplane
The credits included:
Best boy
Worst Boy
Gropology
Flipper Flapper
Author of A Tale Of Two Cities
and
Generally In Charge Of A Lot of Things (this one I put on my last Job Description - was changed fairly soon after)
I don't understand how a song gets written
I'm not musical (obviously) but I've been reading about it all of my adult life and I'm still no clearer as to how a song gets written. Or to be precise, the bit of widwifery that gets a piece of music from being notes on a page, to a song, with lead and bass and drums, and perhaps a tambourine.
In the case of Morrissey/Mar, for example, I know that Morrissey writes the words and Marr the music. Mozzer's bit I get. But what is Marr doing when he's 'writing' the song? Presumably he's writing a melody? But what about the rhythm section? Is this also written? Is a bassline written? Drums. I'm *fairly* sure nobody writes drums (or maybe they do; is that what a 'drum pattern' is) so how does the drummer know what drums to hit when -- and do it the same way every time the song is played?
I tried to ask a musician this question once and he said, "Are you taking the piss?" so I pretended I was, realising that it was a stupid question. But nobody here knows me so I can afford to look like a fool.
I hope that's not your real name.
I can only speak from my own
I can only speak from my own experience. I learnt to read and write music as a child but never used the ability when I started writing songs in my very late teens.
Songs would emerge from playing around with chord patterns on a guitar or riffs on a bass. That might take a matter of minutes or days of noodling around. The pattern or riff would eventually identify itself as being either a chorus or verse and a song would be either stiched together from existing patterns or riffs or on a rare occassion the whole thing would come at once.
If the song was guitar based, I'd record the chords on a ghetto blaster and then play along on bass, just root notes at first, then compose something a bit more interesting. If it was a bass riff, then I'd record that and find the chords that worked with it.
The vocal melody came from humming along or "singing" (and I use the term very loosely) some lyrics I'd invariably have hanging around. If I was recording a four track of the song, I'd write drum patterns (combinations of bass, snare, hi-hat and toms for example) for it on a drum machine, or otherwise just take the song to a rehersal and the drummer would come up with his own part.
All the parts, including the drums can be written as musical notation, so they are all composed as such but every musician I've ever played with just kept their parts in their heads.
What's missing from all of this of course is where the ideas for those chords and riffs and melodies comes from and that's the mysterious bit. I started out by playing Joy Division bass riffs on my brother's acoustic guitar and took it from there, writing sub Joy Division nonsense and hopefully improving over the years. That said, I haven't written anything for probably 20 years. Hope that helps a bit.
It helps loads
Thanks very much, Andy. I'm fascinated about the drummer. Does that mean that in effect the drummer is always improvising, because he can't be playing *exactly the same* combination of drum-kit-bits each time, can he?
Are you taking the
piss?
I wish.
The trouble I've had not knowing this stuff.
Producing Back to the Planet's debut album was a nightmare!
Listening to it
was even worse!
Depends on the drummer...
I used to er...'jam' (oh god) with a drummer who had been taught properly, read music etc. He showed me that the rudiments of drumming are 'notated'- he could write drum parts.
On a stave (where musical notes are written) the drum parts are notated for each basic drum set up - bass. snare, tom, hi hat but not in terms of pitch ie up and down the stave as the notes dont change pitch on drums - ish, but in terms of 'when' you hit them in patterns of time ie 4/4 etc.
so...drum parts can be written and strictly adhered to er 'shes lost conrtol' by joy division for eg
however, it gets interesting when you talk about 'feel' and improvisation within that structure. so in that song the drum fills (rolling around the kit) could be improvised and different everytime.
there are also those who are self taught but still ace. Keith Moon was but used to forget the Who songs between tours because he couldnt 'read' the parts and had to pick them up from memory and instict.
Ginger Baker claims that the first time he ever sat behind a drum kit he could play em.
Writing vs. arranging
You're talking about two different things here. Making up a basic song (consisting of words plus a melody, the plus accompanying chords and maybe plus some distinctive bits of instrumentation such as a riff) is writing the song.
Deciding who plays what, on what instrument, and how, that's arranging.
What arranging consists of varies considerably. One extreme would be to use nothing but 'off the shelf' band parts, like a standard rock'n'roll riff, a bog standard rhythm guitar strum, a standard rock drum beat like a drum machine would deliver, and just sing the thing through from start to finish.
The other extreme would be something that's arranged from scratch, like maybe Bohemian Rhapsody would have been done: there are no very few bog standard bits to that, so it all had to be figured out.
Who does the arranging will also vary. At one extreme, an individual (possibly the writer of the song, but not necessarily) might figure out and write down every note for every instrument. In rock this is very rare.
At the other extreme, a band might take the vaguest outline of a song, agree a vague style, such as "country rock" and then just improvise their own bits, and modify them until it all fits together.
If a band is writing together in a studio, the process of writing and arranging might overlap to a large extent. The two are completely separate when an old song is arranged a new way by someone else in another time and another place.
The role of the orchestral conductor
The conductor should be able to interpret the composer's score, incorporating any marginalia or orchestration notes. He then marshalls the various components of the orchestra to reflect the wishes and intentions of the composer, including timing, texture, emphasis, tonality and expression. It is the conductor's vision that the orchestra follows - he is the conduit between what the composer wants and what the musicians can deliver. Some conductors do not use batons, but most do.
I just made all this up on the spur of the moment - not bad eh?
Dancing
Except as a way to subject oneself to ridicule and humiliation.
Some advice on style...
One must never allow the music to interfere with your dancing - this provides maximum effect for any observers.
Fashion
Sorry, submitted my previous post prematurely. Of course the list is vast. I also nominate fashion, as I don't understand it at all. Then sudoku and most modern art especially Mark Rothko (not saying it's no good, just that I don't understand it).
Trumpets...
I don't understand how they can produce all those notes from just three buttons.
Blowing down the narrow end seems to help.
As well as puffing out your cheeks (the upper set).
"Don't puff your cheeks!"
At least, that's what my son says every time I try to play his trumpet.
With three buttons, there are 8 possible combinations of up and down and these modify the basic pitch that's being produced by your mouth. However, you can use your mouth in different ways to produce different basic pitches. If you're a beginner and can't do that, you only have 8 notes. If you can create two basic pitches, there are 16 notes possible, 3 and you can do 24 etc.
This guy wasn't too shabby at playing the trumpet...
and there's quite a lot of puffed cheek action going on!
Thanks, Patrick
I'll pass this along to your Master Tiler
I don't understand
life in general
Mathematics
and women
Why Radcliffe'n'Maconie have Noddy Holder as a TV critic
Don't get it.
I love 'the Radcliffe and Maconie Show'. I love Slade. Noddy was a great frontman. But why he's on Radio 2 to talk about the telly, when all he does is describe in the most literal terms possible what happened on the screen, (and repeatedly call Mad Men's Don Draper 'Dan Draper'...), bemuses me. He has no critical faculties beyond a programme being good or bad, no greater than my mum could offer insight, articulacy or wit about the medium. Possibly less. So why bother? If you saw the programme, you'll learn nothing from the slot. If you didn't see it, you'll learn nothing from the slot. It's neither clever or funny.
No offence, like. I just don't understand what it's for.
Hmmm
I completely don't understand the point of computer games - DS, PS3, Wii, all a total mystery to me. I do play patience on my iphone but that's a card game I would play if I had a pack of cards on me.
Oh and the apparently mystical connection that women are supposed to have with chocolate. Nope, don't get that either. I like chocolate as much as I like any other sweet thing but I don't *need* it as I am led to believe others of my sex do.
One Lady In My Life...
...said "Geach, never underestimate a womans love, and need, for chocolates and shoes". Sound advice I think.
The Archers & Whisky
Some things you don't like, but you can understand how some people might, others you just can't imagine anyone enjoying. For me, The Archers and whisky used to be in the latter category.
In a thread last year, I asked - without stating that it was crap - "What is it with The Archers, and does anyone really find it realistic, interesting, non-irritant or relevant?" I got some great answers, and concluded that my problem was not having any point of connection with that kind of place, those sorts of people etc. I still listen and still don't really enjoy it.
As regards whisky, I did some reading, and got some hands-on tuition from my brother-in-law, and gradually moved whisky from the "don't like and can't imagine anyone liking" category into the "I see how people could like it but I don't" category and eventually into the category "you're me best mate you are - me 'n' you, pal, go on 'ave another one, lawd that's nectar that is".