What conductors are doing when they wave their hands around — and what we get out of it – Cognitive Daily More » As a child (and like most children, I imagine) I used to think conducting an orchestra entailed something like what Bugs Bunny does in this video: Waving the hands, as conductors frequently do, seemed largely for show. The conductor appeared to me to be more dancing along with the music than actually leading the musicians in any meaningful way. It wasn’t until I married an amateur musician that I actually learned that the conductor could have an important influence on the way an orchestra sounds. But as Greta and I moved from place to place and she joined a variety of different ensembles, I got to hear her explain why some conductors were better than others. One of the most basic functions of the conductor, I learned, was simply keeping the whole orchestra coordinated, so that all the different musicians started and stopped playing at the right times. One key to this was to express the beat of the music through the movement of the conductor’s baton (or hands). Musicians could then count the number of beats when they were silent (which might number in the hundreds), and begin playing at the right time.

Different songs have different rhythms, and so the conductor uses different movements to express the beat depending on the rhythm. This chart shows some of the simpler patterns a conductor might use: Good conductors, Greta told me, use something pretty close to these patterns, so it’s easy for musicians to follow and start playing at the right time. Bad conductors (often described in more colorful terms than this) are more like Bugs Bunny in the video — so concerned with the “emotions” of the piece that they neglect the basics. But what exactly are musicians paying attention to as they try to follow a conductor? What is it about the conductor’s motion that makes it easier or more difficult to follow? As you can see from even this simple diagram (or this series of videos ), even the basic rhythms aren’t always easy to follow. To make things even more confusing, many conductor’s manuals suggest that the beat is indicated when the conductor’s motion changes direction, while the hand is moving at the highest speed. But simple physics would suggest that a direction-change is accompanied by low speed. The only way to reconcile these two notions is if a conductor’s motion actually traces a wide loop, so that it doesn’t have to change speed as it changes direction.

Geoff Luck and John Sloboda taped a conductor performing the simplest pattern — the one-beat — with a tracking device on his finger (this conductor did not use a baton). They asked him to conduct in three different ways, with progressively wider-radius loops at the bottom of the movement where the beat is supposed to be indicated. They showed a point-light representation of these movements to volunteers (some musicians, some not), who were supposed to press a button in time with the beat indicated by the conductor. The viewers had some time to practice before the real study began, but they weren’t given a lot of instruction on where the beat was supposed to occur in the conductor’s movement. So what characteristics of the conductor’s movement matched up with the beats indicated by the viewers? Perhaps what’s most interesting is what didn’t match up: the radius of curvature of the movement. The width of the arc of the conductor’s movement had no impact on the perceived beats. What did have an impact was the velocity and acceleration along the motion trajectory of the conductor’s hand: both were significantly correlated with the viewer’s perception of a beat. Viewers tended to indicate a beat when the conductor’s velocity was high, but acceleration was negative (i.e. slowing down).

So if velocity and acceleration are all that matters, then perhaps simply showing viewers this motion, without any curves, will also produce the same beat. In a second experiment, Luck and Sloboda did just that: the conductor’s velocity and acceleration were replicated along a horizontal line, as if the curve of the hand movement was simply stretched out across the computer display. Now were viewers able to pick up the beat indicated by the conductor? Yes, to a certain extent. Velocity and acceleration were both associated with the beats perceived by views. However, viewers did tend to feel that two beats were produced with the conductor’s motions, instead of the intended single beat. Finally, the conductor’s motions were shown along the original paths, but with constant speed and acceleration. Once again, the radius of the conductor’s motions had no impact on the perceived beat. So it appears that the velocity and acceleration of the conductor’s motions are the key factors viewers use to decide when the beat should be. The researchers say that acceleration is the more important of the two factors — that beats are indicated when the conductor is slowing down or speeding up. But they also point out that other aspects of motion were not studied, and that in other, more complex conducting motions, different factors might be involved.

Geoff Luck, John Sloboda (2008). Exploring the Spatio-Temporal Properties of Simple Conducting Gestures using a Synchronization Task Music Perception, 25 (3), 225-239 DOI: 10.1525/mp.2008.25.3.225 Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors? : Deceptive Cadence : NPR Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors? Embed Embed Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors? Do Orchestras Really Need Conductors? Embed Embed Does This Guy Matter? Conductor Leonard Bernstein during rehearsal with the Cincinnati Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1977. James Garrett/New York Daily News via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption James Garrett/New York Daily News via Getty Images Have you ever wondered whether music conductors actually influence their orchestras? They seem important. After all, they're standing in the middle of the stage and waving their hands. But the musicians all have scores before them that tell them what to play. If you took the conductor away, could the orchestra manage on its own? A new study aims to answer this question.

Yiannis Aloimonos , of the University of Maryland, and several colleagues recruited the help of orchestral players from Ferrara, Italy. They installed a tiny infrared light at the tip of an (unnamed) conductor's baton. They also placed similar lights on the bows of the violinists in the orchestra. The scientists then surrounded the orchestra with infrared cameras. When the conductor waved the baton, and the violinists moved their bows, the moving lights created patterns in space, which the cameras captured. Computers analyzed the infrared patterns as signals: Using mathematical techniques originally designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Clive Granger , Aloimonos and his colleagues analyzed whether the movements of the conductor were linked to those of the violinists. Article continues after sponsorship The scientists hypothesized that if the movement of the conductor could predict the movements of the violinists, then the conductor was clearly leading the players. But if the conductor's movements could not predict the movement of the violinists, then it was really the players who were in charge. "You have a signal that is originating from the conductor, because he is moving his hands and his body," Aloimonos explained.

"And then the players, they perceive that signal, and they create another signal by moving the bows of the violin appropriately. So you have some sort of sensorimotor conversation." (The research study is part of a larger project where Aloimonos is trying to figure out if human movements share something in common with human language; he suspects both are not only governed by a grammar, but that both may be based on similar processes in the brain.) Aloimonos said the study found that conductors were leading the violinists — the movement of the conductors predicted the movement of the violinists, not the other way around. But the study found more: The scientists had two conductors lead the same orchestra. One was a veteran who exercised an iron grip over the violinists. The other was an amateur. "What we found is the more the influence of the conductor to the players, the more aesthetic — aesthetically pleasing the music was overall," Aloimonos said. Music experts who listened to the performance of the orchestra under the control of the two conductors found the version produced by the authoritarian conductor superior. Remember, these experts didn't know which version was being led by the veteran conductor and which by the amateur. All they heard was the music.

The orchestra, conductor, and interpretation One well might wonder--in an era of computer driven synthesizers, digital recording and computerized sound generation why an ensemble such as the symphony orchestra is still important. Much of the direction of the information age has become about convenience and accessibility on demand. We can download music from the internet almost immediately and hear it when we wish. An inexpensive 10 gigabyte hard drive can store enough mp3 files to provide nearly a continuous week of music.. To see a live orchestra involves taking the time for the ritual of getting dressed up and dealing with the traffic congestion as most of the professional ones are in relatively crowded urban areas. Even more than that, the programs of the major orchestras throughout the world contain an almost insignificant percentage of music composed in the last twenty years. It can be convincingly argued that the era of the orchestra as a major musical vehicle for the contemporary voice is long gone. New orchestral recordings are expensive to make; orchestral recordings in general hold a very small share of market sales of CDs. To complicate the matter, there is a huge catalog of recordings of great conductors and orchestras of the past that may never be surpassed.

The effort to keep an orchestra afloat is a costly one--many of the top ensembles approach 100 members staffed with professional musicians who demand salaries that reflect their talents and professional status, not to mention the cost of hiring conductors and guest performers, rental of rehearsal halls, etc. Major orchestras need to have larger and larger development staffs to handle the fund raising aspect of it or face bankruptcy. In spite of all that, the orchestra remains a musical presence throughout the Western world. It continues to grow and open new musical doors in Asian countries and elsewhere around the world. The orchestra remains alive because it represents the culmination of a rich tradition. Its entire musical infrastructure is a sum total of hundreds of years of the directions Western music has taken. It's highly unlikely that any other musical invention or ensemble will ever equal it in its overwhelming ability to produce dazzling variety in its tone colors, in its complexity, or in the sheer power and beauty of its sound. The individual instruments and the art of playing them has been refined to a degree where each can be precisely controlled and combined with other instruments to create a nearly infinite variety of shadings and colors. And, an orchestra in performance is often nothing short of an overwhelming experience.

Even in an era of digital magic, the orchestra represents the ultimate synthesizer. It can produce an infinite variety of tone colors, make a drastic change in these colors instantly, or have a large number of separate colors happening simultaneously and independently. It also represents a peak in cooperation between sometimes more than 100 musicians, each functioning as a separate individual and also as a component in a greater unit. Many of the great orchestras will have a very large number of musicians who have been performing for forty years or more, constantly refining their abilities along the way. The number of hours of practice chalked up by the members of any orchestra over their lifetimes would be nothing short of mind-boggling. Typically in an orchestra, musicians often function for brief episodes as soloists, playing a line heard very clearly by the audience. The music is written like a complicated fabric texture where one line will come to the surface for a few seconds, then another, then a different one, etc., constantly weaving a multicolored sound. Orchestral players also must constantly be listening and reacting to many of the other players around them.

For example, an oboe player will have a number of solos in a composition, but at times will need to listen to (and blend in with) other oboe players. A few measures later, the oboist must play a duet with a clarinet or a flute. Later in the same movement, the music will call for the oboes to blend in and function as a part of the woodwind section. At times, the woodwind family will need to submerge its unique sound and link up with the rest of the full orchestra in tutti sections. And finally, not the least thing to worry about is the conductor, who is constantly giving signals and has his own ideas about bringing the music to life. The average professional orchestra will have a great many guest conductors in a season, and the players must be able to react to each one's style and idiosyncrasies. An orchestral player needs to focus his attention on solo parts, members of his section, other assorted members of the orchestra from time to time, members of his instrumental family, the whole orchestra, and the conductor- -simultaneously. It's as difficult as it sounds, if not more so.

The Development of the Orchestra The orchestra has a very rich tradition. For over two hundred years--a significant era in modern music history-- the orchestra was one of the principal music-making bodies, a public showpiece for the best music of some of the best composers who ever lived. The modern orchestra can trace its roots to the early 1700s. The timing was perfect--it was a lucky beneficiary of a number of important factors that came together at the same time. Not the least important factor was that a new family of instruments had just risen to prominence. In the hands of instrument makers from the Amati, Guarneri, and Stradivari families, the members of the violin family took over from the viol family. The power, the beautiful tone, and the expressive way in which the new instruments could be played gave them a distinct advantage over the older set of instruments. Early orchestras--as are orchestras of today--were based around the violin family. While the brass and woodwind instruments of early orchestras were relatively primitive technology, the violin family had reached its peak by the early 1700s.

Brass and woodwind instruments have been steadily improved, but even with our almost unlimited technology, no one has yet to improve on the violin families (and many feel that we have yet to duplicate the quality of these old instruments!!). Another very important factor was a change in the economics of Europe. Starting with the bubonic plague in the late Middle Ages, the middle class began to gain status as workers became fewer and more in demand. Along with that status came a less difficult life, more leisure time, and ways to make use of it. While music exists in virtually all primitive countries as an important part of their culture, the more refined and advanced facets of it usually take a back seat to the basics of survival. When people other than the wealthiest class begin to have disposable time and income, we will see music take on more importance in their daily lives and become a critical part of their entertainment. It will become one of the things that they will insure will survive from generation to generation. The first mass printed music appeared just after 1500 in Western Europe. It was published not for the clergy, not for the nobility, but for the home entertainment of the middle class.

Music had always been present as a part of worship and in the homes of the powerful. It now became a part of the daily lives of a much wider population. Members of the middle class (and higher) were more or less expected to be able to play an instrument. Music was an important part of the average person's entertainment. The composers and publishers needed little time to sense the change and take advantage of the situation. Thanks in part to the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s, the era of the absolute monarch began to give way to the power of the masses. The Industrial Revolution also contributed a growth of industrial technology that eventually helped improve musical instruments. Because of this change in attitude and a shift in power, it would be unthinkable to suggest that the American Revolution and the French Revolution happening during this time were a coincidence. Musicians were important beneficiaries of the situation. Prior to the 1700s, musicians were roughly of the same status as servants. The most successful ones were able to link up with important patrons such as the church, nobility, or well-to-do members of the merchant class. Some of the first public concerts in history took place during the time that the orchestra formed.

By the end of the 1700s, for the first time in history, musicians were able to support themselves without a patron--a practice we would call "freelancing". Had he been a bit better at managing his finances, Mozart would have been the first successful great composer to freelance. That title went to Beethoven who died a very wealthy man as he paved the way for the musicians who followed him. By the end of the 1800s, musicians had begun to achieve "superstar" status. Instead of being servants who had to follow the beck and call of their masters, they had become social critics who spoke their minds freely, feeling comfortable at shocking audiences with their ideas and their performances. Another significant trend began around the same time as the formation of the orchestra--hanging on to music of the past. The fact that we listen to "golden oldies" is a relatively new development in history. Prior to the last two or three centuries, music was usually written for a specific occasion, shelved, and then forgotten. During the peak era of the orchestra, an interest in older music and musicians developed.

The orchestra was able to benefit from not only the flood of new music written especially for it, but from the music of the past. Owing to advances in technology, changes in economics and political power, and a major change in status of music and musicians in society, the orchestra became a vital part of the European musical scene during the 18th and 19th centuries. The new role of music in society created a large pool of musical consumers. As noted above, the composers and publishers were quick to take advantage of the situation. To a composer, a symphony (see Form in the Elements of Music and the "sonata cycle") was the musical equivalent of a novel to a writer; in the 1800s, symphonic composers built up a following among their public, and their works were as eagerly anticipated as a film or novel would be today. Another byproduct of the economics of the time was the fact that even though the composers, soloists, and conductors were sometimes treated like royalty, the orchestral musicians still had a little catching up to do. Their more meager salaries allowed for the average orchestra to grow to over 100 by the end of the 1800s.

Recordings (and the royalties that come with them), along with unionization drastically helped change the balance of power in their favor. Among other byproducts of the change was that a conductor could no longer hire and fire musicians at his personal whim. While it's only fair that talented professionals should earn a salary that reflects their years of study and preparation, when the change came, it had the effect of wreaking financial havoc on professional orchestras and helped contribute to the unbounded growth of the ensemble. There's an ongoing debate among anthropologists about the origins of music and of its importance--if any--in human evolution and survival. It would be very difficult to argue that something such as an orchestra--with instruments and traditions so refined from the original human music--represents a necessary step in evolution or our ongoing survival as a species. What it is possible to argue is that it represents a peak in musical sophistication and complexity that will probably never be equaled in the remainder of human history. Because of what will happen with integrated circuit technology, it seems likely that music making may grow smaller and more based around the individual and personal technology.

Because so many of these factors happened to come together at just the right time, it's not likely that we will invent a musical machine that will equal the orchestra or that can tap from such an extraordinarily rich heritage of masterpieces. A Brief History of the Orchestra Prior to the early 1700s, there were many ensembles of different sizes and combinations. As instruments began to be refined and composers began to be more imaginative writing with instrumental colors in mind, a fairly standard ensemble began to emerge using members of the string, woodwind, brass, and percussion families. An orchestra in the early to mid 1700s would have about two dozen members, most of them string players. Even through the late 1700s, the harpsichord was also a staple of many orchestras, filling in harmonies, ornamenting various lines (very similar to the what a jazz keyboardist does). A typical orchestra of the early 1800's would have about 24 strings, 4--8 brasses, 4--8 woodwinds, and two timpani, or an average size of 36..

By the end of the 1800s, the typical orchestra would have about 64 strings, 16 woodwinds, 18 brasses, five people playing various percussion instruments, two harpists, or a total of around 105. This tradition of expanding size reached its peak in the early twentieth century and most present orchestras are not much larger than the one just cited. Strings have always been the backbone of an orchestra and remain so. Although each individual string instrument can't produce a great deal of volume, they're easy to play in groups and they hold their own quite well among the other families. By way of tradition, strings are typically divided into first and second violin sections (same instruments, but different musical parts because of their great versatility), a section of violas, a section of cellos, and the section of doublebasses as the foundation (to literally "double the bass line", hence the name). The members of the violin family hit their peak in the 1600s, just in time to take part in a musical revolution.

By 1700, the Stradivari, Amati, and Guarneri families had produced their best violins (many feel the best violins of all time), and as composers began writing music for the newest groups of musicians at the time, naturally they exploited the strengths. Strings blend well with other members of the family and they have great versatility in tone colors with the ability to change timbre quickly. Not the least important factor is that the players don't have to stop to take a breath. Early woodwind roles often doubled string lines in the scores, being used much of the time as added color, much of the way a painter will highlight certain details to make it stand out from the background. Eventually the recorder gave way to the transverse flute, and in general, the woodwind sounds strengthened in both tone color and volume. Over the next two centuries as the individual instruments were improved, woodwinds began taking a more independent role in the music. Brass instruments were limited by not having valves at their disposal. Through the 1700s and middle 1800s, brasses were used more or less as musical punctuation and for reinforcing important musical ideas.

There were occasional compositions that made use of the rich brass colors, but generally the composer had only two choices: either write melodies that carefully tiptoed around the limited note ranges of the brasses, or use them only when complex harmonies crossed paths with notes available to brass instruments. Although the trombone with its slide didn't have these problems, it was rarely heard in an orchestra. With few exceptions, the percussion instruments were pushed even farther into the background than the brass instruments, serving as coloration and punctuation. In the early 1800s, a new development occurred that profoundly changed the face of the orchestra and the music that was written for it--the creation of the position of the conductor. Prior to the 19th century, there was no such thing as a conductor separate from the players of the orchestra. The group was started and stopped by the person playing the keyboard or the first violinist. Nuances and subtleties were difficult to convey because the leader had his hands busy with other matters--his own instrument. And practically, there were not that many nuances and subtleties written into the music. Even today, many ensembles perform such music without a standalone conductor, because one isn't all that necessary.

In the early 1800s, the person leading the orchestra ditched his other instrumental responsibilities and devoted his energies to refining and shaping the sound of the orchestra, eventually "playing" it as one very complex, but rich single instrument. When composers realized the detailed and subtle ideas that could be expressed by the new powers of the group, they quickly capitalized on the conductor, writing music that needed a strong leader to shape and sculpt the sound. Louis Spohr, a pupil of Beethoven, is often acknowledged to be the first real conductor as we know it and thought to be the first to use a baton. The baton is a short stick that becomes a visual extension of the conductor's arm, giving the musicians more of a chance to see the motion in their peripheral vision. Not long before his death in 1827, Beethoven ran out of instrumental colors to express his ideas and became the first to use voices as part of a symphony. Mahler, Holst, Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams are a few who followed in his footsteps in this regard.

In the mid 1800s, the role of the conductor took on some curiously gigantic dimensions, growing to the superstar/tyrant/dictator figure that we sometimes think of today. Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Mahler are some of the first ones of these who rose to legendary status, although Mahler might have the best claim on being the first to become an international superstar conductor, taking on a job of conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the last few years of his life. Another important landmark in the orchestra's history happened in the middle 1800s--the invention of valves for brass instruments. Prior to that, brass players were stuck with a limited number of notes available to the open tubess of their instruments. With the invention of valves, brass players now had every chromatic note that the other instruments had at their disposal, and again, the composers made good use of the invention. The rich and brilliant (and sometimes deafeningly loud!) brass passages in orchestral music by Richard Strauss, Mahler, and Anton Bruckner dramatically showed what the family could do.

Before 1900, it was a rare piece of music that featured percussion instruments other than the timpani, and an occasional triangle, bass drum, or snare drum. As music entered into an age of experimentation at the beginning of the 20th century, composers found there was a huge spectrum of exotic and unique tone colors out there waiting for them in the percussion family. They also realized that when a piece of music called for all of the stops to be pulled out, the percussion instruments could come close to drowning out brass instruments. Stravinsky and Bartok, the French Impressionists, and many others brought the percussion family to the forefront. Edgar Varese and Charles Wuorinen are two out of many who have composed music for ensembles that consist of nothing but percussion instruments. The orchestra changed greatly between 1700 and 1900 thanks to changes in technology, the economy, and the political environment of Europe. When it began, music could be described as a celebration of the monarchy and the church. By 1900, there was little doubt it was the "era of the individual".

Many listeners suspect that when someone composes for an orchestra, he'll sit down at the piano, work out the music, and then make an arrangement for the larger group. This isn't the way it usually happens. The orchestra is such a multicolored instrument that the best composers will generally think in terms of orchestral sound and individual instrumental lines while they are conceiving of the material. Each of the instrumental sounds tends to have somewhat of a specialized character it can convey, and the composer will use that character to "speak" the music in the tone color that matches what he wants to say. Having noted that, some important parts of the orchestral repertoire did begin life as music for piano. It's a worthy challenge of a composer's skills to take something idiomatically written for the piano and make it work with the completely different musical machinery of an orchestra. Two excellent examples are Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel who later did his own orchestration. Ravel also took a very large-scale piano piece called Pictures at an Exhibition by Russian composer Modeste Mussorgsky and created a dazzling orchestral piece that is heard more widely than the piano original.

In the early 1800s, French composer Hector Berlioz was the first to truly exploit the tone colors of the modern orchestral instruments. Other musicians who are noted for their brilliant orchestration include Russian Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov, Austrian Richard Strauss, and French composer Maurice Ravel mentioned in the previous paragraph. Many listeners consider Igor Stravinsky's ballet "The Rite of Spring" to be the most brilliantly orchestrated piece of music ever written, taking many instruments outside of their usual ranges. At the premiere of The Rite of Spring in 1913, shocked listeners literally rioted in the theater. As the role of the instruments in the orchestra continued to changed, composers were quick to exploit their new abilities and strengths. With a little practice one can become a musical Sherlock Holmes and deduce a lot of information from a piece of music. A good listener can can hear an unfamiliar orchestral composition and tell when it was composed within twenty years one way or another. By picking out certain instruments, how they are used as well as a few other factors, pieces of the puzzle will often fall into place.

In addition, there are certain national characteristics of music such as harmonies, rhythms, and orchestration that will allow a listener to make an accurate guess as to whether the composer was British, Russian, American, Scandinavian, French, German, Slavic, etc. Orchestras are sometimes commonly referred to as a "symphony". More correctly a symphony is a piece of music, not the group that plays it. Many orchestras are called "symphony orchestras", and "symphony" is the typical shortened form of that. Frequently, the name of the ensemble is related to its size and purpose--such as a chamber orchestra (very small orchestra), opera orchestra (small, usually performing opera scores), and symphony orchestra (a somewhat larger group). Some orchestras have the name "philharmonic" as part of their title, which literally means "friends of harmony", although it's hard to imagine such a group needing to distinguish itself from "enemies of harmony." The name 'band' has changed in meaning somewhat over the last couple of centuries. Today, many describe a group such as the Beatles, Anthrax, or the Talking Heads as a band.

Traditionally a band is a group consisting of woodwind, brasses, and percussion instruments--no strings. To further confuse the matter, in Beethoven's time, a band was the name given to what we now call an orchestra! A history of the orchestra wouldn't be complete without mentioning the eighth symphony of Austrian Gustav Mahler. Because of the giant numbers of strings, woodwinds, brasses, percussion instruments, voices, organs, it has been nicknamed the "Symphony of a Thousand". While there is music composed for larger ensembles, none of them have made it to the common orchestral repertoire. Even so, because of the cost involved in hiring and coordinating so many musicians, Mahler's eighth symphony is somewhat of a rarity, and when it is heard, it is usually scaled back to a group of only 500. In the last few decades, an interesting movement has taken place in orchestral performances--that of using the original instrumentation available at the time the music was composed. Even though a modern orchestra will use the same instrumentation called for in an eighteenth century score, the sound of the instruments and the way they are played has changed drastically.

For example, early string instruments generally used lighter, thinner gut strings, were played with a different type of bow, less vibrato, and had less tension on the instrument. The result is a lighter, more feathery sound. Even more drastic changes can be heard in the sound of the other families. Oddly enough, instead of the result sounding like a musical museum, it often makes the music sound fresher and more alive. Many performers and listeners aren't quite satisfied with this "new old" sound, though, and there remains quite a debate about which style is actually more faithful to the intentions of the composer and the spirit of the music. As the strings were the most technologically advanced when the orchestra formed, the strings became the backbone of the orchestra and are traditionally seated closest to the conductor. Early arrangements usually had the first and second violin sections on opposite sides of the stage. The woodwind section will usually have flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, but may also have a piccolo, English horn, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon. Early brass sections contained trumpets and French horns, but modern music often calls for trombones and tuba.

Since the early 1900s, the percussion section has taken on new importance in the traditional symphony orchestra. The Orchestra Conductor The orchestra is the ultimate musical instrument, capable of functioning as a giant and infinitely versatile synthesizer. A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that can control many of the parameters of the musical sounds it generates and is able to produce a huge number of tone colors. Even the most high-tech electronic ones are limited as to the number of simultaneous effects and how quickly they can be reprogrammed. These are shortcomings that an orchestra can easily overcome--but only when the musicians are able to lose their individual musical identities and function as one. The conductor performs a critical role in creating this unity. In essence, the modern conductor "plays" this giant and complex instrument. The components--the players--must be able to function under a very authoritarian leadership if anything of artistic merit is to come from the process. The orchestra, at least from a sheer musical standpoint, definitely cannot function as a democratic organization. A musical dictator must run the show. Hopefully the "dictator" is a benevolent one, but that's not always the case.

A number of legendary orchestra conductors had equally legendary tempers when things didn't go the way they wanted. There are four basic functions of an orchestra conductor. The most obvious function of a conductor is simply to keep the players together, as a "musical traffic cop". In a performance, a conductor will often point to a section or an individual player. He is giving the musician(s) a cue to reinforce an important entrance or melodic line. Some orchestral parts will have hundreds of consecutive measures of rest; it's easy to lose count in these. You can imagine the disastrous effect for a musician to blare out singly after 99 measures of a 100 measure rest--which has happened. . . Simply put, the conductor is responsible for the cohesiveness of the orchestra's sound. A second important function is the job as interpreter of the orchestral score. Almost no composition is set down with an exact tempo (speed), exact dynamics (loudness), or usually even the exact number of instruments playing each line. The conductor is responsible for all of these decisions and more. In addition to these simple mechanical and technical considerations, he becomes as a great Shakespearean actor.

The words are there, the phrasing is there, but life must be put into the lines. In a like fashion the conductor must breathe life into the music. It's also within a conductor's realm (and job) to delve into the music, sense some kind of meaning (if it exists), deal with the emotions presented in the music, and insure they're communicated effectively to the audience. The technical aspect of this can be taught without too much trouble. The interpretive ability is a gift from wherever creative gifts like that come. In addition to these purely musical functions, there are practical elements--such as making sure the audience members are sufficiently entertained. Many conductors put on a bit of a show for the audience. Don't mistake the fact that the elaborate motions really do serve to shape and sculpt a sound, a musical color, or the execution of a line, but if one watches a rehearsal instead of a performance, it's likely the conductor's movements will be a bit closer to the original function of a conductor--that of simply being a musical traffic cop. A fourth--and very important--function of the conductor is as one of the administrators of a large business organization. Yes, a performing arts organization must keep its financial status in prime consideration.

Musicians' unions have many demands that need to be met, a performing hall must be available, the regular and guest musicians must be paid (for many of them, the orchestra represents their primary source of income), etc. Not the least important of all, they must be sure that this process of music-making sells tickets. Along with being involved in these processes, a conductor will often make decisions on the musical direction that the orchestra takes--the concert tours, the programs, etc. that are performed. As orchestras have become more autonomous business organizations, the conductor/music director has become less and less involved in the hiring and firing of musicians, salary matters, but their decisions and wishes often carry a great deal of weight--especially if the conductor is a recognized "star" who has become well known through his recordings. Before the conductor became a separate position, the orchestra was led by the first violinist (today known as the concertmaster) or the keyboard player.

Louis Spohr, a pupil of Beethoven and possibly the first conductor to use a baton, once wrote about the effect that a conductor can have on an ensemble: "I took my stand with the score in front of the orchestra, drew my conducting stick from my pocket, and gave the signal to begin. Some of the directors had been alarmed, but when I besought them to grant me at least one trial, they became pacified. The symphonies and overtures that were to be rehearsed were well known to me, and in Germany I had already directed their performance. I could therefore not only give the tempi in a very decisive manner, but also indicate to the wind instruments and horns all their entries, which ensured to them a confidence such as hitherto they had not known there. They played with a spirit and correctness such as till then they had never been heard to play with." While the frantic arm motions of some conductors might make them seem as if they're trying to fly, thus far in music history there has been only one fatality directly attributed to conducting. Jean Baptiste Lully, an early French Baroque composer would sometimes pound a stick on the stage to keep the orchestra together.

On one occasion, he accidentally speared his foot and died from the resulting infection. More recently, Sir Georg Solti impaled his hand with his baton during a recording session and had to be taken to a local emergency room to have the tip of the baton removed before the session could continue. In the midst of praising the conductor, let us not forget the musicians who are responsible for the memorable performances. Even a great conductor cannot get passable performances out of poor ensembles. Among the best orchestras, there is a very highly developed sense of ensemble--they have learned to play as one large group while still retaining their individual musical personalities. This allows orchestras to have many different conductors in a season and still sound credible. When the conductor gets the many standing ovations at the end of a performance, he is getting the same glory as a quarterback after a good game, or the credited win of a baseball pitcher. All three know that it was truly a team effort and that they happen to be in the spotlighted position--albeit a guiding one. Interpretation What exactly is interpretation of music? Why does music even need to be interpreted? Can't an orchestra just play the music and be done with it?

Among serious musicians, there are few things that will provoke more arguments than the issue of musical interpretation. To interpret a piece of music is to bring it to life, to make it sound like a living, breathing document. Without that life, the music sounds very mechanical and lacking in drama. To complicate matters, interpretation is a very individual process--two intelligent, musically gifted, and imaginative performers will approach the same notes, dynamics, and tempos and come up with very different performances. How? Why? A piece of music is a partnership between the composer and the interpreter. The performer must accept the responsibility for "speaking" for the composer. He must make an attempt to understand what the composer is trying to say (if only in sheerly musical terms) and convey that message to the listener. Ultimately, he does so on his own terms, using what he has learned and experienced. This is what he contributes to the partnership. He must balance this message off with other factors such as the character of the audience, the sound of the particular instrument or orchestra, the acoustical properties of the performing hall, etc. These differences in approach are among the reasons that you will sometimes find twenty or more different recordings of the same piece of music.

One famous 'partner', a conductor, had so much of a fanatical following that it was suggested that people would buy tickets to see him conduct a stereo playing a recording. One sometimes wonders as to who is the junior partner! Two modern conductors, American Leonard Bernstein and Austrian Herbert von Karajan could well epitomize the argument. Much of their large orchestral repertoire overlapped, so we have quite a few recordings to compare. Their approach to music was quite different, and it is rare to find an experienced listener liking both of their recordings of the same work. To a devotee of Bernstein, his performances bring out a lot of the joy of music, the fire seething deep within the drama. His performances are very exciting and spontaneous. Karajan represents a well thought out interpretation with a focus on the orchestra as the supreme musical instrument. His performances are calculated and highly polished with well planned climaxes. To a Bernstein admirer, Karajan's performances are often cold and lifeless, almost mechanical. They focus on perfection in the orchestral sound at the sacrifice of the emotional program presented in the music. To a Karajan enthusiast, Bernstein's performances are shallow, flash without substance.

His attempts to make the music more exciting often reach a level of vulgarity and lose sight of what the composer was trying to say. To complicate matters, you will often find many listeners who don't like either of their approaches and prefer someone else's recordings. Who's right in their approach--Karajan or Bernstein? Both? Neither? To be sure, there is the element of temperament on the part of the conductors--Bernstein the American, Karajan the Austrian--and a matching or conflicting temperament of the listener as well. Perhaps the concept of right or wrong may not apply here. At some point, the tastes and experiences of the listener begin to decide whose interpretation is best. Once the composer's wishes have been fulfilled--by playing all of the notes, dynamics, tempos, etc.--who is to say that this skeleton shouldn't be fleshed out in whatever way the musician feels applicable? How can one tell which is the best interpretation? That's a good question without a good answer.

Composers who conduct their own works certainly are aware of the depth and meaning of the music, but don't always have the full complement of skills necessary to communicate their interpretive ideas to the orchestra and deal with the simple mechanics of an orchestra's sound that a master technician conductor would have. (Note: music isn't the only field where things like this occur: early in the 1900s someone created a competition to see who could do the best imitation of silent film comedian Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin himself secretly entered--and came in third!) Above all, whatever standards we use to judge an interpretation, the one that shouldn't be used is whichever recording sells the most copies. Musical expression--breathing life into the music--is something that just cannot be written down without making a piece of music unimaginably difficult (some have tried). The only real way to do this is for the composer to make a recording of the music and let that be the performance. Interestingly enough, that's exactly the path much music has taken since the beginning of the recording era. Recording hasn't destroyed the art of interpretation--it has become an interpretive art in itself.

Now--an interesting thought--seeing as there is music that obviously leaves the role of the interpreter out of the equation, is it possible to compose music that leaves the composer out of it? Believe it or not, the answer is yes. One composer who chose to try to leave his own ego out of his music was American John Cage. Many of his compositions depend a great deal on random chance. Some of his compositions consist of symbols that can be interpreted more or less however the performer sees fit. The name for this type of music is aleatoric music and can be described as "the decision not to make decisions". Cage drew heavily from the I Ching Book of Changes to determine the probability of events in his compositions. Other composers have used dice, coins, and most recently, the random number generator of a computer. There might be a tendency to blame it all on modernists like Cage; however, for the record, Mozart composed a work which requires the conductor to roll dice before playing a particular composition. How the dice come up determines the order in which the different sections are to be played! Needless to say, they're not always recognizable from performance to performance. On the other hand, they are constantly fresh and immediate.

Keep in mind that much of our musical experience is a matter of perspective. To the Western way of thinking, Beethoven's fifth symphony is one of the most brilliant, tightly woven, and engaging musical dramas ever composed. To many Eastern cultures, it is a useless piece of music because each time it is played, it is exactly the same. It doesn't grow, it doesn't change. Life is always changing--how could a piece of music that never changes reflect what life is all about? This is an interesting commentary on the Western paradigm--while we have followed Faust and sold out our innocence and our past, we have also chosen to hang onto some very important things. Our literature, our poetry, our paintings, our music--even our instruments are sometimes an attempt to bridge the gap of time; or perhaps render it irrelevant. Are there other less extreme examples of music that changes drastically from performance to performance? For a commonly known example of music that changes greatly from performance to performance, we need to look no farther than Jazz. Q and A with a conductor Q: What are the most common misconceptions about conductors and conducting?

A: When people find out I'm a conductor, I'm surprised at the number of times I get the same response--"Wow! That must be thrilling to be able to start and stop a whole group of musicians with just a wave of the hand!!" I find it thrilling, but not in the way people suppose. For me, the thrill comes from being able to get my hands dirty up to the elbows in music. Except for composing, fitting all of the parts of a composition together and shaping those parts into a whole takes one the closest to the core of what music and creativity is all about. I also think a lot of people have the idea in the back of their minds that a conductor waves his arms around in time to the music. There's far more to it than just that aspect. Q: Can you give some examples? A: First off, the performance is the the tip of the iceberg; I like to think of it as the final step in a flight of stairs. The lion's share of the job of preparing for the concert is done in rehearsal, in the preparation of the score for performance. Rehearsals are where you iron out musical difficulties.

This is where the group gets a chance to learn the conductor's signals and cues--and for the conductor to get a feel for the musicians. Many signals come through body language, even facial expressions that the audience isn't aware of. It takes time for an orchestra and a conductor to get completely used to each other, but when it all comes together, it's dangerously close to communication by telepathy. In theory, all the necessary communication can be done by a conductor who doesn't even speak the same language as the members of the orchestra. I'll confess I haven't reached that level--there are lots of times I just have to stop and talk my way through a section of music--"I'd like the a tempo to start on the third beat of the measure," or "don't start the crescendo too soon; and then build it gradually and get louder exponentially at the end," or "we need a little more bass resonance in that passage--the lower instruments need to be just a shade louder." Beyond the correctness of the notes, the conductor also needs to listen critically and shape the sound.

Each section of the orchestra has its own qualities and the conductor needs to be like a recording engineer, highlighting certain sections at times, pulling back the faders slightly at other times, adjusting tones--for example, I'll ask the violins to make a darker sound in a certain phrase. A very subtle item is to set the dynamic range of a piece .How loud should the loudest dynamic marking be played? How soft should the softest be played? Do you want the loud end to sound a touch harsh? When you decide that, you then work on scaling the whole piece of music based on those two parameters. I remember reading of one famous conductor who was doing the Beethoven 5th symphony for his first major concert with one specific orchestra. At the final rehearsal, he had the orchestra play a few measures of the loudest section of the music but told them to play it only as loud as they could while still keeping a beautiful sound. He then told them, 'that's the loudest you play in the concert.' And, there are lots of mundane housekeeping details that include correction of printing errors in the parts and other good stuff like that.

As a piece of music comes together, the conductor gets to hear this music come to life in the individual hands of the orchestra players. Of course he should go in with an understanding of how the piece of music is supposed to sound and how everything should fit together. However, I find that while I have my own ideas about certain details, the musicians are the ones creating the sounds on instruments they have studied sometimes for decades. Many conductors don't work this way--and I respect their approach--but I don't like to micromanage an orchestral sound. As long as the players are performing the music true to the score, there's still a lot of leeway in what they can do, and I believe that by incorporating their ideas into the whole vision of what I'm doing, everyone is the better for it. An orchestra has its own distinct style and its own distinct sound--you could even go so far as say that it has its own personality. Part of rehearsal is for the conductor to learn that and exploit its individual strengths. The same conductor I just talked about once compared conducting an orchestra to flying a plane--you set it in motion and then guide its flight.

You don't try to make it do things it doesn't want--or can't do. Having said that, the members of the orchestra aren't generally seeing the whole picture. They know just their own individual parts and little else. It's up to the conductor to have a vision that will hold it all together and make sense of it and turn it into a coherent piece of music. I once had a conversation with a football coach and we both concluded that we do much of the same thing in our practices--we set strategy, we have a vision or a game plan and we must communicate it; we must also encourage the "team members" to give their best effort and full concentration and give the members a reason to respect their leaders. Both the coach and the conductor must win their respective games in rehearsal. Q: What does it mean to interpret a piece of music? Can you describe the process of interpreting a piece of music? A: If you take a look at the script of Hamlet, it's just a set of words on a piece of paper with some very sparse stage directions. It's up to an actor to breathe life into those words, to step into the role and wear it like he is wearing a costume.

Guided by the director, he must make decisions about what will be true to the intent of the role and avoid those things that would be out of character. The conductor--and the individual musicians--must do the same things as the actor. They have to take a set of symbolic markings on a piece of paper and breathe life into it; express this life in the music's rhythms, through the phrasing, the dynamics; and then do this in concert with dozens of other musicians doing this at the same time. As I mentioned above, the conductor must have some vision of the piece of music and what it's supposed to communicate. Much of this process of bringing a piece of music to life is based on very practical considerations. Most music has a tempo marking such as allegro, meaning fast. But, how fast is fast? The problem might not be as simple as it sounds. For example, if something is extremely fast, you have to judge by the level of the orchestra's playing. Factor in the reverberation characteristics of the hall in which you're performing, and you start by making sure that the fastest passages can be heard cleanly. But, there's still more.

For example, take the music of Beethoven--even though they go by the same names, the sound of most of the instruments in the orchestra have changed dramatically from the group for which he wrote. Even before you get to deal with that element, the modern orchestra is much larger than the one he had in mind. That extra weight in the sound will affect the speed at which a piece of music should be played. A lively tempo in Beethoven's orchestra might sound frantic in a modern one even though they're going along at exactly the same clip. The orchestra is really a highly complex synthesizer made of many highly complex individual components. Beethoven's synthesizer was a little different and we have to somehow bridge the gap between the two and come up with a performance that works for this one, but respects the spirit of the earlier one. Q: How do you go about interpreting a piece of music? How do you go about putting your individual "stamp" on the music?

I have a feeling a lot of people might look at the catalog of 40 or so recordings of Beethoven's 5th symphony and conclude that every conductor looks at the piece of music and says to himself, "Let's see--how can I do this in a way that's different from everyone else? What can I do to distinguish my performance from that of conductor X, conductor Y, or conductor Z?" I suppose some performers do think in those terms, but I feel that's completely the wrong way to go about it. The conductor is the spokesperson for the composer--many times the composer is no longer living, so it's our job to take on that role as faithfully as possible to the original intent of the music. The score should be the ultimate authority. That's the cake--then comes the icing. The conductor needs to understand the dramatic structure of the piece of music. Perhaps a little emphasis on one phrase, perhaps slow down another one, etc. That's where it comes to life--the individual touch guided by the individual personality of the conductor. While we're the spokesperson for the composer, we also need to remember that we're also the salesman for his product. The two aren't exactly the same.

Q: How much does the personality of the conductor affect the final outcome? A: That's something that can get scary if you think about it too much. All of the little points of emphasis that are lumped into the category of "interpretation"--his personal touch--are related to the conductor's personality. Western music often centers around a feeling of conflict, of drama. What is his own vision of the universe around him? How does he see conflict and deal with drama in his own mind and life? Does he tackle it aggressively and plow right into it? Or does life appear as an endless struggle that often ends in tragedy with a lot of irony? These questions are not only be answered differently by different conductors, but answered differently by the same conductor in different phases of his life. Listen to two different recordings by the same conductor first as a young man, then as an old one. The earlier ones are likely to have more fire and tension while the later ones are likely to be more introspective with fewer rough edges and sharp corners. Even before the performance, the conductor's personality shapes the rehearsal process, which in turn shapes the performance. Some conductors are known for being very jovial in rehearsal.

Others are known for being tyrants who sometimes scream at the musicians. If you listen to both of those conductors performing the same piece of music--such as a Beethoven symphony, the first one will probably bring out the humor and warmth in Beethoven's music. The other one will probably have performances with a very precise, tense edge to them and focus on a sense of conflict. Incidentally, I had two specific conductors in mind; Sir Thomas Beecham and Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini was bad tempered from time to time, but still had the respect and admiration of the musicians who worked with him. Q: Which interpretation is correct? I was afraid you would ask that!! The answer may be "both of them", or perhaps "neither of them". Or, perhaps the concept of right or wrong doesn't even belong in that discussion. I think of great music as a Rorsharch test [a Rorsharch test is where someone looks at a random ink blot and describes that jumps into his or her mind--the theory is that it helps to get a glimpse of the true inner self].

Music is so much on the level of the subconscious and often so abstract that what we hear in someone's music is what we ourselves are thinking. I remember a particular moment of epiphany once when I was rehearsing Handel's Messiah--I realized that for all practical purposes, the piece of music I was conducting should have no meaning whatsoever to any of us. It was written by a composer who lived at a time when the government consisted of a very powerful monarchy--the music is very "regal" and pompous, not really written for the common man; there was little freedom of speech when this was written--the composer certainly couldn't have spoken out against the government; the instruments aren't anything like what we work with today; the harmony was drastically different from anything you would hear on a contemporary radio station. It used a religious text that was incompatible with the religious preference of a very large percentage of us. How could a piece of music composed under those circumstances ever have anything to do with us? The irony is, we were all loving it--and after a while, I began to understand what was happening. We were playing this piece not because it was about early 18th century England, or about its composer Handel, but about us.

Something deeper than words, harmonies, rhythms was resonating with what we are today. We looked at it and found that what we saw was a part of our selves. I like to think that the greatest works of musical art have enough room in them to be able to fit different approaches. Maybe this also explains why some music is still commonly performed two or three centuries after it was written while most remains forgotten. Other pieces of music failed to capture the deepest essence of being a human being. Or, perhaps the composer wasn't walking down quite the same path that we are. Q: What are your influences as a conductor? An understanding of human nature helps, both in getting into the mind of the composer and audience, and in dealing with the musicians in order to bring out their best. Because conducting is basically playing an instrument--an orchestra--as much experience performing doesn't hurt, even if it's non-classical music: Personally, I believe the more variety, the better. Something that has helped me a great deal is a background in composition. It allows me to understand the intricate mechanics of the creation process, to be able to better get a sense of the architecture of a piece of music. I also have spent a fair amount of time engineering recordings.

I think that's something that has helped sharpen my listening skills. Q: Any last thoughts about the process? A: I have a great reverence for music making of any kind. Sometimes when I'm conducting, I'm overtaken with a sense of awe at what I see happening in front of me--a group of individual musicians from many different countries, traditions, and ideologies who have come together for one wonderful purpose: to make music. While we are making music together, we shed our individual identities to create a wonderful whole much larger than all of us put together. We are involved with something that transcends the barriers of time, something that will unite us with those who hear us. Sadly, we live in a world where so many things pit us against each other and force us to take opposite sides. However, at least for those few minutes, we got it right. Orchestra/conductor photos courtesy of Frank Eberling III. Digital rendering by the author Orchestra | Parts of a Symphonic Orchestra | History of Orchestral Music The Orchestra An orchestra is a group of musicians who play together on various instruments. Sometimes it performs alone ,at other times it plays along with a group of singers.

Orchestras give concerts and play for ballets or operas. They also provide background music for movies and TV shows. When we speak of orchestras we usually mean symphony orchestras. They have many instruments and play mostly classical music which is performed in concerts. Some symphony orchestras have only professional musicians. The most famous are in the larger cities of the world. Among them are the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston and London Symphony. Orchestral music is written in the form of a score, which shows the notes that are played by each instrument. Every musician only sees the notes that he or she plays. The conductor stands in front of the orchestra and directs the musicians . An orchestra can have up to 20 kinds of different instruments. Large symphony orchestras can have a hundred musicians . Smaller ones like chamber orchestras have between 5 and 40 players. They originally were small enough to play in a chamber or hall. A Philharmonic Orchestra - Pedro Sánchez Sections of an Orchestra A modern orchestra consists of four sections or families of instruments. The string section is the most important part of a symphony orchestra.

It has more than half of the musicians and consists of violins, violas , cellos and string basses . The violinists play high sounds and are divided into two groups. The first violins and the second violins usually play different parts. The leading first violinist is the concertmaster of the orchestra. He helps the other musicians tune their instruments and serves as the assistant . Cellos and string basses play low sounds . The woodwind section consists of flutes, bassoons , oboes and clarinets. An orchestra can have between two and four of each of these instruments. Sometimes these musicians change instruments , for example, a flutist may switch to a piccolo . These two instruments have high piercing tones , whereas the bassoon may have the lowest tones of the whole orchestra. The brass section has several trumpets, French horns, trombones and one tuba . These instruments are especially important in the loud, exciting parts of the music. Trumpets and horns play the higher parts, trombones and tubas dominate the lower parts. This section is located mostly at the centre and back of the orchestra. The percussion section has all sorts of instruments, especially those that you can hit, rattle or shake .

The drums are the best known among these instruments. In a symphony orchestra, kettledrums or timpani make the music more exciting . Other percussion instruments include bells, cymbals , gongs, tambourines or xylophones. Other instruments like the harp , piano or saxophone may be added to the orchestra if they are needed. The Conductor A conductor directs the musicians with a stick, called the baton. But he does important things before the performance . He chooses the music that is to be played at a concert and decides how it should be played- loud or soft, fast or slow. Then he calls the musicians to rehearsals where he often lets sections or individual musicians play their parts over and over again until the sound is perfect. History of the Orchestra The word orchestra was first used by the ancient Greeks and meant the front part of a stage . During the Middle Ages it also included the musicians on the stage . The first orchestras were organized by kings and queens of France and in Italian churches and places during the late 6th and early 7th centuries . Most of these orchestras used stringed instruments and played for ballets, operas and at dance parties.

By the early 1700s some European composers , like Johann Sebastian Bach or George Frederic Handel, wrote music just for orchestras. Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang A. Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven perfected the classical symphony in the late 1700s and early 1800s. In the 20th century composers like Richard Strauss or Igor Stravinsk y created musical works that needed large ensembles . Later on electronic instruments were added and new sounds created .

among = along with, together with ancient = old assistant = someone who helps his boss bassoon = a musical instrument like a long wooden tube; it produces a low sound brass = musical instruments that are made of metal century = a hundred years chamber orchestra = a small group of musicians who play classical music together common = something that can be found very often composer = a person who writes music conductor = someone who stands in front of a group of musicians and directs them consist of = is made up of create = make, write cymbal = a musical instrument in the form of a thin round metal plate, which you play by hitting it with a stick or by hitting two of them together decide = choose direct = to be in control of divide = separate dominate = here: they are the most important instruments in this section ensemble = group of musicians who play regularly especially = above all flutist = someone who plays the flute harp = large instrument with strings that you play with your fingers include = contain, consist of kettledrum = large metal drum with a round bottom late = the last years of ...

leading = the best or most important located = is found musicians = people who play music note = a symbol on paper that stands for a musical sound percussion = musical instruments that you hit or shake perfect = to do something so long that you can do it very very well perform = to play in front of people performance = presentation of music in front of people piccolo = musical instrument that looks like a small flute piercing = very high , sharp and not so nice to hear professional = to do something for money provide = give rattle = shake quickly many times rehearsal = when all the musicians practise before a performance section = part serve = work as, operate as several = many shake = to move an object quickly from one side to another stage = higher area of a hall or theatre on which the musicians sit when they perform string = instruments that have strings string bass = a very large musical instrument shaped like a violin that the musician plays standing up switch = change symphony = long piece of music, usually in four parts that is written for an orchestra tone = sound trombone = a large metal instrument that you play by blowing into it and sliding a long tube in and out to change sounds tuba = a large metal instrument that consists of a curved tube with a wide opening that points straight up

; it produces a very low sound tune = to make a musical instrument play the right tone various = different viola = a wooden instrument that you play like a violin ; but it is larger and has a lower sound whereas = while, but woodwind = musical instruments made of wood or metal that you play by blowing air into them.

They usually have finger holes.

Question: What is the name of the stick used by a conductor to control an orchestra?
Answer: Baton