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I am not professional but have played piano in many high school Broadway shows and small orchestra performances of classical repertoire. The conductors for these performances(some were professional and some were amateur)always gave a very clear downbeat.

Yet watching the numerous Cliburn perfrmances it seems to me that Conlan doesn't always move his bow/arm down on the downbeat or his downbeat doesn't seem to coincide with the downbeat as played by the orchestra or pianist. I have noticed this while watching other professional orchestral performances.

Is the "clear" downbeat something that's only done in amateur performances maybe because professionals don't need it or am I not observing something correctly?

That's a question I've often asked myself.

There are some world-class conductors whose "beat" I have not been able to follow and others whom I could work with very comfortably if I were performing under them. It's a question of conducting style, I guess. I sometimes wonder - although I've not thought to analyze it - if, for some conductors, the beat comes at the top of the downbeat and for others at the bottom of the downbeat; there's sometimes quite a distance between the two.

Regards,

Conductors seem to fall into two categories: the "here it (the beat) comes" ones and the "there it was" ones.

I read once that Georg Solti felt that the preparatory, or upbeats, were more important than the downbeats.

I often thought the New York Philharmonic lagged behind Kurt Masur just to have the satisfaction of almost giving him a hernia on every downbeat.

I've noticed that conductors of professional orchestras mark the beat just a little ahead of the orchestra (or maybe the orchestra is just a tiny bit behind the conductor) while conductors of amateur orchestras mark the beat exactly with the orchestra. I asked my former teacher about it and he said my observation was correct. He said amateur orchestras need the exact direction while the pros look for leadership to respond to. Has anyone else noticed this?

That's the gist.

Other factors:

For the orchestra members, it can be hard to see a low beat over the person in front of you, so a beat that's high can be easier to see.

There is a time delay between the orchestra seeing the beat, playing the instrument, and the sound from the instrument reaching the audience. The conductor will always seem a bit ahead because if he conducted exactly with the orchestra he'd be following instead of leading, causing the conductor to be both irrelevantly pointless and constantly dragging the tempo down.

When I was in the local symphony chorus over a period of time, I noticed that the orchestra gradually reverted to playing "behind the beat" after an initial infatuation with the new, "on the beat" conductor, much to his annoyance.

On TV, New York Phil is slightly behind "Mr. Flippy" (as I call Loren Maazel), but he would never tolerate the delay his predecessor endured!

People near the back can easily see the conductor with their peripheral vision. People in the very front might have to pull up their music a little more to see the entire conductor. But there's not really a problem in seeing the conductor.

Sort of. But the effect of seeing and playing the instrument and the time it takes for the sound to get to the audience is even greater for people in the very back. They must anticipate the conductor's movements to keep everything together.



@the other poster:
Yea, the beginning orchestras play exactly with the conductor. If the orchestra is together, that is a win.

The professional ones play behind the conductor. They see how the conductor phrases it before they play themselves.

Example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g

It's mostly images. But he conducts earlier than the orchestra plays. This is apparent with the first chord. It's in 4/2 (4 half notes per measure). He conducts the first measure in two. The first beat the first violin plays. The rest of the orchestra plays a whole rest later. Notice how long the time delay is.

It seems to me that some very good and experienced orchestras have a collective mind of their own, and some very good conductors appreciate this in an orchestra, and elicit the collective mind by giving a somewhat vague beat. This allows the orchestra some expression of its own. And there are other conductors, also very good, who insist that the orchestra do it the conductor's way, and may dictate more specifically what they want.

I'm going to go out on a limb here: This may explain what happened in Philadelphia with the short tenure of Christoph Eschenbach. The Philadelphia Orchestra is an old, established and highly professional orchestra, and it definitely has its own voice and personality, and in some ways, hardly needs a conductor. The one and only time I heard Eschenbach and the Philly, Eschenbach conducted in a very demanding and precise way. His beat and manner was anything but vague, and he was getting what he wanted. But it was clearly a tussle. I'm old enough to have heard Ormandy conduct the Philly, and it was a very different experience. The beat was loose, even lax. He simply trusted the orchestra.

I wonder and worry how they'll do with Dutoit. I really do.

Tomasino

Interview with Carter Bray, principal cellist, NY Philharmonic:

TJ: Could you please explain to me why the New York Philharmonic has to play behind the beat of the conductor?

CB: I wish I knew. It drives me crazy to this day. The fact that I've learned how to do it doesn't make me any happier about it. There is a psychological moment when it feels right to play, but it doesn't occur at the bottom of a baton stroke for this orchestra. I wish it did, since it would make my life a lot easier.

http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/brey.htm

Our Minnesota Orchestra plays marvelously well a wide variety of music with our principal conductor and a wide variety of assistant conductors and guest conductors, all of whom seem to have some variation of this dreamy out of sync beat we're discussing. Then, in the summertime, we have something called "Sommerfest," and Doc Sevrenson, he of Tonight Show fame, comes to conduct our orchestra. And oh, does he work hard. He conducts with his whole body, he sweats, he pants, and the beat is clearly right there on the end of his baton for all to see, and the orchestra is exactly with him--but--well, they don't sound very good. They seem flat, listless. It's a fight, it's a tussle. Go figure.

Tomasino

There is the issue of string players and preparing the bow for the next entrance and the kind of bowing at the entrance, versus winds who play with more immediacy of attack (after breathing). Doc may have been stabbing at the strings like they were trumpet players!

Next we'll be saying that pianists should play behind the metronome! I always thought the old, electric Franz metronomes were popular because the takt is so wide that one can play at the beginning, middle, or end of the beat and still be "correct."

There is a YouTube of Conlon conducting the overture to "Semiramide" where it looks like the ictus is indicated more by his hand than the tip of the stick (which he holds pointed to one side, and many do).

Hmmmm. Ictus and takt - Thank you for the two new words!

Ictus is the instant a beat occurs, as the word applies to music.

We don't play piano exactly on the beat. If you listen carefully, a lot of pianists typically play the right hand slightly behind the left. So where's the beat?

Tomasino

Quoting WhoDwaldi:

"There is the issue of string players and preparing the bow for the next entrance and the kind of bowing at the entrance, versus winds who play with more immediacy of attack (after breathing).

So you are suggesting that technical issues inherent in different kinds of instruments may make them realize the beat differently, and by implication, conductors may possibly cue them differently? Am I reading your post correctly?

Tomasino

Tomasino: yes, as to the different sections of the orchestra and the beat.

As for piano, one might add that the hammer strike is different from when the key bottoms out, and it varies also by the dynamic level at which one is playing.

Then, there's syncopated pedaling.

We pianists listen and make lots of adjustments, don't we?

This might be a bit of gravedigging, but thanks for the article WhoDwaldi! It was very helpful.

WhoDwaldi,

You're right. The hammer strike must come after the key bottoms out. It may seem instantaneous, but even in louder passages, the hammer strikes after the key is depressed. In softer passages, the delay will be more pronounced. We pianists are probably exploiting this without even noticing it, in an effort to imitate those instruments which are not so percussive by nature. This goes along with the idea of syncopated pedaling, if you mean by this depressing the pedal slightly after the note is struck, giving a more sustained effect. Also, playing the right hand slightly after the left, as many pianists do, may be in pursuit of a similar less percussive, less precise, less beat intense, more legato effect.

Conductors, who are not playing an instrument in the sense that instrumentalists are, will naturally conduct differently for different instruments and different effects. Choral conductors really make the point. A singing effect is the very opposite of percussion in music making. Choral conductors go much further than orchestra conductors in the delayed, out of sync beat which is the topic of this thread.

Tomasino

I don't think that is the case. The technical issues vary from instrument to instrument - an oboe is not the same as a trombone (very slow to speak). And the same instrument may play behind the beat in an orchestra, ahead of the beat in a salsa band, on the beat in a wind ensemble, etc. Some of the famous jazz leaders were extremely particular in where they allowed their sections to play.

I suspect it is more of a genre thing. Orchestras do tend to play behind, to my eyes and ears. Something about that style of music calls for it.