5 ms·

The musicians can't easily keep time. Not because they're bad at their jobs, but because sound travels so slowly there's an appreciable delay between the differ

The musicians can't easily keep time. Not because they're bad at their jobs, but because sound travels so slowly there's an appreciable delay between the different sections of the orchestra. (50 ms for a smaller hall, up to 100 ms for a giant Mahlerian monster orchestra in a large space.) Those are not small delays. The speed of light is slightly faster, so having someone at the front indicating time keeps everything together. The pointing and gesticulating aren't limited to prepared rehearsal notes. Rehearsal notes certainly happen, but apart from keeping time, the conductor's job is to define the mood and emotional valence, moment to moment. This may be somewhat improvised, within limits. Orchestras typically play somewhat behind the indicated beat because it allows for more expression. There's also a lot of business-related admin - dealing with absences, holding auditions for new members, contributing to program scheduling, reading and possibly writing feedback notes to/from various interested parties, and so on. Every once in a while a smaller orchestra will try to manage without a conductor. While the results are usually workable - professional musicians are very good at their jobs - they're not great.

ksaj 4y ago
Likewise, the vast majority of orchestral music is not done to a regular tick. The phrasing can be very different between different conductors, as they all speed up / slow down / etc. to the conductor's individual interpretation of the piece. So the conductor is also a visual time keeper.
sushisource 4y ago
I'm not sure ~1million times faster is "slightly", lol
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Well, it's an absolute version of it. 50ms is "slightly faster".
myself248 4y ago
My favorite demonstration of this effect is this moment of Queen during Live Aid at Wembley Stadium: https://youtu.be/TkFHYODzRTs?t=1094 https://youtu.be/TkFHYODzRTs?t=1094 Everyone in the audience is clapping in time with the beat, _as it reaches them_, and you can see the speed of sound as the beat propagates out through the crowd. I often use this to illustrate yet another reason that CPUs went multi-core: When propagation across the chip takes longer than your clock speed, you have to reduce the distances somehow. A bunch of small stages in the same acreage would have a much easier time each clapping "together enough".
AlbertCory 4y ago
Very good points. In the chorus, we were always told to watch the conductor, or else we'd always be late. Amusing factoid: once I was in the audience at a musical theater production, and I could see TV monitors up high on the walls in the house, facing the stage. I couldn't see what was on them, but I'm pretty sure it was the conductor. So those folks have to be able to see the conductor, too.
pvarangot 4y ago
Yeah looking at the drummer or the bass guitar also helps keep time because of this. Also Zoom music is impossible because of this. AFAIK most bands that play on stage at fast tempos and are not improvising have a synced click going to everyone's IEMs together with their chosen mix of what's coming into the console. That makes musicians able to perform without looking at each other.
- ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
  Fortunately, we don't use sound to propagate signal across long distances, so Jamulus/Sonobus is actually a thing.
  - k0k0r0 4y ago
    The irony of your user name is great. Is that a throw-away account?
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      following the profile tells me no, also they have this https://thirdhemisphere.studio/ https://thirdhemisphere.studio/ so music related. When I saw the username I figured it was zoomzoomzoom because Capoeira Mata um, but evidently not.
letitbeirie 4y ago
My college fight song has a call-and-response section where the band drops out and the crowd spells out the name of the mascot. The crowd hears their own section yell in time to the band and then everything else just kind of seems like an echo of themselves. To the band on the field, each letter comes back about 3/4 of a beat (375ms) late and much louder than the band itself.
PlentyOfFish 4y ago
One other thing to add to your great response. REHEARSAL! Orchestras rehearse as little as they do because conductors do everything you've mentioned. But additionally they facilitate a singular musical goal, and take the "democracy" out of it. Further to this is the time management. The musicians in the orchestra have enough notes to play and sound to think of, without having to consider how much rehearsal time we need/want to spend on a specific movement, how we would like to spend more time on movement 1 but actually movement 3 is notoriously tricky so we need to have time for it etc. Also, someone has to be monitoring the process to know when enough is enough, it's not always the case that more rehearsal time = better.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  I know from my music days that everyone was expected to learn the piece on their own, or in small groups (for instance, on vocal pieces people would assemble to learn the group piece and then work on uniformity of tone), and then when we would go to rehearsal the point of it would be to iron out timings and building a feel for the piece as a whole. The only hotspot moments were when you were doing solo or standout work, which by necessity would mean that you would be rehearsing your sections with the whole group as, for instance, if a random tenor dropped a note that can be covered by everyone else, but if the soloist does it then it can make the whole ensemble look bad.
tzs 4y ago
> Not because they're bad at their jobs, but because sound travels so slowly there's an appreciable delay between the different sections of the orchestra. (50 ms for a smaller hall, up to 100 ms for a giant Mahlerian monster orchestra in a large space.) Why does the hall size matter? I would have expected the size and shape of the space within the hall that is actually occupied by the orchestra to be what matters.
castillar76 4y ago
> While the results are usually workable - professional musicians are very good at their jobs - they're not great. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_Chamber_Orchestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_Chamber_Orchestra), performing without a conductor since 1972, would like a word. :) They’re definitely not large, but I would strongly dispute the “not great” part. On the other hand, they’re also very unusual in that space—even eight-piece chamber ensembles often have a conductor!

ksaj 4y ago

Likewise, the vast majority of orchestral music is not done to a regular tick. The phrasing can be very different between different conductors, as they all speed up / slow down / etc. to the conductor's individual interpretation of the piece. So the conductor is also a visual time keeper.

sushisource 4y ago

I'm not sure ~1million times faster is "slightly", lol

marcosdumay 4y ago
Well, it's an absolute version of it. 50ms is "slightly faster".

myself248 4y ago

My favorite demonstration of this effect is this moment of Queen during Live Aid at Wembley Stadium: https://youtu.be/TkFHYODzRTs?t=1094 https://youtu.be/TkFHYODzRTs?t=1094 Everyone in the audience is clapping in time with the beat, _as it reaches them_, and you can see the speed of sound as the beat propagates out through the crowd. I often use this to illustrate yet another reason that CPUs went multi-core: When propagation across the chip takes longer than your clock speed, you have to reduce the distances somehow. A bunch of small stages in the same acreage would have a much easier time each clapping "together enough".

AlbertCory 4y ago

Very good points. In the chorus, we were always told to watch the conductor, or else we'd always be late. Amusing factoid: once I was in the audience at a musical theater production, and I could see TV monitors up high on the walls in the house, facing the stage. I couldn't see what was on them, but I'm pretty sure it was the conductor. So those folks have to be able to see the conductor, too.

pvarangot 4y ago

Yeah looking at the drummer or the bass guitar also helps keep time because of this. Also Zoom music is impossible because of this. AFAIK most bands that play on stage at fast tempos and are not improvising have a synced click going to everyone's IEMs together with their chosen mix of what's coming into the console. That makes musicians able to perform without looking at each other.

ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
Fortunately, we don't use sound to propagate signal across long distances, so Jamulus/Sonobus is actually a thing.
- k0k0r0 4y ago
  The irony of your user name is great. Is that a throw-away account?
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    following the profile tells me no, also they have this https://thirdhemisphere.studio/ https://thirdhemisphere.studio/ so music related. When I saw the username I figured it was zoomzoomzoom because Capoeira Mata um, but evidently not.

letitbeirie 4y ago

My college fight song has a call-and-response section where the band drops out and the crowd spells out the name of the mascot. The crowd hears their own section yell in time to the band and then everything else just kind of seems like an echo of themselves. To the band on the field, each letter comes back about 3/4 of a beat (375ms) late and much louder than the band itself.

PlentyOfFish 4y ago

One other thing to add to your great response. REHEARSAL! Orchestras rehearse as little as they do because conductors do everything you've mentioned. But additionally they facilitate a singular musical goal, and take the "democracy" out of it. Further to this is the time management. The musicians in the orchestra have enough notes to play and sound to think of, without having to consider how much rehearsal time we need/want to spend on a specific movement, how we would like to spend more time on movement 1 but actually movement 3 is notoriously tricky so we need to have time for it etc. Also, someone has to be monitoring the process to know when enough is enough, it's not always the case that more rehearsal time = better.

BizarroLand 4y ago
I know from my music days that everyone was expected to learn the piece on their own, or in small groups (for instance, on vocal pieces people would assemble to learn the group piece and then work on uniformity of tone), and then when we would go to rehearsal the point of it would be to iron out timings and building a feel for the piece as a whole. The only hotspot moments were when you were doing solo or standout work, which by necessity would mean that you would be rehearsing your sections with the whole group as, for instance, if a random tenor dropped a note that can be covered by everyone else, but if the soloist does it then it can make the whole ensemble look bad.

tzs 4y ago

> Not because they're bad at their jobs, but because sound travels so slowly there's an appreciable delay between the different sections of the orchestra. (50 ms for a smaller hall, up to 100 ms for a giant Mahlerian monster orchestra in a large space.) Why does the hall size matter? I would have expected the size and shape of the space within the hall that is actually occupied by the orchestra to be what matters.

castillar76 4y ago

> While the results are usually workable - professional musicians are very good at their jobs - they're not great. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_Chamber_Orchestra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_Chamber_Orchestra), performing without a conductor since 1972, would like a word. :) They’re definitely not large, but I would strongly dispute the “not great” part. On the other hand, they’re also very unusual in that space—even eight-piece chamber ensembles often have a conductor!