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Conductors: What the heck is going on there? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: there's Jerry, and you put the three of us together, sika, bassoon,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: a tuba and an obo in our mouths. We'll pump
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: out some stuff you should.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Who plays what?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I play tuba?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, I guess I'll play the obo that leaves Jerry
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: with a bassoon?
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's fair.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: That sounds right.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: When I think Jerry, I think bassoon and vice versa.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Uh, that's right. So we need to thank Livia for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: this one because she did a bang up job. And
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: we need to thank BBC Music Magazine and Andrew Green
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: because Livia and us got a lot of help from
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Andrew Green's primer on conductors. Yeah, and this one was
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: my idea of because I think I just saw it.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Wasn't from seeing the movie Tar, even though I did
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: see that. I saw that in the theater a while
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: ago when it was out, But it kind of hit
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: me then, even like, what is such a weird job
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that I know nothing about? And what are they doing
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: up there? And can anyone just get up there and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: wave their arms around?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes from what I hear, Yes, there are some people
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: doing that out there.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: But I found this thoroughly enjoyable to research and hopefully
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: talk about.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good pick. I'm not sure I ever would have
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: gotten to this one, so good job.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So I think I think you're probably in the majority
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: of people who don't really understand what a conductor does,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: aside from standing up there and waving their arms. Yeah,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I know I was in that camp until fairly recently.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: But the stuff you see conductors doing, which is again
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: conducting a symphony, waving their arms, there's a lot of
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: methods to that seeming madness, and what you're seeing when
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: you see that a conductor conducting a symphony is the
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: culmination of a lot of other work that's done behind
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: the scenes before the performance that the conductor does. Like
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: they really earn their money from what I can.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Tell, Yeah, absolutely, And just to be clear, I'm not
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: such a rube that I was like, what are they
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: just waving their arms around? Because I grew up in choir,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: singing tenor in the choir, and so I certainly had
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: my share of choral conductors doing that stuff at me,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So I get what's going on there. But I was
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: just trying to make a joke.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, I don't think anybody thought you were
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: a rube.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Well you never know, maybe.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: A new listener, who knows, but you'd win them over
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: by the end of the episode, guaranteed.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not a roob. I'm a tenor.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: You're a tenor. Huh. I've never really been much of
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a singer, even though I sang in a band, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: as a reminder, then broke up and reformed without me.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, satis Josh stories.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: But also one of the most telling, isn't it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: No. Should we go back in time though, please, So
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: when you first joined that band.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to take another shot at it.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: No, we're going to go back in time to tell
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: you about the history of conducting. And this is sort
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of prehistory stuff, because conducting an orchestra to perform a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: symphonic orchestral piece wasn't really a thing early on as
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: far as using a conductor. That it started with what
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I was talking about, which was choral music and vocal music.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And we're talking you know, in the early century CE
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: there were people that would keep a beat and stomp
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a foot or wave their arms around to get a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: choir on point.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because one of the really important things to remember
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: throughout this episode is that when you're playing music by yourself,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: you have to to keep on tempo. But as you
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: add other people, whether you're playing music or singing, as
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: you had other people, they have to keep on tempo too,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: but you all have to keep on the same tempo. Yeah,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: and it really does help to have one person who's
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: keeping the tempo for everybody else. And that became a
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: parent very early on, and that does seem to be
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: kind of like the predecessor to the conductor, but it
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: wasn't until the i think eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yeah,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that kind of transition between the two where what we
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: think of as a conductor today kind of came along.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was you know, choirs got bigger,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: orchestras got bigger. You know, early on you might have
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you know, a six piece ensemble or a four piece
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: or maybe you know, it would even climb as high
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: as like you know, fifteen or twenty what. And in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: those days, you would have somebody that was actually playing
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: in that orchestra keeping the time. A lot of times
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: it was a violinist and they would use their bow
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to tap things out or wave the bow around a little.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I think that's probably due to the fact that a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: bow you can see even when you're sitting down, you
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: can hold it up and people can see it. Also,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a violinist, a violin is very small. It would you know,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't ask the tuba player even though the tuba
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: is the bass and the bass is me the beat
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: that would be you. It'd be hard to like keep
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the beat and play the tuba at the same like
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: indicate the beat to the rest of your orchestra while
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: playing the tuba.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I would think it'd be hard to conduct while playing
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the violin too.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: Well, you're not doing it while you're playing, because the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: violin isn't always playing, Okay, you know what I mean.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I think it's like during the time where the like,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: because they're not waving their bow around and also playing
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: at the same time. That's impossible.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's get and go see ourselves.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's someone They've got a bow in their
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: hand and they're playing the violin and they certainly are
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: not able to wave it around at the same time.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: All right, here's your five bucks.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, let's go forward.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It does seem, then, yes, to have started with the
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: violinists who apparently did conduct while they weren't playing. Also
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the keyboardist whoever was playing like the piano or the
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: harpsichord or something like that, they might be doing it too.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: But the reason why, even as impressive as it is
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: for somebody to be in the actual orchestra playing music
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: and then also conducting, whether they're playing at the moment
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: or not, it's pretty impressive. But one of the reasons
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: it was possible is because technically speaking, or comparatively speaking,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: the music that was being made until the early nineteenth
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: century was fairly predictable, like it stayed on this a
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: general tempo. It didn't have all sorts of like sudden
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: surprising changes in twists and turns, so you could actually
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: keep an orchestra together while you were playing the violin
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: or in between the moments you were playing the violin.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until Beethoven came along that the real need
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: for a person whose entire job it was was to
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: conduct everybody else playing the music, that really became a
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: necessary role.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely in the classical era, and that's not classical
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: music is the broad term, but classical with a capital C,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: which is to say, the period from seventeen fifty to
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty. Yeah, a lot of times you had composers
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that would step in and conduct their own orchestras. Mozart
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: certainly did things like that. And these were as orchestras
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: were growing. I mentioned, you know, the size of the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: orchestras being maybe as you know, small chamber groups and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: things like that. As it got bigger and bigger and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you had, you know, thirty forty fifty people in an orchestra,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't do to have that violinist. So the composer
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: themselves would lead the orchestra. And then, like you said,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: once Beethoven came along and brought his really groundbreaking compositions,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that they needed a conductor. A lot of times it
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: was still the composer, but then came the idea of
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: someone that didn't compose it, is not playing in it,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and that the only job they have is to direct
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the orchestra.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a great story that seems to be
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: true and accurate that at the debut of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: which is the Ode to Joy, which is the part
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: of which is playing when they opened the vault and
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: die hard.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: That's what it's best known for.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I think he wanted to conduct it himself, but he
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: had fallen death by then. Well he was Beethoven, this
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: is his ninth he'd already made a name for himself
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: even during his lifetime. So they led him. But they
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: had another conductor, the real conductor that the orchestra was
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: instructed to follow, because Beethoven was not able to keep
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: on time and conduct the symphony correctly. So apparently when
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: the whole thing ended, he was still conducting and somebody
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: had to tap him on the arm and be like,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: turn around. The audience is applauding for you right now?
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Is that scene is captured very very well in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the Boogey Beethoven movie Bookie Knights and Immortal Beloved, the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: great movie about Beethoven.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: Gary Oldman, Oh, yeah, is it good?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. I haven't seen it in a long time,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but I loved it back then, and also I was able.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: It was lucky enough. I was so broke back when
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I was living in New Jersey back in the nineties.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: But how broke?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Were you so broke that the only way to get
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: into Carnegie Hall, not practice to see Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: performed by the New York Philharmonic, was to hand out the.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Hour later.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: No, no, the the not the bulletin, just the program
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: for the performance. Yeah, like the playbill. Somehow got on
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that little volunteer staff. Oh, and they're like, you can
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: hand out these playbills and then you can stay and
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: see the performance. And so I got to see O
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: de Joy at the Carnegie Hall and oh wow, with
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a full German choir, and it was just like unbelievable.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: So you go, hey, what's that guy doing waving his
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: hands around?
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Back. Let's get serious, though, Chuck. Okay, we said that
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Beethoven was the reason why conducting became a necessity because
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the music he was making was so complex that it
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: required way more people, like you said, and the more
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: people play saying, the more you need a conductor. And
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: so it was actually more about just keeping tempo as
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: it had been when you had the violinists like waving
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: their bow or some dude smacking his foot on the ground.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Even before then, it was about like actually interpreting the
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: music because the more dense and expressive and sophisticated the score.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: The harder it is to write out exactly what every
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: single instrument is supposed to be doing at every single
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: moment in exactly what way. So there was a lot
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of interpretation left and that role fell on the conductor,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: And here we finally reached what a conductor really does.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: This is like the foundation. The basis of their job
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: is interpreting the score and then getting the orchestra to
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: produce the sounds that meet that interpretation.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You know, even something written by Beethoven or
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Wagner or something, it can be pretty detailed. But like
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you said, there's there's no way to indicate every single
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: nuance that comes through in an orchestral performance by writing
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it down on paper, and that's where interpretation can come from.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: In fact, I believe it was Heyden and Mozart both
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: at times didn't indicate tempo like super clearly for things,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and they had the expectation that, hey, you know, the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: musician should get in there and understand the spirit of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: what's happening and they will instinctively kind of go to
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: what the right speed is. So that's where interpretation comes in, certainly,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: not to you know, change the actual notes. But there's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: so much more beyond the actual notes that goes into
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a performance.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Right, right, And there was a I guess I think
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Mahler had a second symphony where he noted that trombones, violins,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: and viola should only play if necessary to prevent the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: chorus from deflating. And I mean that who's going to
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: decide whether the chorus is deflating or not the conductor.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: So as that music became more and more sophisticated, the
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: need for conductor became greater and greater. And I say
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: we take a break and we'll rejoin the conducting profession
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: afterward in about the nineteenth century.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Great, all right, so I guess we'll talk a little
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: bit about how this happens, right, Like what happened? If
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you're a conductor and you're like, here's the piece that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you're going to play for the Christmas concert in Atlanta
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: this December, first thing you're going to do as a conductor,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and really want to recommend this wired video on YouTube.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's an interview with a conductor named Kent Tritele tr
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I t l E. I can't remember exactly what the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: video is, but it's just a really good interview with
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: an actual conductor kind of talking about the job of conducting,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and Kent points out that like kind of what you wanted,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to do when you first get that piece,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and this is you know, you're not in a room
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: with the orchestra at this point. You're on your own.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: It's like a movie director or a play director getting
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: a script. You want to really just figure out the
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: architecture of the piece as a whole and really dig
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: into every instrumental part, like every single one. You have
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to know a understand where they come in, where they
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: come out, where it should be a rising sound or
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: falling sound, and of course there's great Italian names for
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: all this stuff, whether it should be punchy or whether
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: it should be flowy, and sort of notate just like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you would break down a movie script or something or
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: replace script, just the architecture and the feeling that you're
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: trying to convey and really just take note of all
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that stuff.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, So, I mean that's like the first step in
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: putting on a symphony concert, Like that's what the conductor
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: has to do is go through and figure out how
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: they're going to present it. And then comes the time
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: where you have to teach or work with all of
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: the musicians that are going to perform this with you
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: to explain this is how we're going to do it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And there's a couple of ways to do this, and
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: one was practiced by some of the most well known
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: conductors of the twentieth century. It is like the Golden
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Age of conductors. One was that you could be a
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: dictator and a jerk and what was known as now
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: kind of derogatorily is a maestro. That was one way
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: to do it. Fortunately, there seems to be a much
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: larger push these days toward much more communal I guess,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: a nicer, kinder, gentler way of approaching it, working together
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: rather than bossing around, and that that's kind of the
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: way that composers seemed to do it. Apparently there's a
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: lot of there's some old maestro is still working, yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and that a lot of people are waiting for them
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: to die apparently. Yeah.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I think the collaborative approach in general and the arts
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: can be a great way to go. Although all tourship
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and films and I guess the maestro, maestroness, you know,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: some people made great work doing that stuff. So it's
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: not to say that that can't work, but it just
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: seems as a whole like the arts have become a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: little more collaborative. Sure in the last fifty years, forty years.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I read a really good description of that. It
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: was a blog post from the Symphony Nova Scotia, their
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: director of music, their lead conductor, Holly Mathieson wrote, Maestro
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: maestra or Holly and it's about, you know, which one
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: does she want to be called? And she goes kind
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: of into detail about, you know, the history of those
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: ill tempered, mean, dictatorial maestro maestros. I can't remember what
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: the plural would be. I guess maestree.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I think it would No, I mean that sounds right,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Just going to keep with maestros. That like how that's
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: changed and how like you said, it's become much more
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: collaborative over time. So it was definitely worth reading. It
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: gives a really clear picture of, you know, just a
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: couple of different approaches to the whole thing.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. What is also can kind of vary
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: as how, you know, how flashy they are and how
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: much attention they might be trying to draw. Because if
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you've ever seen a conductor who is really getting down
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: up there. They may just be feeling that passion and
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: just getting into it. They may have an ego which
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: is saying, look at me, look at me. That certainly happens,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: but not always. Sometimes they're you know, everyone has their
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: own their own style. Sometimes there's not much emotion. Sometimes
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you're they have their back to the audience,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: so the only time you're going to see their faces,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and like a televised performance or something like, that's what
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: your orchestra is seeing. But I do want to recommend
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: another video. I hope you watched this one that just
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: look up Candide the dancing conductor on YouTube and his
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: conductor named our Old Fear Wits.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: I guess I am going with the left for Wits.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going with whatever he wants to be called,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: because this guy is a treasure and the fun and
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: emotion that he has while he's conducting is just infectious,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and I just I want to, like, I want to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: hug this guy. I want to have him over for dinner.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I saw that, you know, he's kind of
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: putting it on pretty thick because he knew that this
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: was being filmed. But it does. I've seen other stuff
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of his too, when he's you know, a little more subdued,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: but compared to other conductors, he's you know, very expressive.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: And yeah, you definitely want to hang out with him
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: and maybe give him a hug here or there, just
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: because he seems like a great guy.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Seems dude.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's I mean, that's what the public, the
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: concert going public who don't really know what's going on,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: tend to notice the most. But the the behind the
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: scenes work that leads up to that. Again, when you're
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: interpreting a score, you have to figure that out yourself,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and then you start working with the musicians. You have
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: to work with every single musician to get the absolute
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: most out of them. You have to gain their trust.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And if you can gain their trust, then you can
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: actually get them to play the way you want. If
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: they don't trust you, they're going to kind of go
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: around your back and collaborate together without you, kind of
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: like me. It's the lead singer of that band I
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: was in in dust school, right. They were not listening
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: to me or following my lead. And I saw a
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: great quote about that. There's an ama on Reddit with
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: a conductor from twenty eighteen and this conductor who I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: think was at the Flagstaff Symphony at the time, they
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: said that when a bad conductor makes a mistake, no
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: one notices. When a good conductor makes a mistake, it's
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: a disaster. And that's because the symphony doesn't follow a
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: bad conductor, so when he makes a mistake, it doesn't
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: translate through to the symphony. But a good conductor, if
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: they make a mistake, the symphony is actually following them,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and so that mistake gets telegraphed through the actual sound.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: So that's a huge part of it is gaining the
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: trust and the respect of your orchestra, and one of
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: the ways that you do that is working closely with them,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: but also knowing what you're talking about. You have to
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: be a master not necessarily how to play, but in
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: understanding how every single instrument, what you can get out
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: of it, and how to do that.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, So, you know, backing up a little bit,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: if you want to get this job, the first thing
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you have to do, basically is get a degree in music.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's a requirement as far as
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: like a standard or anything, but I can't imagine anyone
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: rising to the level of you know, kind of prominent
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: conductor that didn't have a degree in music. So you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: have your degree in music, you are almost one hundred
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: percent of the time a former player in an orchestra.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: You can just you know, be someone who can play
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: an instrument and decides right away you want to get
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: into conducting. So you you go to a civic group
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: or a high school and you kind of start and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: work your way up. But chances are you have played
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: in an orchestra and that you can play at least
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: one instrument very very very well, at a very high level,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: probably like orchestral professional orchestra level, right, But chances are
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that conductor plays more than one instrument, you know, that
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: can play a little violin, a little piano, maybe even
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a little tube every now and then you never know.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Well then they've captured my heart.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But if you are that conductor, usually like in a
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: if you're the conductor for like a city, uh and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: there and their their symphony, then you are probably also
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the music director. So your job is not just like
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: all right, I got to get this piece together. It's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I have a full time job of running being the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: musical director, running this program, working with a community any
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: sort of like kind of stuff the conductors probably don't
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: love doing as far as like, oh, if you've got
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you got to go to dinner with these fund funders
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and people who are raising money, like all the kind
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of stuff that goes along with just as you would
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: if you were if you ran a theater and you
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: were directing plays, like the directing of the play is
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the least of your job at times, I'm sure.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good analogy too. Like imagine that
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: you have like a good like a playhouse in your town. Yeah,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: there's like one person who's like running the playhouse, and
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: they're probably also the lead director. They're the director who
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: has the highest esteem among the directors probably other directors
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: that work for too. Same thing. With a symphony or
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: an opera, you have a lead conductor who's probably also
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: the musical director, so that in addition to conducting symphonies,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: they have to do all the other stuff that you
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: said too. And then there's assistant directors who might direct
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: a symphony and they help in other ways, but they
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: don't have the responsibility heaped on them that the music
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: musical director does as well. I saw it down to
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: things like helping design and approve those those programs that
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: you were handing out to get into. Yeah, they have
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: their their hands and like basically everything that's going on
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: for you know, a particular symphony that they're they're working on.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: They have their fingers in every woodwind hole. Yeah, let's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: probably have a name.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Uh, I think it's just holes.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah great, Hey.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: You nailed it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the baton a little bit because when
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I when I asked Livia to help us with this article,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I specifically said, you know, what's up with the history
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of that thing and what's it all about? And it
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: hopefully comes as no surprise that the baton is is
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: not some magical wand that a magician might use. It's
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: just something that's bigger and then you can see it
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: better and it's more wavy, and it allows you to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: make bigger gestures. Not all conductors use the wand or
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the baton, but most of them do these days. And
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I think you generally kind of think of that baton
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: being held in the hand when you think of a conductor.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently you can thank Louis Spoor, the German composer
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and conductor from the I guess early nineteenth century for
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: adopting the baton first, And it was a kind of
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: a cone shaped wooden implement at first, And then I'm
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: sure Louis born. People who follow were like, I'm getting
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: carpal tunnel here. Can we use something a little a
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: little lighter, a little thinner, And so the baton kind
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: of evolved became longer, a little pointier. It used to
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: be made of wood or ebony. Today it's much more
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: likely to be made of like like carbon fiber or
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: something like that. Yeah, high tech stuff. And I saw
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: that they're between about ten to twenty six inches in length.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: And what they're doing with that, it's like you said,
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: it emphasizes gestures. And the reason why most conductors do
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: use a baton is because the size of symphonies today
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: are so huge. The people in the back need to
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: see your hands and what they're doing a lot better
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: than they would have if you had just like a
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: twenty piece group that you know, we're all sitting all
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: close up on you.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, did I get that across?
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: I want to make sure because I can say it
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: all over again.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I think you got across. Okay again, I want to
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: recommend that Kent Tritle wired video because over about twelve minutes,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: an actual conductor really breaks down what they're doing with
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: their hands. And I'm not going to just repeat what
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: he said or pretend to actually understand all of that,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but overall what's going on is because most people are
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: right handed, the right hand is generally the one with
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a baton, and it's generally the metronome. It's the timekeeper,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: and that is one of the biggest parts to the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: job still is keeping the time for everyone to see.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And you have to be really, really, really good at it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: You got to have a great, great sense of tempo.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: You know, a drummer probably obviously is somebody who would
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: be a little more prone to be a good conductor,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I would imagine. But it's very hard to do because,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: as Kent Tritele explains, keeping time period is hard and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: when he has students, the first lesson is literally just
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: keeping a sixty second beat, so lowering your hand and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: stopping at the bottom every second to a click track
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: or a metronome, And he said, doing that is just
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: hard enough. But then when you add you know, one
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty beats a minute, that's still kind of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: easy because it's just double. But what if it's one
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two, one hundred and forty one right,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: seventy three, and you're in this performance and you're adrenaline
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and is surging, and somebody might mess up or do
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: something and that makes you takes you out of your
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: mindset and you have to like throw out all that
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: emotion and still be able to keep that perfect beat
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: with your right hand for everyone to see.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Because the point he was making was that when
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: when somebody does mess up, or when you're adrenaline is surging,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: time starts to take different shape than it does like
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: under normal circumstances when everything is calm and you're just rehearsing.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: But you have to be able to keep that sense
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: of time no matter what the circumstance. I just think
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it's amazing.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like a drummer in a rock band, you know,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's very common when you perform like a show out,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that you play all of your songs faster than you
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: do in a rehearsal because you're up there, you're jazz,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that drummer behind you instead
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: of one two, three four counting it out. It's like, well, two, three, four,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and you're the ramones.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Right, pretty great, No, the ruins are great.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's just sort of a thing. And it's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: kind of the same thing. You have to be able
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to block all that out. You're keeping time with that
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: right hand and then your left hand. The other thing
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: your right hand is doing is not just tempo, but entrance,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: like when you would wait for the strings to come in.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Your left hand is generally indicating the exit and then
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: everything else the emotion, the flow, the rising and falling,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: whether or not it's punchy and staccato or like really flowy.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: So smooth is Billy D.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: It smooth as Billy D. And while you're doing that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: with that left hand and pointing at you know, the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: brass section to stop, you still have to be keeping
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: that perfect beat with the right hand. So again, like
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: a drummer, you have to have real independence of your
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: left and right hand.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the left hand can't know what the right hand
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: is doing, and vice versa. Yeah, And that takes a
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: lot of practice too, not just keeping time, but like
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: making your hands do different things at different time while
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: also keeping tempo. It is like like that's why there's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: just really a handful of people running around on the
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: planet right now. We're qualified to conduct an orchestra because
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: of all the effort and training and understanding that it
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: takes to do that. I mean, I thought that was
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: pretty neat before, but it was just so alien to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: me that I just kind of admired it out of
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: its status in the world of art high art. Now
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: that I understand it even more, I admire it even further.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, like just what they do is mind blowing.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's super cool. And just to put a little
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: button real quick because I know we'll probably get letters.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: You know, the right hand is keeping that beat, and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I said, it's always sort of doing that, but the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: right hand can take breaks from just that metronomic rhythmic
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: thing that you're doing. Because sometimes you'll see a conductor
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: using both hands kind of mirroring one another and opposite directions.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That's when you know, you might be a big sweeping
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: sort of motion with both hands, but then it'll go
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: back to kind of keeping that beat. But there are
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: little breaks here and there with that tempo.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The only thing is is if you're giving your
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: right hand a break, you don't want to shake the
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: wrist out or else. Security impact the score. Oh, that's
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: one thing I said, It impacts the score. The other
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: thing about the conductor is they're the only person in
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: that whole orchestra up there performing that has the entire
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: score in front of them. All the other people are
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: playing the violent parts, or the tuba parts, or the
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: obo or bassoon parts. That's what they have in front
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: of them. They don't know, at least not on paper,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: what the people around them are playing, so they have
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: to rely on the conductor to help to help them
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: understand who's doing what by watching the conductor at any
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: given moment.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I couldn't find, And I know
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: someone will know this because I know for sure we've
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: had listeners that play in orchestras. But what actually do
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: they have in front of them, as like a violinist.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I know it's obviously the violin part, but is it
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: just the violin pages or is it.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Like really like a Hustler magazine.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Or or they're you know, like, you can't just only
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: have your thing. You've got to know kind of what
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: else is going on a little bit No, because it
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: seems like that'd be like having only your lines in
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a script, right.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's why some conductors are dictators. There can
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: be dictators because you are so reliant on them. And
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: I think you figure it out during practice and rehearsal,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: like you understand. But I think, well, what I saw,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: they have just their their part in front of them.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: So there's no you know, spaces in between that says
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: like woodwind part or anything like that.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it says that, but it wouldn't
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: have the notes the woodwinds are playing.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying anything to
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: indicate where they are in the piece. That's not only
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, like a framework.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I have no idea. I can make up an answer
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: if you want, please do. Uh. No, they don't have
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: any frame of reference.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Now we'll hear from someone and we'll follow up on that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: I say, we take another break. I'm two for two
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: for calling the breaks today.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Nice work.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Uh And then we'll come back and we'll talk about well, well,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: we'll answer a question. Okay, I'm not even gonna say
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: what the question is.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I think they know.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, So here's the question. Do you really
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: need a conductor to perform a symphony as an orchestra,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Well do you huh?
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great question, because you know when you see that
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: kind of showmanship up there, and you might think, I mean,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: for me personally, I'm there for that, like I want
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: to see my conductor just going off, and I want
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to see hair flying around yea, and I want to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: see somebody really getting into it. Other might people might
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: be turned off by that. We should mention that. Tritle
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and others confirmed that, like, hey, that's that's part of it.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: But you can't let that, let that get in the
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: way of things. But all that sort of leads to
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: what you're saying is like, do we even need these
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: people up there?
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Uh?
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And there have been efforts to find that out right.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's a very famous conductor named Andre Previn who
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: I've even heard of. He too, is or was, I'm
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: not sure when he stopped. He was definitely performing up
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: until recently if he's not still, but he was the
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. When a TV documentary
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy three was made, it was called
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Who Needs a Conductor? Yeah, And he started out conducting
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: the London Symphony Orchestra with Beethoven's Fifth Right, Yeah, they
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: get started and going and he's conducting, and then all
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: of a sudden he just stops and exits the stage,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: and the orchestra just keeps going without literally without missing
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: a beat, and they perform Beethoven's Fifth Symphony for the
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: rest of the time without any incident or hardship. And
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: that does kind of lead to the question like, could
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: you just do away with conductors? The answer seems to
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: be to an extent, but you really wouldn't want the
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: results as like a concert going public, and really no,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the answers kind of no, you don't want to do
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: away with conductors.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think a lot of it has to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: do with everything we talked about that has everything to
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: do with anything other than just standing there and your arms,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: like all the preparation, leading the rehearsal, being the director
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: of their performance. And Livia points out that you know
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: that singular sort of vision for how you're going to
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: do the piece. If you don't have that, then it's
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: not saying that people will all just be doing their
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: own thing and it would be garbage, but getting everyone
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: on the same page eventually which is where you would
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: have to get to to perform it in front of people.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I would think that would just be a nightmare trying
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to get that many people on the same page as
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: far as that interpretation.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, think about it. If you've got a
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: beef between your tuba player and your bassoon player, and
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: everybody is talking about how, you know, how this one
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: part's going to be played, and they're disagreeing, who's gonna
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: win out right? That's where the conductor comes in. The
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: conductor says, I'm winning out both of you. Shut up,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: shut up, and they sit down and shut up, and
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: you do what the conductor tells him to.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, tuba would win though, because the old saying in
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the in the symphony, you don't with the tuba player.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: It's true. Goodbye sixth grade classes.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Right, So should we mention if you mentioned Andre Previn?
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Of course? Should we go over a few of these
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: other famous conductors.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's start with Tuscanini.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you mean Arturo Tuscanini.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Very nice. That is a spinning image impression of how
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Tuscanini talked.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: So Tuscanini was obviously Italian, directed the met Opera in
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: New York and Tuscanini sort of spanned a couple of
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: time periods I'm bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: was a child prodigy and kind of one thing he
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: was known for was his photographic memory, such that his
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: eyesight failed later in his career and he still could
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: conduct because he had these orchestral pieces, you know, just
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: committed to his memory.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and apparently he was one of the ones who
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: started to form this image of like the temperamental, dictatorial conductor, right, Yeah,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: But I also read that he was very well known
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: for working very closely with musicians to help get things,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: you know, hammered out like he was a dedicated leader.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I guess so he you know, he was a very
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: complex and complicated person, and he helped kind of lay
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: the groundwork for what the general public understood is the
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: maestro and what was acceptable, some of which is kind
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: of unacceptable. But he overall seems to have been generally,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: at the very least a great conductor, if not a
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: you know, so so person. But you know who isn't.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know it's a position of power. And
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: have you seen the movie.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Tar I No, I don't know what you're talking about.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: It's oh god is Tar? No? No, oh god, no,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: people are screaming at me right now. It's uh. It's
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: a movie about a woman who is a conductor, made
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: by Todd Fields, one of the few movies he's directed. Oh,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Kate Blanchad, of course.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Oh you're talking about Tron.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you just you're you're in a roll today.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Huh uh No, this is out a couple of years ago.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like, no, I haven't heard of it. Yeah,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, t Ar. And it's a movie about
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: a woman, Lydia Tar, who is a conductor, and kind
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: of like a little bit of the how power can
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: go wrong in that position, And it just seems like
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it is one of those positions where you know, hopefully
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: you use your power wisely, but like you mentioned, with
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: these temper tantrums and dictator dictatorial sort of methods, it's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: definitely a position that can historically get out of hand.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: Oh and Tuscanini also is well known for as a
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: philanderer too, And I think that that was a big
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: deal during the twentieth century for some of those maestro conductors.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: They were playboys, to say the least. For sure, and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: they did, and they found some of their conquests from
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: their orchestra. And yeah, I mean today we look back
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: when we're like, yes, that's an abusive power. You're abusing
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: your power because you're in such a powerful position. These
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: people are looking up to you, and you're leveraging that
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: to sleep with them. So that's like one of the
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: big criticisms that twentieth century maestro have leveled at them.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: And then they say like, hey, we were all like
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Boomers and Boomer's parents. This is what we did.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Well, talking and touches on that stuff. So I think
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: you'd like it. You and you me should watch it.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like Kate Blanchette any day, she's great.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I'll mention Leonard Bernstein another famous conductor. Yeah, he's great,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: gentleman from Massachusetts, from Lawrence, mass and was the first
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: American conductor and musical director of the New York Philharmonic
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: from fifty eight to sixty nine and really just sort
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: of brought classical music to a really big audience. And
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: one thing we haven't talked about is just the impact
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: that the recording industry and recording orchestras did not only
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: for just making classical music and orchestral music more popular
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and bringing it to the masses, but making some of
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: these conductors stars because the record you got wasn't just
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Beethoven's Knight. That was you know, Leonard Bernstein and the
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: New York Philharmonic to Beethoven's Knight.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty cool. We also we can't not mention von Carrion,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Herbert von Carrajon. He was one of those bad boy maestros,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: but he was also well known as being like one
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: of the greatest that's ever lived too. Like that's the
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: other thing too, That's why these guys got away with
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: this is because they were so good at what they did.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: They were just looked up to in so many ways.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: It just excused all this other behavior. And then there's yeah,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: that's one thing. I'm glad you brought that up. Carayon
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: was a literal Nazi. He was born in Austria. He
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: was a member of the Nazi Party, and he's like,
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: we're just gonna leave that behind the past. Let's not
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: talk about that anymore.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was to be fair, he was cleared by
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: an Allied tribunal, but that sort of followed him through
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: his career for sure, as it does, even though it
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: didn't seem to hurt it that much.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: No. On the other side of the isle is Carlos Kleeber,
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: whose father Eric Kleeber, was also a conductor, and they
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: left Germany because of the Nazis because they were like
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Nazis suck. So they moved to Argentina and Carlos Kleeber
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: developed his craft there and became a very well known
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: not just conductor, but recluse and carry on. Said that
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: Kleeber only conducts when the fridge is empty, like he
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: just for the last like ten or twenty years of
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: his life, he just he did not want to conduct.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: He conducted only what he wanted to and he only
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: did it when he absolutely had two basically.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to shout out yol Levy, who this
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: was the musical director at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra starting
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight for about twelve years, and I
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: just remember it was a very big deal. Yo Levy
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: really kind of vaulted Atlanta's Symphony into a world class
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: organization and really put him on the map as far
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: as you know, it was Atlanta and it was the
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: late eighties, and so I think there was this idea
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of like you know, the sort of the third Area
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Podunk Symphony, yea, and he really really changed that. In
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Atlanta is a world class symphony now being directed musical
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: director and lee conductor by Natalie Stutzman, who was the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: first woman to be musical director here in Atlanta. And
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: it's a good time to talk about women because we
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: probably said he quite a bit. The history of conductor
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: is just rife with white European men. In general, I
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: think eleven percent of musical directors were women, and this
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: is a twenty twenty three report, and you know that's
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: changing more and more. There have been women here and there.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Cap Lanchette certainly one of them, but we got one
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, Natalie Stutzman. That's neat French.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was a woman conductor who was back in
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: the early twentieth century, Antonio Rico. She was like the
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: first one. But I read that like after the first
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: decade or so of her, like the novelty kind of
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: wore off, and she had trouble finding work. So she's like, final,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: just found my own symphony, and she did in Denver,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: and she kept that position for decades until her death.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: And I think nineteen eighty nine, but she really opened
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: the door for female conductors to come.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And we're talking about a lot of Americans too,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: you know, considering where classical music came from, not surprising
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: that Europeans are mainly conductors. But they've also pointed out that,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: like you know, they they don't do it well here
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in America as far as having a real system in place,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: right to get great young assistant conductors and things like that,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a real pathway to leading like a major orchestra in
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: the United States, and that's something that they're i think
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: trying to work on and get better at.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which would be a big deal because among conductors
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: and musical directors it's mostly white European men. If you
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: look at assistant directors, it's much more diverse. So if
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: you can start figuring out how to promote talent from there,
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: then yeah, you'd have the whole field would be a
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: lot more diverse, which is great. Anytime you ad diversity,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: things expand.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right when you look at the ranks
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: of assistants and then even on down the line, because
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: there are many many people that together, more and more
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: people of color getting involved. I think only four the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: twenty five largest ensembles in the United States. Twenty one
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of the twenty five are European. Still, so still a
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: lot of work to do.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, one more person I want to shout out
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: is Simon Raddle. He's with the Berlin Philharmonic, which is
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: typically either the first or second best symphony in the world,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: depending on who is rating it at the time. I
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: also saw Cleveland very frequently falls into the top five
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: to ten.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Nice Cleveland rocks, Yeah, exactly.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: But Simon Rattle, I think is kind of emblematic of
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: the way that conductors are going these days. He started
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: instituting free lunchtime concerts, educational programs for underserved communities, streaming
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: stuff online. He's doing more twentieth century composed, not just
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: people who've been dead for a couple hundred years.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: So it's really like it's just it's expanding. I think
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: it's always good when things expand, because it's not like
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: they're going to just abandon all the traditional stuff. You can't,
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: why would you. But that doesn't mean you can't also
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: incorporate new stuff too. Why do you have to go
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: see the same thing year after year?
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Casual Friday, flip flop Wednesday.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: That's right, Taco Tuesday, Taco Tuesday.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's perfect man. I want to be in that organ.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. Well, if you want to know more
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: about conductors, just go online and start watching some videos
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: of them. It's pretty fun and you'll hear some pretty
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: good music too. You might even hear something you heard
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: and die hard. And since I said that, it's time
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: for listener mail, I'm gonna call this.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: Hey, let's get into the weeds with quartz vibration.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Oh no, I saw this one.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: There were a couple of these, because there are some
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: people out there that know a lot more about this
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: than we do. Thankfully. Hey, guys, been a consistent listener
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: for about ten years. Your enlightenment and witty banter has
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: seen me through many good times and bad. I'm a
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: computer design engineer and listen to the Atomic Clock episode yesterday.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I want to clarify what seems to be a misunderstanding
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: about the resident frequency of quurts. You commented that Courts
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: repeatedly vibrates at thirty two, seven hundred and sixty eight
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: hertz when energize, which is often the case of many
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: time pieces, but Quurtz does not inherently vibrate at thirty
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: two point seven to six eight killer herts. Yeah, that
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: was just different than the herts.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Ok.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Sorry, there would have to be some sort of divine
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: miracle for courts to vibrate at thirty two thousand, seven
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eight herts, which just happens to be a
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: very computer friendly number for a time piece. As you know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: almost all computers are designed to work based on ones
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and zeros, and those binary numbers are stored as a
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: vector of binary digits bits. Hey, so they tend to
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: support a number of range a number range up to
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: some value. That's a power of two point three two
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: seven six ' eight just happens to be two to
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the power of fifteen, which means thirty two thy seven
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty eight is the upper limit represented by
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: a fifteen bit digito. Whow by a fifteen bit number
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: in a computer that can count the ticks and a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: digital watch before incrementing the seconds.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Whoo, Now I know how other people feel when I
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: try to explain something.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: Scott finishes up by saying, quartz crystal will naturally have
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: a variable resonant frequency depending on its size, though it
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: could be thirty two point seven to six a killer
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: hertz or two megahertz or two hundred megahertz depending on
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: its size. The mass produced thirty two point seven six
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: a killer hertz crystal, commonly used in time pieces, was
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: specifically grown and laser trimmed to the exact size and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: shape to make it computer and time piece friendly. I
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: actually finally understand. That is excellent, Scott, he says, come
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: see us in San Jose, California sometime.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Nice, Scott, thank you very much. We have to
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: go back and reread that one so I can absorb
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: it fully.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: Sure you will, I will, okay.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Fine, If you want to be like Scott and explain
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: something to us in depth, we love that kind of thing.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: It just might take us reading it a couple of times.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: You can send that email to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: dot com.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:31
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• 50:35
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