# Conductors... Is it time to fully mechanise the process.



## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Most industrial processes eventually fall to mechanisation. Surely the job of a conductor is long overdue to fall to this progress. A box that waves a stick in time to the music cannot be out of our reach to mass produce... We could even stick a variety of faces on the front... 'painfull but meaningful face'.... 'joyful carried away on emotion face'... 'clown face'.....
Come on, it can't be that hard, it is a simply machine completing simple tasks.... When it runs out of batteries and starts slowing down we could just stick a Celibidache face on the front....
Wind it up and see the stick wave.... Simple


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I know a nice woman who at one time thought of herself as being the next undiscovered great conductor. She wheedled her way into getting a concert, did a masterful job of promoting the event, had a pricey custom made garment to conduct in. The reviewer in the paper - yes, we had one, a good one, in those days - closed his damning review with the line "For all the good maestra ***** did, they might as well have wound up a metronome and placed in on a stand." She was devastated and deeply offended and never tried her hand at it again. The review was correct.

Wind it up and see the stick wave? There's a LOT more to conducting than waving a stick...


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)




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## Isaac Blackburn (Feb 26, 2020)




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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

You obviously have no idea what a conductor does.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

There's no telling where Artificial Intelligence will take us, but before machines begin creating their own music, I think we'll see technology moving more in the direction of each person becoming his or her own conductor, and the technology for some of this probably already exists or is out there in one form or another. So if you sitting at home, and listening to Bernstein or Karajan conducting your favorite rendition of Beethoven's _5th_ or Wagner's _Die Walkure_, and you're saying to yourself "Hmmm, a little slow in here" or "too much fortissimo over here", you'll be able to manipulate the tempo and dynamics yourself just like people can turn a picture of themselves into a cat on their cell phones. Are you disappointed that Vladimir Horowitz never recorded Grieg's Piano Sonata? Well I'm sure the technology will exist to simulate the experience at some point in time.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Coach G said:


> There's no telling where Artificial Intelligence will take us, but before machines begin creating their own music, I think we'll see technology moving more in the direction of each person becoming his or her own conductor, and the technology for some of this probably already exists or is out there in one form or another. So if you sitting at home, and listening to Bernstein or Karajan conducting your favorite rendition of Beethoven's _5th_ or Wagner's _Die Walkure_, and you're saying to yourself "Hmmm, a little slow in here" or "too much fortissimo over here", you'll be able to manipulate the tempo and dynamics yourself just like people can turn a picture of themselves into a cat on their cell phones. Are you disappointed that Vladimir Horowitz never recorded Grieg's Piano Sonata? Well I'm sure the technology will exist to simulate the experience at some point in time.


This is exciting news. I always thought Prokofiev would have done a far better job of composing Shostakovich's 7th symphony... Instead of the 'repeat bombing nonsense' maybe a Ritual dance and a wedding dance... Then the clock ticking midnight.... It would have been WELL LUSH


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Coach G said:


> There's no telling where Artificial Intelligence will take us, but before machines begin creating their own music, I think we'll see technology moving more in the direction of each person becoming his or her own conductor, and the technology for some of this probably already exists or is out there in one form or another. So if you sitting at home, and listening to Bernstein or Karajan conducting your favorite rendition of Beethoven's _5th_ or Wagner's _Die Walkure_, and you're saying to yourself "Hmmm, a little slow in here" or "too much fortissimo over here", you'll be able to manipulate the tempo and dynamics yourself just like people can turn a picture of themselves into a cat on their cell phones. Are you disappointed that Vladimir Horowitz never recorded Grieg's Piano Sonata? Well I'm sure the technology will exist to simulate the experience at some point in time.


It's been done: UBS Virtual Maestro.

Here's a video of it in use:




Google it and you'll find other articles about it. This technology will get better as time goes on, assuming anyone is working on it. I played around with it several years ago at a music convention - I was not impressed. Just pretend conducting to a recording seems just as effective, of course you can' change the tempo.


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## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

All conducting is pretend conducting... it's a magic trick.... it's illusion... it's NOT REAL


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Ladies and gentlemen, a Troll!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

You really got it!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

My goodness, it took you all a while to catch on. Just look at the titles of all the threads that JL has started. I’m pretty sure he’s been here before under another guise. There’s a certain strange familiarity...........


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> My goodness, it took you all a while to catch on. Just look at the titles of all the threads that JL has started. I'm pretty sure he's been here before under another guise. There's a certain strange familiarity...........


Yes, I have got déjà vu sensations too.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

John Lenin said:


> This is exciting news. I always thought Prokofiev would have done a far better job of composing Shostakovich's 7th symphony... Instead of the 'repeat bombing nonsense' maybe a Ritual dance and a wedding dance... Then the clock ticking midnight.... It would have been WELL LUSH


"I always thought Prokofiev would have done a far better job of composing Shostakovich's 7th symphony"

Hmmmmm. I dunno about that one...


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

MarkW said:


> You obviously have no idea what a conductor does.


Lenin isn't as ignorant as he is affecting himself to be. I doubt noobs know about Celibidache's tempi.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Coach G said:


> There's no telling where Artificial Intelligence will take us, but before machines begin creating their own music, I think we'll see technology moving more in the direction of each person becoming his or her own conductor, and the technology for some of this probably already exists or is out there in one form or another. So if you sitting at home, and listening to Bernstein or Karajan conducting your favorite rendition of Beethoven's _5th_ or Wagner's _Die Walkure_, and you're saying to yourself "Hmmm, a little slow in here" or "too much fortissimo over here", you'll be able to manipulate the tempo and dynamics yourself just like people can turn a picture of themselves into a cat on their cell phones. Are you disappointed that Vladimir Horowitz never recorded Grieg's Piano Sonata? Well I'm sure the technology will exist to simulate the experience at some point in time.


Ever listened to David Cope's Emmy (for example "'Beethoven' Symphony no. 10"? Some tech enthusiasts hail Emmy as proof that machines are every bit as good as human conductors, while people who are actually familiar with classical music say rightly that Emmy is awful.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

MarkW said:


> You obviously have no idea what a conductor does.


I agree, OP is just throwing another piece of red meat in the arena .


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Rogerx said:


> I agree, OP is just throwing another piece of red meat in the arena .


At least it prompts some amusing posts (even if this tactic was employed a long time ago - I'd say as far back as 1996)!


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

When I was a kid I told my parents I wanted to be a conductor. They put me on the roof in a thunderstorm.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

ORigel said:


> Lenin isn't as ignorant as he is affecting himself to be. I doubt noobs know about Celibidache's tempi.


I think his routine is more in the line of a concept piece.


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