What exactly are composers doing when they wave around that tiny stick (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by k3rm@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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It always feels strange once the orchestra stops playing annd its the composer that bows for the applause.

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

        It's like a semaphore type thing, the position of the baton shows where the beat is, and the conductor can signal other things as well like "emphasis here" or "quieter" with body language. An orchestra where everyone does their own thing wouldn't sound very good.
It's hard to get up and bow with certain instruments, there might not be space, and you couldn't see past the first row very well anyway. I always assumed the bow by the conductor was on behalf of everyone.

[+] umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yup, there's a specific pattern for each time signature, and if you get really lost you can tell where in the measure you should be by them.

The patterns for cursed time signatures are equally cursed.

[-] CentauriBeau@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

They do actually! For a 4/4 beat (4 beats per measure and the quarter note gets the beat, meaning 4 quarter notes per measure), they will move the baton straight down for 1 (the “down beat”), left (usually) for 2, right for 3, and up for 4. Different time signatures will have more or less movements, such as 3/4 time (3 beats per measure) will be down (1), left (2), and up (3).

Further, there are other movements like a wide slash left to right is a stop motion for everyone to instantly stop playing.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah you pick it up fairly quickly if you play any conducted music. Especially because a lot of the gestures make a lot of sense. The beats are a pattern with beats to them and the common signatures you get a feel for. But like it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the conductor is doing a rising motion at your section you should be playing louder and if it's increasingly frantic you should be increasingly loud until the hands either come together in a beat (loud finishing note) or they're separated in a way that will either signal to hold or to fade, or they'll just start doing a lowering motion to tell you to start piping down. It's all meant to be very intuitive

this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026

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