edit: to clarify, I don’t agree with any of this, I just thought it was funny.
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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Well there is the classic "Drums set the tempo" style of time keeping, the conductor is more a necessity in grandiose melodious works where tempo isn't easily kept from the percussion alone.
Rock Bands, some Marching Bands, and arguably a bunch of Jazz Bands considering how much those conductors tend to devolve into just dancing around on stage like a possessed Muppet, are able to keep time without the visual cue the conductor provides in a less rhythm intensive composition.
Not to mention that developing an accurate internal metronome for others to build a song off your cue is a skill unto itself, as well as being able to read every part of the song at once to be able to properly rehearse the combined ensemble and tell if someone needs an adjustment.
The conductor as part of the rehearsal is always overlooked here. Music, especially ensemble music with 80+ muscians, can easily be interpreted in many ways. Even when the sheet music has guidance, there are always degrees to decide on. How fast to go here, what volume to play here, on and on, and generally every instrument has different requirements to make a piece fit together. Someone guiding that process, having an understanding or at least a point of view, is a big part of the job. The stick wagging is just the end point after all the other work is done, but it in itself is also useful for execution and consistency.
So is conductor similar to film director or project manager, in that it seems pretty unnecessary for a small thing (which is what most critics imagine) but once it becomes complex and there's a lot of people trying to do different things at once then you need someone to keep everyone on the same page?
Yeah a directors job is mainly to prepare everything and hire good people to execute the movie filming process. Saying ‘action’, ‘cut’, and ‘I need more “whatever” out of you’ are a pretty small part of the job.
In concert, jazz, and marching band, I was always grateful for the conductor as a visual cue for timing. All of that "dancing" often tells you where you are in the music or how you should be playing. I briefly performed in a rock band and tried using a metronome in my monitor to keep on beat. It was so much more difficult than I ever realized and I had to have a recording of our music played into my in-ear monitor so I wouldn't get lost. What I would have given for a dancing possessed muppet rock conductor.
Conductors (drum majors) are absolutely vital in marching bands. Marching bands (both traditional military style and modern style) use formations so large that the speed of sound is a significant factor - trying to keep tempo based on listening to e.g. drums simply won't work, because different positions will hear the beats at different times (and that's not even considering issues like echoes, or the auditory dead zones that closed structures have). Having visual cues for keeping time is a necessity.