This week we had another conductor who spent a minimum ammount of time rehearsing. Great. Unfortunately the beat was nothing like we experienced last week, and we struggled to discern the difference between an up beat, a down beat or any other beat. Put this with very ‘musical’ rubato, and unpredictable subdividing (where one beat is split into two or more, thus giving 5 or more beats in a bar where there would otherwise be only four for example). The interesting thing is that everybody just does their best - it all hangs together somehow, although the fear and stress among the musicians is palpable. We are polite, professional and subservient and thus nobody dares say to the conductor ‘I am having trouble following your beat’. He might be offended, he may think you are being unreasonable because nobody before you dared criticise, and he might in turn find fault with your playing, and embarrass you pubicly. So the conductor, whose job it is to tell experienced musicians how to play, is never helped by the same musicians to do his job better. Is there a solution?
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