Djesse volume 4 - Jacob & Suzie Collier with the Metropole Orkest. 

So agree with this 🙏🏻thank you Suzie, true inspiration, the both of you!

Because while the sheet music does typically communicate quite a lot about the music, it would be impossible for it to dictate absolutely everything, let alone for human musicians to execute such precise instructions. Having a central authority makes it much easier to coordinate tempo, dynamics, balance etc across 100+ players For example, the composer might indicate that they want the music to be played "fast", but the conductor sets exactly *how* fast. Orchestras can play without conductors, but there's suddenly a lot less scope to do interesting things because everybody has different ideas.

@@nathan87 so side question, doesn’t it make more sense for the person who wrote the music to conduct the orchestra? (Aside from people who passed on) . What is special about a conductor?

@@zackgee3084 People are certainly often interested in hearing a composer conduct their own works. But at the same time when composers publish something it is usually with the intention that it will be put out there and interpreted by different people. Indeed, if the composer is interested in having their music played widely, they will need other people to conduct it! Also, not all composers are good conductors. This is actually something of a perennial debate in classical music: to what degree is it appropriate to stick to/inappropriate to deviate from the composers' intentions? I'm not sure there is one true answer to this; while it is probably a mark of respect to perform a piece more or less as intended, at the same time it is a bit boring if music is played exactly the same way every time, not to mention that performers themselves deserve the opportunity to engage their own creativity in performance. Further, as times and aesthetic tastes change, you might want to play something quite differently from how it might originally have been performed. A lot of it also comes down to expectation. In pop or jazz, for example, barely a skeleton of the music is usually written down and there is absolutely massive leeway for interpretation.

@zackgee3084 There are excellent elaborations on the role of a conductor in this thread. But I find one essential aspect missing and that is that conducting is a profession in and of itself. To be a good conductor you have to ondergo very intense training. It is not done by simply picking up the baton and waving it around. A helpful comparison would be the audiobook of a novel. The author is of course closest to the material and knows it inside out. However, that does not make him or her the perfect person to perform it for an audience. To accomplish this you need someone with the voice training and dramatic skills to really bring the written word to life. Also, great conductors always distinguish themselves through their vision and interpretation of a piece of music. That's why, if you familiarise yourself with the styles and ideosyncrasies of great conductors, you will be able to tell whether, for example, a recording of Beethoven's 5th symphony has been conducted by Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein or Simon Rattle. They express their individual vision of the piece with the means of dozens of instruments and if you are a trained musician, you can definitely hear the differences. Yet all is done from the same sheet music. IHTH.

cut song :( sheet music looks like it says "Wide Awake Inside My Head Opaque"

@@nnooddllee Seems like a lotta songs were cut, really hope he puts them out in the future! I asked him about this at his album launch show in London and he said he might do a scrapyard type release at some point. The album was amazing as it was but there were a lot of snippets on his website that I was so excited for which didn't make it :(

cut song :((

@@nnooddllee bummer 😞