What is Conducting?
{{no sources|date=March 2017}} [[File:Maazel 08.jpg|thumb|Lorin Maazel, a conductor]] '''Conducting''' in [[music]] means beating [[Time signature|time]] to help a group of [[musician]]s to sing or play well together. If an [[orchestra]] is playing music, it is important that they all play exactly together. They need to know exactly when to start, what [[tempo]] (speed) to go, how [[Dynamics (music)|loud or quietly]] to play, and what the [[mood]] of the music should be. If a small number of people play music together (like in a [[chamber orchestra]]), they can talk about this amongst themselves. One person can nod with his/her head or with the [[Bow (music)|bow]] of a [[string instrument]] to help the group to start and finish together. With larger orchestras, such as a [[symphony orchestra]], there are so many people (almost a hundred of them in some cases) that they need a separate person to lead. This person is called the '''conductor'''. ==History== In the [[17th century]], orchestras were usually small enough that they did not need a conductor. Often they were directed by the [[Keyboard instrument|keyboard]] player or lead [[violin]]ist. But as orchestras grew in size and began using a wider variety of instruments, it became a [[convention]] of having someone who was not playing any [[musical instrument|instrument]] to stand, facing the orchestra, as the director or conductor. One early conductor was the [[French people|French]] composer [[Jean-Baptiste Lully]] ([[1632]]-[[1687]]), who beat time by banging a big [[wikt:stick|stick]] (like a [[walking stick]]) on the floor to the time of the music. One day he banged his stick so hard, it went through his [[foot]], and he died of [[gangrene]]. Conducting as we know it today had become normal by the [[19th century]]. The composer [[Felix Mendelssohn]] ([[1809]]-[[1847]]) was known to be a very good conductor as well. Some conductors in [[Victorian era|Victorian times]] behaved like they wanted to show off. At around the same time, [[Louis Antoine Julli