I played in orchestras from 6 to about 23, from small professional quartets to huge 100+ piece complete symphonies - mostly enthusiastic amateur ensembles, but I did manage to get hooked onto a small tour ensemble that hit a handful of cities in just post Iron Curtain Russia and took part in some national level Orchestra competitions. plus made a little bit of spare change playing weddings and benefit events for a while. Had to give it up due to medical issues, but nothing beats sitting in the middle of a Symphony Orchestra going at full-steam.
I'm pretty convinced that the act of a symphony doing their thing is one of the most impressive split second coordinated acts of cooperation humans have every achieved. A conductor is really important for this, especially as the number of players gets larger.
A small trio/quartet can get by just by themselves. Even moderately sized chamber orchestras can manage "ok" with maybe a lead instrumentalist kicking off a tune with an exaggerated nod -- you just rehearse a lot and listen to each other. But once you break maybe 30 or 40 people trying to synchronize complex sound production, manually, with 1/100th of a second precision, it starts getting hard.
Conductors are really critical also in setting the "tone" or interpretation of a piece and the program that the orchestra plays. It's why some orchestras play a piece soft and loud in some bits, or another might play quiet and fast. Or one might use a version of the piece where the oboes pick up a flute harmony in the third movement, etc. In many orchestras they also set the position of players, usually through section auditions. It's how one violinist ends up near the conductor and another one ends up in the back row of the 2nd violins trying to hear themselves play over th e bassoons.
Rehearsal is harder at scale. It's hard getting 100 people together over and over, so there's section rehearsals where maybe just the violins break off and work, or just the brass instruments. At that level maybe just the section leader runs the rehearsal with the conductor dropping in to set vision.
Then you build a bigger part of the orchestra and rehears that, maybe with an assistant conductor or the conductor proper. And maybe you do the full thing a couple of times than go out and perform. A pro-level orchestra can get an all new program of music and turn it around into a performance inside of a week or two.
Think how hard it is to coordinate just a half dozen programmers.
After reading your comment, and considering Serf (the docker coordination thing), I wonder what it would sound like for musicians to coordinate over a gossip protocol (rather than through a centralized conductor which as you note struggles to scale). What would that even look like?
EDIT: Or, as sgeisenh points out below, that's chamber music.
I'm pretty convinced that the act of a symphony doing their thing is one of the most impressive split second coordinated acts of cooperation humans have every achieved. A conductor is really important for this, especially as the number of players gets larger.
A small trio/quartet can get by just by themselves. Even moderately sized chamber orchestras can manage "ok" with maybe a lead instrumentalist kicking off a tune with an exaggerated nod -- you just rehearse a lot and listen to each other. But once you break maybe 30 or 40 people trying to synchronize complex sound production, manually, with 1/100th of a second precision, it starts getting hard.
Conductors are really critical also in setting the "tone" or interpretation of a piece and the program that the orchestra plays. It's why some orchestras play a piece soft and loud in some bits, or another might play quiet and fast. Or one might use a version of the piece where the oboes pick up a flute harmony in the third movement, etc. In many orchestras they also set the position of players, usually through section auditions. It's how one violinist ends up near the conductor and another one ends up in the back row of the 2nd violins trying to hear themselves play over th e bassoons.
Rehearsal is harder at scale. It's hard getting 100 people together over and over, so there's section rehearsals where maybe just the violins break off and work, or just the brass instruments. At that level maybe just the section leader runs the rehearsal with the conductor dropping in to set vision.
Then you build a bigger part of the orchestra and rehears that, maybe with an assistant conductor or the conductor proper. And maybe you do the full thing a couple of times than go out and perform. A pro-level orchestra can get an all new program of music and turn it around into a performance inside of a week or two.
Think how hard it is to coordinate just a half dozen programmers.