Don’t they practice? is the conductor really necessary?
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Lots of reasons. Orchestra players can’t always hear what the rest of the players are doing so a conductor and sheet music helps them stay in the same place. Conductor also “mixes” the sound telling sections to get louder or quieter so the whole volume is at the level it’s intended to be.
Rock music is a little easier to memorize than orchestral music. Usually, rock music is simple chords repeated with some guitar or drum solos. Rock music also allows for ad lib playing and songs are often played differently each time.
Orchestra music is often longer and more complicated than rock music, meaning it is harder to memorize. Orchestras also play music by composers that doesn’t allow for improvisation and usually is played as close to the original score as possible. Orchestras are often much larger than rock bands and having sheet music and a director help keep everyone together while playing the song.
Those are just a few reasons and differences between the two, I’m sure other people can list some more points I’ve missed or didn’t think.
Rock bands have a closed set of material they slowly expand on. Orchestras play any music you set in front of them, several different pieces every performance, different performances every year, usually a big selling point of orchestral concerts is them choosing pieces rarely or never played by them before. It’s a ton more material to memorize and then they don’t need it memorized shortly thereafter.
There can be 100 people in a symphony orchestra. All those people can’t necessarily hear the folks promptly from the other side of the stage. The conductor is central, and keeps everyone together rhythmically and expressively. The music is much longer and much more complex, played by all acoustic instruments each of whom has different musical roles and parts to play that all come together like a mosaic. Also, the repertoire, the amount of large, complicated pieces of music is so large it would be nearly impossible to memorize all those parts, hence needing sheet music. It takes a lot of vigorous personal practice and group rehearsal to coordinate just one orchestral piece, and multiple pieces like this are on just one concert.
1. Orchestrated music is complicated. There are many moving parts which need to fit together, and while parts can be memorized (and often are), the music is used as reference to ensure accuracy and to support certain cues (e.g. louder, softer, certain tonality) as indicated by the conductor
2. Rock music is often simpler and cues are developed by the musicians themselves to fit the music they are playing. Rock musicians will often develop their own style which they can replicate effectively and extensively over time without needing to see the music.
3. Orchestral music is usually not written by the musicians playing it. As a result, accuracy to the piece is highly valued. Improvisation is often not welcome. The purpose of the piece is to meet what the composer wanted it to sound like, not what the performers want it to sound like. And many orchestral pieces are well known as originally composed, so it can be noticeable to fans and performers when something is off
4. Rock music is written by the musicians themselves. Accuracy is less necessary as is an overall “sound”. Furthermore, as stage performers who are often moving around, improvisation and displaying outright talent is often welcome and encouraged.
5. Difference in training and styles. Rock music is a more “loose” style and has historically been taught/learned in that manner. Orchestra music has always been a very formal thing and has been taught as such.
If you have five flautists who are supposed to be playing the same thing, there isn’t much room for error, whereas a rock band could easily get away with some variation. In fact, that variation gives rock performances some flavor. You can’t have a row of trumped players doing their own thing.
Edit – Trumpets
In addition to the other good reasons people have mentioned, people attend orchestral concerts to hear the music. People attend rock or pop concerts to see the band. If the band were staring at music stands the whole time, it would diminish their stand presence and he overall experience.
In addition to other answers, rock bands play the same songs over and over, most orchestras don’t. They might play the same pieces for a few performances one but then their next performances will be a different set of pieces probably by a different composer. Looks up any major symphony orchestra schedule and you’ll see how many different pieces they play in just one month! It’s entirely different styles of performance basically with different goals and different needs.
In addition to the other responses about orchestral music often being much longer and technically difficult, there is also the amount of time spent in rehearsal. A band will often spend a lot of time rehearsing the same set of songs and slowly expand their repertoire while an orchestra will often only get a handful of rehearsals together to practice a new piece.
Also, often times a band will actually have some sort of reference material when performing new songs. For example, many drummers, especially if they are more freelance and do studio sessions or aren’t permanently a part of the band will have charts that they use to learn all of the grooves, fills, and cues.
As for the conductor, try getting 20+ rock musicians to play together coherently and you’ll understand why it’s necessary to have someone conducting. Bands have something similar called a music director who will give cues and it isn’t uncommon for musicians that play with in-ear monitors to have a click-track going that serves as a metronome to keep the band in-time.
By the time you are performing orchestral or wind ensemble music for an audience, you’re actually not looking at your music as closely as you were when you first started learning the piece. It’s there as a guidepost by that point, not to be read very closely note by note. That said, there are a lot of factors on the page, including especially additional handwritten notes conveying instructions from your conductor (let’s take out this repeat! Actually that’s a misprint, it should be D flat! Only one on a part here! Let’s take a rit. in this bar!), and they make helpful reminders.
That said, some of it also comes down to convention. In classical music performers often do straight up memorize their parts, even for very long pieces. Marching bands play whole sets from memory; opera and musical theater singers perform from memory; soloists (voice, string, wind, percussion — anyone standing in front of the ensemble) often perform from memory. I once performed in a classical chorus that made everyone sing a full Requiem from memory, though I can’t say I enjoyed that.
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