Sometimes someone should be in charge
I talked last night to a string player in a conductorless orchestra. He had spent six hours earlier yesterday in rehearsal with the group, and he had had more than enough. “It's hell,” he said.
The idea of a conductorless orchestra is effortlessly cyberian. Beautiful music, made without anyone in charge! Through listening and reacting, through feedback and awareness, the net becomes intelligent and produces order for free. No one has to direct its growth.
But listen to my conversational companion from last night: “There are these people that just love to hear the sound of their own voices. They can't even explain what it is they want. They say, 'More like THIS,' and bend an elbow or something, and no one knows what the heck that means. The people I respect never say anything. No one shuts anyone else up. It's just awful.”
He also said that music by committee ends up being bland. Not all chamber orchestra works can be played without a conductor, so you pick particular things that you think the group can cope with. And then during rehearsal those things are smoothed and simplified, by necessity, so that they sound coherent. Without someone at the helm, making demands, no sound can startle.
Scale matters to this story, of course. A string quartet doesn't need a conductor. Not even a brass quintet needs a conductor. But an orchestra — it needs someone in charge.
I'm not going to draw any grand conclusions here. Software can do a lot to create order. It can facilitate as well as constrain. No one needs to tell the developer what he/she is allowed to do, and the internet doesn't need a conductor. The synchronous accuracy that makes or breaks an orchestral performance isn't even relevant online.
But the face of my jaded, punchy friend, emerging from six hours of consensus-building, told a story in itself. He had had more than enough of earnestness, and was longing for a conductor and a drink.