Not a Human Metronome

Taiwanese-American conductor Apo Hsu in rehearsal
(original size 500 × 418 pixels)
by Alton Thompson licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

I was at our youngest son’s school concert when I realized something that I should have known all along. The band director is not just a human metronome.

If you have ever been to the symphony or the opera or even to a school concert, you see the maestro up there waving a baton. I think of the director tap tap tapping the baton on her music stand to get everybody’s...