They do actually! For a 4/4 beat (4 beats per measure and the quarter note gets the beat, meaning 4 quarter notes per measure), they will move the baton straight down for 1 (the “down beat”), left (usually) for 2, right for 3, and up for 4. Different time signatures will have more or less movements, such as 3/4 time (3 beats per measure) will be down (1), left (2), and up (3).
Further, there are other movements like a wide slash left to right is a stop motion for everyone to instantly stop playing.
Yeah you pick it up fairly quickly if you play any conducted music. Especially because a lot of the gestures make a lot of sense. The beats are a pattern with beats to them and the common signatures you get a feel for. But like it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if the conductor is doing a rising motion at your section you should be playing louder and if it’s increasingly frantic you should be increasingly loud until the hands either come together in a beat (loud finishing note) or they’re separated in a way that will either signal to hold or to fade, or they’ll just start doing a lowering motion to tell you to start piping down. It’s all meant to be very intuitive
They do actually! For a 4/4 beat (4 beats per measure and the quarter note gets the beat, meaning 4 quarter notes per measure), they will move the baton straight down for 1 (the “down beat”), left (usually) for 2, right for 3, and up for 4. Different time signatures will have more or less movements, such as 3/4 time (3 beats per measure) will be down (1), left (2), and up (3).
Further, there are other movements like a wide slash left to right is a stop motion for everyone to instantly stop playing.
Yeah you pick it up fairly quickly if you play any conducted music. Especially because a lot of the gestures make a lot of sense. The beats are a pattern with beats to them and the common signatures you get a feel for. But like it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if the conductor is doing a rising motion at your section you should be playing louder and if it’s increasingly frantic you should be increasingly loud until the hands either come together in a beat (loud finishing note) or they’re separated in a way that will either signal to hold or to fade, or they’ll just start doing a lowering motion to tell you to start piping down. It’s all meant to be very intuitive