Are Orchestra Conductors Really needed?

The conductor is mostly there to direct timing, right?

How about setting up the music stands of each musician with a light that turns on (and possibly flashes with the beat of the music) whenever an instrument is introduced and turns off again whenever that instrument isn't needed?* It solves the question posed earlier of whether the orchestra can even start without the conductor (countdown flash to start) and it's a much simpler build.

With some rather simple computer programming you could pre-program the entire piece of music and get the lights to flash on and off for entire sections at a time and all you'd have to do was press play when you wanted to start. If it works and you perfect the method, you could even make a playlist and conduct an entire concert this way.

If you really want to test this method to its limits, get a bunch of mucisians that are used to playing in an orchestra but have never played or even just practiced together before. Present them with music they're all familiar with, let them practice individually with their new flashing music stand to familiarize them with the concept and then assemble them into an orchestra to see if they can play a piece together purely conducted this way.

If they can, the conductor isn't needed.



*My first thought was of a single, large flashing light that would stand where the conductor usually would, but it occured to me pretty quickly that the light wouldn't be able to communicate directly with an individual section or orchestra member, as a conductor can do with eye contact, body language and his little stick. That's why I went for the one light on each music stand approach (in case you were wondering).