Switchboard Conducting

How would a violinist whirring through Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of a Bumblebee react if a red light suddenly flashed on his music stand? If white and blue lights played before him constantly, sometimes at slow speed, sometimes hectically fast? The violinist, claims round, bushy-haired Vladimir Karapetoff, professor of electrical engineering at Cornell University, would perform better than he does now when all he has to guide him are "the wavy motions of two arms and a recurring expression of rage on a conductor's face." To prove his point Professor Karapetoff has invented a switchboard system of conducting, named it the Electrical Dirigent.

Students who go to Ithaca this week with violins and 'cellos under their arms will be the first to experiment with Professor Karapetoff's invention. At orchestral rehearsals this autumn their conductor will have a desk dotted with buttons to play on. Each music stand will have six lights: a white one for the first beat in a measure, blue for the successive beats; red to mean soft, green to mean loud, red and green together to hold, lights out to stop. Besides these each stand will have two smaller lights to convey individual messages to the players, say when the conductor wants the kettledrummer to pummel out a thundering crescendo.

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