Tuning

One of my favorite parts of a orchestral performance is when the orchestra goes through the tuning ritual; the last minute adjustments, the preparation to play in harmony and to become a single organism.

I'm not sure that the orchestra members would appreciate the comparison, but it brought to mind the enigmatic slime mold, a bunch of individuals that come together and specialize to create a greater organism and I imagine that this assemblage must be similar in its initial cacaphony of cells of who's playing what part and sitting where, only without a conductor to tell them where to sit or what instrument they're to play. Maybe that's why the conductor is usually absent during this stage where individuals become a collective organism - it is the organism that the conductor is really talking to, maybe major muscle groups but not the individual cells.

I haven't heard other animals tuning and wonder if this is a human endeavor since we're making a group musical effort or whether I've just missed hearing it. There would be nothing against collectively adding volume for mating calls for instance say a couple of frogs singing together might attract relatively more mates than one on its lonesome and that seems to be the case with birds as well. But still, I don't recall hearing the tuning before birds start their warbling in earnest, nor frogs their croaking but then again I haven't heard them singing in harmony or even in time with one another.

I do miss hearing that part of the performance on recordings, the part where there are still  egos being subsumed into the collective vision of composer, conductor and orchestra members; where there is still a whisper of the individual artists before they become greater than the sum of their musical parts. Please mention to any recording artists and engineer friends of yours to please, please include the tuning with an ensemble recording.