When you watch auto racing, the race begins with a pace car – a beautiful new automobile especially chosen each year to get out in front of the high-powered racers and lead them around the track for a few laps. The pace car guarantees that every race car driver gets a fair chance; that everyone is in the proper position and moving at a uniform speed when the green starting flag is dropped. At the moment the pack of race cars is properly positioned, the pacer gets out of the way fast.

Also, if you have ever been to a concert you will see that people pay high prices because of one man in the concert: the conductor. He enters to the applause of the audience. A hundred instruments are poised by a hundred tense musicians. Each is prepared to make a special kind of musical response to his beat; each section will produce melodic lines and rhythmic patterns different from the others. It is the conductor who will weave all the differences together and ensure that the orchestra keeps faith with the composer’s intentions. He will establish standard tempo and standard volume. He will bring out the sole parts ensuring that the orchestra colors (infuses) with the background with just the right musical hues so that the soloist reaches the anticipated excellence. Without the conductor, the fine set musicians and the most expensive instruments produce only inartistic chaos. Like race cars and the orchestra, the family needs someone to set the pace and the tempo.