Because the strings form the majority of an orchestra and are the basis of its sound, it's helpful if a conductor has played a stringed instrument. To know about strings is better than nothing, but if he has experienced firsthand how it feels to pull a sound out of an instrument, he'll have extra empathy with the players. He'll know what they need to do to produce the effects he wants, and his gestures will communicate, consciously or unconsciously, colors in the string sound.

This isn't a textbook on string playing, so we'll look at some of the more common requests a conductor is likely to make to a string section. The better an orchestra, the more he can ask for the sound he wants, and the less he'll have to explain how to get it. So if he wants a passage played very quietly, it should be enough to ask for just that and no more; but with some orchestras he may need to go further and ask them to use very little bow and stay near the tip.