Klarinet Archive - Posting 000446.txt from 1994/05

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: Question for the pros on the board
Date: Mon, 30 May 1994 13:10:39 -0400

For those of you who play in orchestras that have a contract with the
American Federation of Musicians,
I have a question about how doubling fees are calculated for you.

Recently, I did Mahler 5 and that calls for 6 clarinets but is only a triple
for purposes of payment: namely, E-flat, the other sopranos (C, B-flat, and A)
and the bass (for which I used two but did not expect it to be calculated as
a double, which it was not).

Anyway, it was a triple and I was payed triple pay.

At an earlier gig this year, our first player
used two clarinet and 4 saxes, and this is defined as a sextuple and he
should and did get the sextuple uplift on his pay. (The 2 clarinets
were E-flat and B-flat, which is a double in this area.)

However, the way the triples (and higher) are calculated is strange and
I wanted to know from others of you how your triple and higher fees are
calculated.

There are two ways it can be done: You get a base fee, a doubling fee (say
25%) and a fixed fee (say 10%) supplement for every instrument after that.
Or else, your 10% supplement is calculated on the accumulating amounts,
not on the constant base fee and constant doubling fee.

Assume the pay scale is $100 per service. Then the doubling fee is $25
and the tripling fee for the third instrument is **either** $10 or else
it is $12.50, depending on which base the 10% tripling fee applies to.

The amounts for a quadruple are even more; i.e., $10 or else $13.75,
for a quintuple $10 or else $15.13, etc. These are, of course, all
per service fees.

The matter is both non trivial and non academic, particularly if one
does a show like West Side Story where everybody in the pit plays a
triple at minimum, and there are often 40 mor more performances of a
show such as this. It can add up to several hundred dollars at the
end of a run, or close to $100 for a seven service symphony set
of almost any Mahler symphony.

What is the experience out there in terms of how your doubling fees
are calculated? (And out of curiosity more than its practical
application to American labor practices, I would be curious to
know how this is done in the UK and elsewhere.)

Finally this: I am advised the the Los Angeles local of the AF of M,
has a player performing on both A and B-flat clarinets defined as
a double. Is this true? Is it true elsewhere?

In San Francisco, a basset horn is considered an automatic double,
I suppose because it is rare and thus there is an incentive to own
one.

The basic theory behind a double is that everybody benefits if one
person plays both instruments: the player gets more money, the
orchestra saves money since they do not have to hire a second
player. For instance, when we did the Vaughn Williams 8th (I think,
but am not sure of the number), my part was for bass clarinet and
tenor sax. But I don't own a tenor sax (and won't play one for
lack of practice) so they had to hire a second player. He did the
first movement. I did the middle ones. He finished off the piece.

Neither of us got a double. The orchestra had to pay a lot more money.
So both the player and the orchestra is motivated to have doubles
and to pay (or received) the supplemental amounts. But the method
of calculation is somewhat critical and I am puzzled that I never
noticed this before.
====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
====================================