Klarinet Archive - Posting 000372.txt from 2003/03

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Theater Sound - Was [kl] Richard Bush`s Letter to Actor's Equity
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 10:02:38 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Wakefield [mailto:tony-w@-----.uk]
>
> A worthy letter.
>
I absolutely agree.

> We have just had CD released over here in London of a 100% "virtual
> orchestra". Released by a record company that has only previously recorded
> with real human beings. It is a serious attempt to sell (not rock music)
> proper and original orchestral music, without one musician ever being
> present. Our composers are two young computer programmers who (to
> me) cannot
> score or orchestrate in the traditional sense. I have seen the scores, and
> their idea of woodwind in twos is the same part i.e. unison,
> allocated to 2
> fl., 2 ob., 2 clar., 2 bsn.
>
This isn't new, by any means. Vangelis did it (I don't know what the
specific virtual instrumentation consisted of) 2 decades ago in Chariots of
Fire. Ever since, it's been hard to be sure when a sound track was played by
live musicians and when it's been synthesized. The sad fact is that, since
modern movie sound is reproduced digitally and played much too loud through
very elaborate electronic sound systems, you often can't tell whether the
original sound was made by live performers or synths.

On a definite side-note, the same is, in my opinion, threatening to become
true in the few remaining Philadelphia theaters where I hear shows from time
to time. The singers and pit orchestra are so heavily amplified that it's
really easy, if you close your eyes, to imagine that you're listening to a
huge stereo system. The sound comes from speakers not even remotely near the
actors on the stage, and the orchestra sounds all take on the electronic,
overly loud quality that I've become accustomed to in the movie theaters.
The balance between singers and orchestra is clearly being managed with
controls on a sound board (sometimes, at least here, to the disadvantage of
the singers). These are old theaters that were designed and built before the
vacuum tube was invented. Shows were successfully performed in them long
before amplification was even possible, much less ubiquitous as it is today.

The sound systems in the theaters I've attended in New York are not nearly
as intrusive. I don't know if this is because the equipment is better, the
theaters are acoustically better, or the engineering is more sensitive. But
most of those theaters still outdate the electronics that are now used in
them. Has anyone even considered trying to do one of the old shows (were the
pits in the original Oklahoma or South Pacific productions miked?)
acoustically? If I've ever experienced such a performance (outside of opera
in a concert hall venue) I was too young still to remember it. I find myself
more and more wondering what it would sound like and why (other than modern
audience expectation) it won't work.

After all, we're moving back to real grass in our baseball stadiums....

Karl Krelove
(who is only old enough to remember vacuum tubes, not Victor Talking
Machines)

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