 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2003-03-13 15:07
"Newsdays" John Dolman's questions and statements are all valid, and many of us are saying some of the same things. Those on the committee, and many others, are basically saying we must ratify the new contract, no questions asked.
We nave been sold down the river by the Union, other Union heads who got involved, the Mayor, from his bully pulpit, and his "mediator." It is, in fact, the end of Broadway as we know it. Many will ratify, and it will probably pass. The 10 year hold on these minimums will throw this matter into the laps of a new generation. Perhaps they will have the answers that will raise the bar a little higher for live music, I hope so.
Until then, let keep asking the good questions, and fight the good fights. Music is still alive, and we must continue to support it in whatever form it takes.
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-03-13 15:56
Interesting. The page puts a link back to this page in the article (The HTTP_REFERER header - yes, it's a standard header that was misspelled in the beginning and now continues in infamy).
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-03-13 16:13
Unfortunately, even though the next generation may have better arguments and answers, by then it is likely that technology will be that much better. Let's hope that the general public will care a bit more. It is too bad that most of the folks that I have spoken to who are non musicians and have heard news reports seem to have gotten the story from the media that it is about musicians who wish to be paid to do nothing and are keeping artificial minimums for their own self serving reasons. Many are unaware of the real issues or the big picture.
The Newsday article says:
"Well, William Moriarity, who heads Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, caused my eyes to narrow when he bragged that even with the new rules, New York City will have the largest pit-orchestra minimums in the world."
What is wrong with wanting Broadway to be the biggest and the best? Isn't that why people come there? Isn't that why tourists make a point to come to Broadwayfrom around the country and the world to see the shows, even if their home city has had a production? Because Broadway is supposed to be "it", the real thing, that's why. That is part of what Broadway is all about. That is what New York is all about. That is why people want NYC to have the tallest building, the best music, the greatest museums, the best restaurants,etc. Why come to see a show here if a city near your home has local or touring productions that are equal or better? It is maybe cheaper too.
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Author: mikeW
Date: 2003-03-13 17:59
I begin this post with some trepidation:
A fellow with whom I carpool visited NY last fall and attended a show. His comment was that the music was so flawless that he couldn't tell if it was live or from a recording. Now consider the above Newsday article where a major justification for live pits is that the actors would not otherwise have the flexibility to alter their performance.
One question is: how far away are we from a technology where one CAN alter the timing of canned music in a controlled way, perhaps from a drumpad? And once a mature technology exists, what chance does live music have in such a setting since reasonably astute musical patrons (the guy is an ok classical guitarist) can't tell the difference and presumably actors would have the same freedom as they do with a live pit?
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2003-03-13 18:30
Hi mikeW:
This excerpt from a letter to the press by Andrew Sterman, a woodwind doubler in NYC, and it partially addresses your question about live music on Broadway:
"On the street, what I'm finding is that there are virtually no people who don't feel some crucial parts of life have lost quality due to the corporate mindset, whether it be something like this, which is clearly a luxury expense and doesn't need to be assembly line made (don't take too seriously the producers' whining in the press that they are in an economic squeeze; profits at record levels, which is why large corporations are joining the theater game), or the growing difficulty of educating kids, or the take over of shops by malls, or the demise of ball players' loyalty to a home town team, etc. At whatever level, everyone is experiencing the loss of available quality so someone else can report more profit, which is at the expense of the culture at large. When someone stops to talk, as so many different people have over the last three days, and they think for a minute about how little the producers will be saving and how irreversible a change to Broadway these half-orchestras will be, you can see this sense of loss flash on their faces, and that's a beautiful, heartening thing. Of course, we're up against the First Amendment ... oh, not the first amendment people talk about, the one about free speech ... that's been the second amendment for a while. the first amendment is the right to make money without any impediment, which, since it is seen as a sacred right in America, falls under the protection of 'government shall make no law establishing religion.' So while the hearts of New York are calling for this to be enough of the selling off of the cultural fabric, I'm still not too optimistic about the personal fabric of musician economics: living a life weaving art music and popular theater gigs together in the way that really has been working positively for quite a while, for us and for the wide variety of audiences we perform for. But who knows, maybe our vision of calling people to stand up for quality and decency will prevail."
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: wyatt
Date: 2003-03-13 18:44
if they provide canned music will they also provide canned singing. All the stars would have to do is lip-sink. Just wouldn't be the same. kind of like going to the same movie over and over again. that's now why people go to live productions and pay a pretty price to do so.i
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2003-03-13 18:58
Congrats to all who helped "OUR" good cause. Even out here close to no-mans-land, our musical theatre and choral playing badly needs the varied tempos and vamps that a conductor provides, perhaps ballet [only] is best served by recorded music, arguable? Fine commentary. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2003-03-13 19:19
Channel 13 showed the movie of Kiss Me Kate last night. The songs were obviously lip-synched, but then I guess all movies are. At least they had a real orchestra and real singers synching themselves.
Does anyone know how the synching is done, or was done when the movie was made? I think there used to be a machine called a Movieola, which stretched or compressed things to get the synch right, but I've also seen badly framed movies where the overhead mic was visible.
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2003-03-13 19:37
wyatt wrote:
> if they provide canned music will they also provide canned
> singing. All the stars would have to do is lip-sink.
Lip sync to canned music ... no one would notice, right ?
Just like what happened to Milli-Vanilli ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif) ... personally, I think it'd be one of the best things to happen - a glitch in the system on opening night and the music goes bonkers, people who've paid upwards of $100/seat, and the newsmedia on it in a flash ...
Wonder how much a screw-up like that would cost a producer ... it cost an act their entire career (not that they deserved a career at all .. )
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2003-03-13 20:44
Hi Mark:
"I think it'd be one of the best things to happen - a glitch in the system on opening night and the music goes bonkers, people who've paid upwards of $100/seat, and the newsmedia on it in a flash ..."
Your idea was our next move. If the other Unions hadn't jumped on board so soon, we expected the producers to open the shows with the VO's. We expected to have them crash, or just not follow the singer & dancers, and have the audience & reviewers storm out of the theatres in an outrage!
It didn't quite work out that way, so we're stuck with a bum deal.
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2003-03-14 05:01
Of course, not all of the lip synching in the movie musicals was done with the actors synching to their own singing. Perhaps the most famous is My Fair Lady which cast Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews who played the role on Broadway. The songs were actully sung by Marni Nixon, Hepburn synched to them. Julie Andrews had the last laugh however, she won best actress that year for Mary Poppins. (Can you tell that I'm a Julie Andrews fan from way back?)
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Author: mikeW
Date: 2003-03-14 05:24
Don & JJM: part of my point was that if live music is needed simply to vary the tempi and vamps, then technology will catch it and kill it. There will be glitches, but the creators of the technology will fix the glitches. This just shows that the technology is not yet mature.
Wyatt, lots of people do go to the same movie multiple times. Furthermore, they will go to see their favorite pop group dance and sing, and complain if things are too different from the CD. Having played amateur and local pits, I certainly don't mean to trivialize the difficulty of playing a show or all that can go wrong during a production, but I think that people mostly go to shows for the singers (who are, after all the stars of the show) and the spectacle (sets, lights and costumes), with the music being something of an afterthought.
Certainly the music IS important, but the singers are the vehicles by which the audience PERCEIVES it being delivered to them. And if the singers can still captivate and move an audience while working with canned music, then I see the VO as nothing short of inevitable and unstoppable.
I do believe that there is a contract between the audience and the artists(singers and musicians and crew) in any live performance. I believe that an enthusiastic audience can energize a dull performance. I believe that a stunning performance by a pit can rouse a cast from a mediocre show, and vice versa. But in the long run, I don't know if this is going to make a bit of difference.
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Author: wyatt
Date: 2003-03-14 13:29
mike w Wyatt, lots of people do go to the same movie multiple times. Furthermore, they will go to see their favorite pop group dance and sing, and
Don't get me wrong--i love movies, however I'm not going to pay big bucks to see a live performance if it is the same as going to see a movie for under $10.
wyattg
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Author: zack best
Date: 2003-03-14 15:39
Being a corporate type myself, I must say that I can identify
with the producers a lot more than the musicians in this case.
Characterizing the producers as selling out the customers for
a few bucks is really missing the mark in my opinion. I know
a lot very good corporate executives. They are certainly
competitive and profit motivated, but they are NOT short
sighted or stupid. Universally the place very high value
on customer trust, and spend great mental energy on
learning what the customers perceive as value and trying
to optimize this.
To say that the goal is to minimize expenses for the sake
of incremental profit is usually not
how they think. The though process is much more along the
lines of, "We have a limited budget based on the size of our
customer base and their willingness to pay certain prices.
How can we spend this budget in a way that maximizes
value as perceived by the customers?"
If the producers are doing the job competently, then they
have a much more accurate assessment of the value
of live music to the paying customer than do the musicians.
And also the relative value of different size orchestra.
Telling producers that they must hire a certain size orchestra
based on union rules strikes me as similar to telling the
musicians that they must use theatre provided instruments
and are not allowed to use their own. The instruments
are pretty good and no doubt any degradation in the
performance would so small as to be barely noticeable.
Nonetheless, the musicians would find this quite upsetting
both because the rule is arbitrary and unnecessary,
and because it prevents them from doing their job as well
as they could.
I expect the producers react almost identically, at an emotional
level, to arbitrary and unnecessary union rules that prevent
them from giving the best possible value, as they perceive it,
to the paying customer.
I don't mean to suggest that there aren't two side to this,
only to make the case for the side that seems a little
under represented here.
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-03-14 16:40
Dear Zack,
As a "corporate type" and business owner myself, let me comment on what I think you said: BOVINEFECES!
Nobody I know who is in a position to make those decisions for any corporation (and I know an incredible number of them, both minor and major, from FL to NY and NC to CA) has any interest whatsoever in ensuring their clients get any level of value whatsoever for their money. If they could get people to drop off their money and go away, they would do that in a heart beat.
To boot, I grew up with a corporate attorney mother and got to see how the game is played since I was a child. (She practiced corporate, international and consular law for 40 years.)
The only reason they are "competitive" at all in the services or products they provide is that they have no choice in the long run, and want to keep their profit margin alive as long as they can before the Japanese or someone else who still does research and development comes along with a better product.
It's also human nature to get away with any and everything humanly possible.
I know, I attend many such meetings, in divers corporate environments all the time.
The only ones who care about the value or validity of a service or product are the people who invent and/or develop them, not the people who manufacture and/or market them. Even if they are both within the same corporation.
What they are interested in is providing enough of a service to satisfy their clients' sense of having received adequate value for their money and optimizing profits as much as possible within thier utmost capabilities. Budget or not.
Their "...real clients are not the people who buy your products, but the ones who invest their money in your corporation and expect a good return on their investment..." If I told you who said that, and to whom, you'd fall over and faint!
I've been there too many times.
There are some exceptions, as with every rule, but the old-time profitmongers, inherent in every corporate environment don't give them a chance to act, and sooner than you'd think, they are gone from the corporate scene.
That's why the oil companies don't want better or more efficient fuels found or electric cars further developed, just to name one example. Why is all American industry moving out to third-world countries, like China, where the average monthly wage equals about $1.50 USD and killing American employment by the many thousands of jobs every year?
If American corporations care so little for the entire country's economy, what chance does the average consumer have?
With the utmost respect to you, if you believe any differently, you are either trying to sugar-coat over the issues in your own mind or you are very naive.
Peter
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Author: Ed
Date: 2003-03-14 17:27
I am sorry to say that I do not quite buy Zack's argument. The idea that the motivation of the producers is to maximize the value to the consumer just does not make sense to me. I think that the key here is that the producers are as he says "profit motivated". I agree they are not short sighted or stupid. They can project that bottom line over many years. I also believe it is important to ammend your statement to be "(they) spend great mental energy on learning what -they perceive that- the customers perceive as value". I for one, get sick of hearing someone in a corporate, marketing or advertising position tell me what I think.
Why have many companies have moved manufacturing operations to countries where they pays pennies for cheap labor? Why have companies cheapened products, often using low cost substitute materials? The other day on 60 Minutes, the Andy Rooney commentary was about how standard cans of coffee which were 1 pound are now reduced to something like 13 ounces while the size of the can has not changed. Why? Oh yes, that's right, to pass on value to the customer.
In a competitive marketplace this may make sense, but on Broadway, who are they competing with? If it is about expenses and ticket prices, then maybe they can save money on special lighting, overly fancy scenery, costumes and special effects. Why not you ask? Because those are places that can be seen and by God, we don't want it to look cheap. The average consumer can be sold to accept synthesized music, but not cheapness in other areas.
I am not sure that the comparison about the musicians being forced to use theater instruments doesn't make sense to me. It seems that the implication is that the union rule is forcing the producers to accept a slightly inferior product. These musicians are nothing less than top notch and using any artificial substitution would degrade the performance.
I am sorry that while I think you make some interesting points, by and large, this is not where the real issues here lie. I don't think "value" is entering into the producers thoughts.
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Author: zack best
Date: 2003-03-14 20:03
Ed, Peter,
Interesting responses. Unfortunately I think debating these
points is a bit too far off topic for this board.
But it's amazing how different our view of the world is.
No wonder labor disputes get so bitter!
Regards, Zack
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-03-14 21:07
Zack,
Interesting response from you too... very corporatively oriented.
Off topic subjects get discussed all the time until MC says to quit it.
[ Common sense should prevail so I won't have to say it - I don't enjoy telling "adults" that they have obviously gone too far. I'd like to think that I don't have to monitor the posters on this BBoard every seceond of every day.
It's now off topic way too far. Generalizations about corporations are bad enough and often wrong. Bad-mouthing what you think is a poster's corporation is downright rude and crude. Last time, Peter. ]
Peter
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Author: Burt
Date: 2003-03-15 00:33
I'm happy with canned music...when I'm watching a movie. Live video needs live audio.
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Author: Peter
Date: 2003-03-15 01:25
Mark C,
I did not, in any way, bad mouth his corporation.
I made no allusion to it whatsoever, except to say I was somewhat familiar with it, and I am that, since I have used their products in the line of business more than once.
Your point is taken, but your remark in saying that I "bad mouthed" his corporation is way off base, therefore, your threat is really uncalled for in this case.
Peter
Post Edited (2003-03-15 02:42)
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Author: KENOLD
Date: 2003-03-15 02:24
I have never been to Broadway. In 10 years when I retire, I plan to travel and New York and Broadway is one of the stops I plan to make. I will not go to see any show using canned music. The ONLY reason for ME to go to Broadway is for the LIVE music. I expect to see big things in the Big Apple - big buildings, big museums, big crowds, and a big orchestra in the musicals that I go to see. Going to a musical in New York and finding a 6 piece orchestra in the pit would be like going to the symphony and finding a chamber orchestra.
Almost every city has small productions. Keep cutting back and I'll scratch Broadway off my list.
Ken
Learn to perform even the things you don't like, as if you love to do them.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2003-03-15 02:36
KENOLD said: "...In 10 years when I retire, I plan to travel and New York and Broadway is one of the stops I plan to make. I will not go to see any show using canned music..."
In 10 years, the contract stipulating holds on the minimum number of Broadway musicians expires, and no doubt will be renegotiated downward.
Try to see a Broadway show within the next 10 years...GBK
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