 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-04 05:41
Just wondering what you would consider a really tough musical job and why. Just a general discussion topic.
In my opinion, I would think that a musician that plays for cartoons would be tough. Meaning the background of a Looney Tunes cartoon or the like. Having to watch the conductor and time it correctly with the cartoon, plus I've been told (don't know for sure, but was told) that the keys change VERY often and often to the 'wierd' keys (many sharps/flats). I would especially consider a percussionist in this type of ensemble to be going nuts between all those slide whistles, pans, empty jugs being blow on, etc. etc. Next time you see one, take a listen to how many different percussion noises are in there.
That's obviously not the ONLY hard musician job, but I would think it'd certainly be one of the tougher ones out there. Any others you think are especially hard?
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-04-04 07:01
Since we all can't be as fortunate as Stanley Drucker, who, when I asked him how much longer he was going to play with the NYP he said:
"Why leave? It's an easy job."
I would say that playing in a circus band has to be high on the list, just for sheer endurance. Every musician I ever played with from a circus band had chops of steel ...GBK
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2004-04-04 15:35
I do believe that studio recording can be very difficult. Not only do you have to be at a very high level on several instruments, you have to do it on a consistant level. If you mess up, you just wasted money by having to go back and do it all over again. In my past, I have recorded music for Home and Garden TV. SWK is correct in saying that you play to a click track. Every musician has a set of headphones connected to a little box on the floor. The person in the sound booth will give you the tempo. It is basically like a metronome for the entire orchestra. I have never been in a situation where you have to perform the piece without click in a certain duration of time. The composer sets the limits for that and the click takes care of the rest. Most pieces too are only identified by their show number and the order in which it comes. A few years ago I read through a Star Trek show, and if I remember correctly, it called for contra alto clarinet. As if I had one of those! I couldn't imagine all of those instruments you would have to lug around if you were always recording.
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Author: ChrisC
Date: 2004-04-04 17:24
fwiw, I'm pretty sure that quite a lot of the music used in old cartoons was recorded with no intention of it ever being featured in a cartoon; I'm thinking of the Raymond Scott recordings used by Looney Toons in particular, which were recorded almost a decade before Warner Bros. put them to use as cartoon musc.
Post Edited (2004-04-04 17:25)
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-04 17:37
Not in cartoons like "Tom and Jerry". Well, basically just see when the music sort of "matches up" and almost "waits" for the cartoon to do something (fluttering of flutes as someone runs upstairs, wierd 'bonks' and 'bangs' when their heads get hit with frying pans, etc.) Although I'm sure there are certainly MANY cartoons where the cartoon was created to match a certain piece of music (think of how many times you've heard a swan lake recording in one or my personal favorite looney tunes cartoon of ALL time, "What's Opera, Doc?" (followed closely by "The Rabbit of Seville")
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: DougR
Date: 2004-04-04 22:17
OK, HERE's a tough job.
An outdoor gig, contracted by the guy who used to do all the Italian street fairs in NYC. Decent pay, I thought. Do a 45-minute set with a pickup band in St. Patrick's Cathedral, a celebration of some saint's feast day, then march in a processional way west to a church on 10th Avenue. We were playing some spidery-writing Latin American sacred tunes arranged for band. How bad could it be?
Well, it was cold. AND, it was misting heavily. AND, the faithful were carrying a bier about the size of a flatbed trailer and twice as heavy, with a statue of the saint on it, bedecked with flowers. They inched (I mean INCHED) their way west from St. Pat's, in a sort of a rhythmic microscopic shuffle, pausing only to change bearers. It must have taken seven hours to go the five crosstown blocks. Every now and then, we'd play. We started out in the daylight, ended up in the dark, chilled to the bone, damp from the mist, eyeing the inviting glow of the lights in the brownstone windows around us, wishing for warmth, wondering "How far west can this @%!!#! church BE?"
All due respect to the high-pressure studio guys. THIS was a tough gig.
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Author: LeWhite
Date: 2004-04-05 01:20
I believe that's incorrect, ChrisC. I'm actually doing a class this semester about music in film, and we've just spent a few weeks on Warner Bros.! They were composed for the cartoons, and in those days there wasn't a click track - it was recorded while the cartoon played on a projector. Of course, the orchestra rehearsed beforehand, but it was still only a day or so that they got with a part.
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Author: Rachel
Date: 2004-04-05 02:08
Another type of difficult job would be one where you had to play the same boring, easy music day in, day out and still make it sound fresh and inspired.
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-04-05 03:48
I have done every type of recording job in NYC for the past 25+ years, and it's always tough. With or without a "click track," with or without a conductor, alone in a recording booth, or in a room with 70+ players, is never easy. An "old-timer" once said to me, "That's why we get the big bucks."
There's a tremendous amount of pressure to get it right immediately. The costs for studio time, recording engineers, and equipment is very high, so wasted "takes" are not a good thing, and you don't last if you can't get it right quickly.
I have always loved the recording scene, even with the high pressure, because it brings out the best of the best, and the "playbacks" are a daily lesson...so much to improve upon, even if they "buy it."
I loved doing the Muppets movies, and the Disney stuff...great memories.
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-04-05 04:25
Although it's no doubt not unique, the worst gig I ever played was many years ago. A four-piece group: piano, drums, guitar, and me -- playing alto sax (mostly), Clarinet, and flute. Big-time Valentine's dance with about 300 revelers. The guitarist had checked the place earlier, insisting that the piano had to be tuned. And so it was. But the tuner was concerned about destroying the thing, so he tuned it a half-step flat. So the guitar was tuned down, but that couldn't work for me.
What fun, transposing everything down a half-step for four hours. Really kept me on my toes. Only time I ever wished I'd had an A Clarinet -- and a D sax, for that matter.
Regards,
John
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-04-05 16:01
ChrisC -
I'm pretty sure that most of the music for Loony Toons and Merrie Melodies was recorded to fit the action. Kalmen Opperman told me that Al Gallodoro was the first call for these sessions, and he was the second.
The worst two jobs I ever played weren't difficult muscially, but everything else. . . . They were two "honor guards" when I was in the West Point Band.
The first was in the dead of winter, with the temperature at about 4 degrees Fahrenheit and a vicious wind whipping around. We were in thick overcoats, 20 lb. each, that were buttoned open so they provided no insulation, and we had to wear thin white gloves with cut-off fingers. We marched up to the top of the hill and waited half an hour for the big cheese to arrive. By the time he did, all the brass instrument valves and slides had frozen up, and nobody had any sensation below the knees and elbows. Forget about the embouchures. The son of a baboon, wrapped up in leather and fur, had a 10 minute conversation with the general, and then walked around inspecting the troops. Then we had to play. My lips were too numb to form an embouchure, and only about half the brass players would touch the mouthpiece for fear of their lips freezing to it.
On the second, it was warmer -- about 25 degrees, but as we went up the hill, the skies opened, and we got 2 inches of rain inside of 5 minutes. The dictator of Paraguay arrived, took one look at the mess and demanded to have his honor guard held indoors. So we marched down the hill, which had turned into a waterfall, and into the unheated field house. When we got there, they held an inspection, and then the dictator delivered a 20 minute address in Spanish, followed by a translation. Then his son and heir gave a 30 minute speech in Spanish, plus a translation.
As we came down the hill, several people in the band sang about The Grand Old Duke of York:
The grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.
The band officers didn't appreciate it. Tough bananas, colonel.
Oh, yes -- there was the parade that was led by a large contingent of horses, where we had to go 5 miles, stepping carefully around what they left behind.
Good war stories, anyhow.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Henry
Date: 2004-04-05 16:41
Ken....Great "War Stories"! LOL.
I bet we all have some of these. Fun to look back on, but not very amusing at the time.
Henry
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