 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-04-14 19:02
Local 802 has settled and called off picketing of The Joys of Sex, which uses the Sinfonia virtual orchestra machine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/nyregion/14musicians.html
This was a tough fight from the beginning, because the composer said he wrote specifically for the Sinfonia, and it's an off-broadway show. Broadway is safe for now, but fear we'll soon be looking for silver linings instead of beautiful mornings.
Ken Shaw
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-04-15 04:04
Here's Local 802's take on the VO agreement:
"Local 802 Achieves Virtual Orchestra Machine Ban Off-Broadway
Wednesday, April 14, 2004
On April 13th, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians announced an historic agreement banning the use of the virtual orchestra machine at the Variety Arts Theater, one of New York’s largest Off-Broadway houses.
The contract expressly states Local 802’s vehement objection to the use of the virtual orchestra machine in the current production and secures a ten-year ban on the machine for all future productions appearing at the Variety Arts.
“This ten-year commitment to live music is a victory for audience members everywhere. Local 802 remains firm in our commitment to fight any attempts to destroy live musical theatre. This achievement sets an important precedent that canned music will not be tolerated in New York City, the live music capital of the world,” said David Lennon, President of Local 802."
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-15 04:14
Out of curiousity, who invented/produces the synfonia? Seems to me that this person has gone a LONG way into making this invention and now has to fight to get it out there. I almost feel sorry for the poor guy/gal for this steep uphill battle when they put (probably) years of effort and time and thought into it.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-04-15 04:32
Hi sfalexi:
Here's all you need to know about the VO here in NYC:
http://www.rms.biz/docs/sinfonia.htm
Don't feel too bad for the inventor's, they're doing quite well, as you can see from their extensive list of users.
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: John J. Moses
Date: 2004-04-15 04:35
REALTIME MUSIC SOLUTIONS
Recent Productions
* Les Miserables (West End, London)
* Oliver (National Broadway Tour)
* Oklahoma (National Broadway Tour)
* Annie (National Broadway Tours)
* Porgy & Bess (International Tour)
* Cinderella (National Broadway Tour)
* Miss Saigon (National Broadway Tour)
* Seussical (National Broadway Tour)
* Music Man (National Broadway Tour)
* Civil War (National Broadway Tour)
* Jekyll & Hyde (National Broadway Tour)
* Phantom of the Opera (National Broadway Tour)
* Evita (National Tour)
* Titanic (National Broadway Tour)
* Ragtime (National Broadway Tour)
* Steel Pier (National Tour)
* The Magic Flute
* The Marriage of Figaro
* The Wizard of Oz
* Guys and Dolls
* Into the Woods
* A Christmas Carol
* A Chorus Line
* Fiddler On The Roof
* Blade to the Heat (New York Shakespeare Festival)
* 12 Dreams (Lincoln Center)
* Troilus and Cressida (New York Shakespeare Festival)
* Dracula
* Hansel und Gretel
* Iphegenia en Tauride
* Alchemy of Desire: Dead Man's Blues
* All In the Timing
* The Notebook of Trigorin
* God's Heart (Lincoln Center)
* The Last Sweet Days
JJM
Légère Artist
Clark W. Fobes Artist
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-04-15 13:27
After checking out that website, I happened across the very first question of the FAQ section. And the answer.
Quote:
Does Sinfonia® replace live musicians?
Nothing sounds as good as a full orchestra. Therefore, we recommend using as many live players as possible. Sinfonia® was developed to be used in conjunction with live musicians when a full orchestra is not possible, whether due to pit size, budget constraints, or lack of available musicians. Well, if this was their intentions, let's see . . .
Do the broadway shows have a pit big enough to accomodate all the necessary musicians? Well, we've survived BEFORE Sinfonia so I will assume that answer to be a yes.
Is there a budget constraint? They've survived and made a profit before with live musicians so I'm going to assume the answer is no.
Is there a lack of avaliable musicians? Well, we all know the answer to that one.
So I guess it was some sort of insatiable greed and the notion of not HAVING to pay musicians that made this invention into "the devil". Especially since the purpose, supposedly, is to facilitate by helping to fill in missing musicians when for some reason you CAN'T have them.
But like so many other inventions/ideas, what started out as a probable solution to a problem, has now become the problem.
I just thought it'd be interesting to point out that first question and answer in the section since I know that there will be a fair amount of people who take the time to read this post and may not feel the need to check out the link.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Ed
Date: 2004-04-15 15:01
Reading that link I see they use the politically correct and marketing approach is to say, "no, of course we don't want to replace live musicians, we are doing it to help and enhance, to offer the best product possible". I like the part where they talk about how using this device, it will only require one player, so therefore allowing the show to hire more real players.
I am sure the attitude is just like the gun manufacturers. They will tell you that they are making a good product, and can't help it if people choose to use it in a negative way. In this case, to put players out of work.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-04-15 15:31
It's a fine line; if the music is composed specifically for the Sinfonia why would someone object to its use? Great pipe organs put some musicians out of work, too, since they also were used to replace musicians.
A producer using a Sinfonia can be a crook or a hero depending on who's point of view you take; the actors & stagehands want the work, the composers/playwrights want to have their works produced and known, the musicians don't want to be put out of business, and everyone wants to make money, including the investors in the production.
Should instruments that replicate "instrumental sounds" be banned from all public performances?
It's a complex issue.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-04-15 15:42
Mark -
Exactly! I think that's why the union chose not to make a stand on this show.
Ken Shaw
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-04-15 16:54
Ultimately, people will produce 'product' that sells, and will use whatever means are available to produce that 'product' more cheaply and more easily, such that the 'product' is still acceptable/tolerable to the 'consumers'. In the case of music, the trend for decades now has been the replacement of live musicians by more and more realistic/versatile forms of recorded or synthesized music. Nothing new --- it all really started back in the 1920s or 30s when radio and vinyl recordings started improving in fidelity, and got a huge nail-in-the-coffin around the 1970s with the spreading use of electronic synthesizers and CD recordings. Musicians will never win the battle on the 'supply' side against the availability of improved music production and recording technologies, because progress in those areas is rapid and lucrative (not to us, maybe, but to many others in many indistries). So we must fight the battle on the 'demand' side --- by using every trick we can to market the superiority of live, human-produced, acoustic music over these encroaching electronic substitutes. We must get the general public to WANT to hear us play real clarinets and saxes and violas and tubas etc., and they should feel cheated when they see a show using recorded music or a Sinfonia machine.
How????
Wish I knew.
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-04-16 13:13
There is a great opportunity here for a visionary producer to resurrect classic shows and bill them as being performed as the lyricists/composers/arrangers originally intended them. With the boom in classic album reissues from original master tapes, restoration of great films (and not so great), and so on, there is a clear appetite for authenticity out there. If we listen to what people say about the Broadway debacle, it usually amounts to "eh, the program is so amplified and overproduced anyway, who can really tell the difference between live music and tape/computer?" Perhaps where it has gone wrong is not that the audience cannot tell the difference because of their own lack of awareness/taste, but that the shows have become so overproduced and electronicized that even an educated audience cannot tell the difference.
How about staging revivals in a theatre suited to more acoustic performance, with the original full orchestration, and stage actors that have to power it out instead of whispering into body mics? I think the Broadway cognescenti may just be ready for a more purist approach.
Thoughts on a Friday from a member of AFM Local 746.
Cheers, Mark.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2004-04-16 14:23
msloss: I made this very same point, though much less eloquently than you, in a similar discussion a year or two ago.
Perform these shows in small theatres, where the audience can see the band. Hire singers who can sing loud enough to be heard without a microphone. If the performance is on a human scale, the audience will respond. If all the audience can hear is amplified sound from an invisible orchestra, why would they care if the orchestra is real or not?
-----------
If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: Ed
Date: 2004-04-16 14:47
"who can really tell the difference between live music and tape/computer?"
I have been to shows on Broadway, where things are so over amplified that I cannot tell in places whether I am hearing live players or electronics
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-04-16 15:16
I agree with Ed --- heard "Cats" (yeah, I know, don't say it....) a few years ago on Broadway, the pit band (which ostensibly included Ted Nash on saxes!) was hidden from view and so heavily amplified that it might as well have been a recording. I thought the show was a waste of money.
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2004-04-18 03:35
It needn't be "inevitable" that technology will endlessly put people out of their chosen work and relegate them to stultifying jobs just because it is technically possible and profitable for someone. The whole concept of democracy was and is that the majority community (the people) have the legal right to design their own world any way they want, even if it isn't the most "efficient" or smart way in the long view according to the lights of some smaller group of people, influential and better informed though they may seem to be at the moment. That was inherent in the ideas that started the whole business of throwing out aristocracy as a god-given way of arranging things. For example, in England, where industrialism first hit hard, some poor souls starved at their looms in their homes rather than get up and fight for the right to get a living wage. Others demonstrated and died at the Peterloo Massacre at the hands of the local burghers, but the result of the active souls' efforts was outrage by decent people and slow reform. The issue isn't starvation these days, but it is still the same issue of fairness, justice and equity in the distribution of decent work and well-being. to the community.
Long live unions!
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2004-04-18 03:57
jim S. wrote:
> Long live unions!
A union as one part of the checks and balances of modern society is indeed a good thing.
But remember to watch out for too much of a good thing.
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Author: Jerry
Date: 2004-04-18 20:13
Speaking of watches, the Swiss were slow to adapt to digital timepiece technology, and their world-renowned precision mechanical timepiece industry was almost destroyed by new technology used by other nations. A device that allows people to know the time was the object. But the Swiss timepiece industry was hell-bent on preserving the means, not simply pursing the desired result.
In our case, emotional expression and experience through music is the object. A live clarinet, tuba, violin is the means. Just as a very small portion of the people who want to tell time nowadays own fine Swiss mechanical watches (and pay a lot more to experience that past hallmark of mechanical precision), similarly a very small portion of the people who want to enjoy [symphonies][broadway shows] etc. nowadays will attend live performances (and pay a lot more for that past highlight of live musical talent and ambiance). It is our choice to enjoy playing or listening to instruments that have a limited lifetime of practicality. And it will become more and more difficult to make a living at it.
Jerry
The Villages, FL
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Author: jim S.
Date: 2004-04-18 23:40
Yes, a good recent example, but when enough people are out of decent and meaningful work worldwide (though each with an accurate, cheap timepiece) it IS just possible that some changes may be made. Let's hope they are made peacefully and with open, informed democratic discussion and methods.
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