 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-05 15:55
Here's an amazing story from the NY Times. Since most of the music, even from a live orchestra, comes out through speakers, it makes sense to add an extra row or two of audience seats, reduce the size of the pit and put the "bulky" instruments someplace else. For The Producers, the harpist and percussionist are on the 7th floor, playing darts between their riffs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/05/theater/05pit.html?oref=login&oref=login
Am I the only one who's appalled? John Moses -- how would you feel if the entire orchestra for Oklahoma played somewhere else?
Ken Shaw
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-10-05 16:20
Interesting thots, Ken. Dont you mean OKLAHOMA !! ? Its our song. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2004-10-05 16:40
It certainly takes a lot of the fun out of it for the musicians. Not to mention would make one feel kind of like a second class citizen and not a very "wanted" part of the whole production.
I also believe the audience enjoys seeing the darkened pit with the tops of the musicians' heads. It makes it worth the price of the ticket to get a "live" production--not a piped in one that could just as well be a CD.
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2004-10-05 19:13
I saw the Producers tour show in Pittsburgh and sat near the pit. (Benedem center or Heinz Hall...I cant remember which venue)
It was very interesting.
There was an old Underwood typewriter that a pit member uses to create the sound of typing during the scene in which the accountants bemoan how unhappy they are in their dismal job. The typewriter clanked away on silver foil. Neat effect.
I would hate to miss out on seeing how it was done.
I dont recall a harp....does anyone know in what scene it is used?
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-10-05 19:32
Hi,
This does not surprise or distress me as much as it might have since I have begun to communication a lot with my students via email. I start the day very early with a cup of coffee, in a bathrobe, all the while wearing my nice warm bunny slippers :-). The situation as described though is still time and place dependent even if a few floors away.
It's nice that the percussionist has company; drummer seem to get into all sorts of trouble if left to their own devices (much like trombonists).
HRL
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-10-05 19:53
When my wife and I saw "Cats" on Broadway five years ago the entire pit orchestra was hidden from view in a room above/behind the stage (I think!) and was heavily amplified. It might as well have been recorded music from the audience's standpoint ---- a major disappointment for me, at least. I guess live show music with visible musicians playing acoustically is going the way of the dodo bird...........
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Author: bob49t
Date: 2004-10-05 21:35
Yep - just done a week of "A Chorus Line" - in an area at the side of the stage, behind black curtains and miked up so that the mix was balanced.
It's great music and the band was great but this is the first show in 40 yrs I've done, when you couldn't even crane your neck to see a bit of the stage.
I really missed the stage, but there was hardly a pause in the music (except of course- for those who know it- Paul's long soliloquay).
A lot of my musical friends who came said the band was great, but there was a dimension lost when the audience could not see even a little of the band. I heard "could have been recorded" more than once.
That's a great pity - and we've got another week to play in Perth (Scotland)!
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2004-10-05 21:47
Does not the pit orchestra, or at least the conductor, usually react to the singers? Or is this done in The Producers by using monitors? (I would still expect that a visual of the actors would be useful.)
Another thing to be missed would be the conductor rising to acknowledge the audience.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-06 14:16
In The Producers, the conductor and most of the orchestra are in the pit. Only the harp and percussion are upstairs.
On the other hand, posters on the Klarinet board say that many road companies put the entire orchestra on another floor. When the singers are wearing body mics, they might as well be offstage, too.
The real travesty will be when the orchestra is in New York, the singers are pre-recorded, and the people onstage in Las Vegas are lip-synching. Then, since the conductor will never have to adjust to mistakes, the orchestra can be pre-recorded. Or a single synthesizer can be pre-recorded. Then the singers can be recorded and projected from New York as holograms.
What a day, what a day
For an auto de fé.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-06 18:22
If you're talking about an auto de fé, it's the Inquisition's burning of heretics at the stake. It's also a line from Candide.
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-10-06 22:20
wonderful idea ... all percussionists should be made to play remotely (also trumpets, trombones and piccolos) ... harpist? that's a little mean.
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-07 14:03
diz -
The first ad each month in The International Musician used to be for an electronic keyboard that gave a sound "like a harpsichord whose strings are WHIPPED rather than plucked." Remember that this harp is amplified and could easily be the same.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Alseg
Date: 2004-10-07 15:56
Ah....we owe all this to the Rock N Rollers lip syncing, going all the way back to American Bandstand....and to Brittney Spears.
It's just not cricket!
It's not American!
It's ........French (attrib. to Mark Twain)
The one thing that correlates best with success in a school system is how it teaches the arts. (attrib. to ...me, and others)
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-10-07 22:04
I find harpists very odd creatures in my experience of them. They turn up to rehearsals early (for obvious reasons) and then snarl at you if you have the audacity to say "hello, how are you". Then, once, one harpist actaully explained the difficulty with tuning ... incrementally get sharp on the way to the bass end and flat on the way to the altissimo end ... complicated stuff really. So those hours they spend tuning is tedious and part and parcel of the beast. Then, they might sit there for hours and play a few arpeggios at the end of the overture and then not again until the end of the opera (in the case of the Dresden version of The Flying Dutchman).
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-10-08 15:24
I've read that while Britney Spears has an acceptable rock voice, she has no sense of pitch and couldn't give an acceptable live performance. On all her recordings, a tech has to adust every note to be in tune. Thus, she has to lip-synch on stage.
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Author: BobD
Date: 2004-10-08 15:28
Well, at least Harpo Marx wasn't odd
Bob Draznik
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