Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2005-03-09 15:37
Wise words, and no less than we should expect from the New York/802 crowd.
In the contracting end of things, who you know (and who knows about you) is far more important than a 5% superior playing ability over the other contenders. Many times, "on time and good enough" will beat out "the best there is but temperamental", no matter how "unfair" that might seem.
If you want to work shows on a consistent basis (rather than a long term gig with one production), you better be:
• Congenial - more than anything else, you have to co-exist with the other musicians. Ego problems cause disruption, and disruption causes a loss of face for the contractor. You don't have to like everyone, but you need to be tolerant of the foibles of others, and not provoke problems.
(I manage to practice this most of the time. However, the one thing that most infuriated me about another musician was the time that I worked with an oboe player who insisted in disassembling her reed and staple from the oboe at each point where the oboe was placed on the peg. She had this elaborate, and quite ostentatious routine of removing the reed, putting it her mouth, pegging the oboe, taking the reed and placing it in a case, then sitting the case down in her toolbox, and only then picking up whatever horn was needed and playing it (poorly, I might add). She took up so much space in the tight pit we were in that others had trouble storing their saxes and such, and the little pantomime every time it was oboe time was irritating in the extreme. By the way, she couldn't play English horn well enough to cover "Fugue For Three Tin Horns", so I had to do that for her. I left my reed on the crooked horn through the entire first act, just to irritate her...)
• Prompt- we have all these clocks around us for a reason.
• Always ready to "go" - maybe you might have to be late to the occasional rehearsal for cause, but once you are there you get ready to play as soon as possible, not stand around in the wings gossiping with others.
• Able to play at least the minimum double of clarinet/tenor, but preferably all of clarinet, bass clarinet, soprano (now pretty common), alto, tenor and baritone sax, enough flute to get by on an interior harmony part, and any auxiliary percussion that they throw at you. Bonus points are awarded for oboe, English horn, bassoon and such oddities as bass sax. Don't even bother to assume that you can just show up if you can't cover the book; instead, point out that you're short on soprano sax skills at the time of first contact, and ask if someone else can cover the part.
• Reliable - remember that your hiring is probably 60% a business decision and only 40% an artistic one. Nothing pisses off the guy doing the hiring like someone who doesn't show. I've played with legions of decent players who are always on time and present, and seen quite a few great players who have gotten the boot for unreliability. You hate to let them go, but often "good enough all the time" is preferable to "letter perfect part of the time, nothing the rest of the time." (I'm having the same problem with a singer right now; it's a hard decision but there are others who are about as good as this individual who will be on time and ready to go when I need them.)
-•-
If you are starting in the music world (say at high school level) and you take up bass clarinet or sax, you should always continue to maintain your basic competence on clarinet. My grandfather, who did commercial work back in the 1920-1941 period, insisted that I play a half hour every day on clarinet, even though I was primarily a bass clarinet player through college. It's the key woodwind instrument along with the flute, and if you can keep up on clarinet and at least one other horn, you've got a much better shot at working for a living "in the business".
In the real world, there's no such thing as "I'll play the clarinet part, you play the flute part, and we'll get Henry to play the alto part." Three bodies may be fine in high school and even college, but in the commercial world there's often not enough money to cover the pit as it is written, much less to add another 66% to the woodwind totals. It's one person, one book (and often more than one book if needed).
-•-
My one true contracting horror story occurred back in the 1960s, when I was the pit contractor for a local cultural society production of Bye Bye Birdie! In a union town, in a production put on by one of the local unions (UMW), this paid pretty good and was a great way to fill in empty evenings, endless repetitions of "We love you Conrad" notwithstanding.
All went well until the advent of the technical/dress week, when "my" drummer had a car wreck and got both himself and his trap set badly bashed up. In between a rock and a hard place (where do you find a drummer ready to go with three hours notice?), I called the local union hall (not my local) and had the next person on the list sent over.
She was there and ready to play on time that evening. I ran through the few changes in the book from the last rehearsal, saw that she had about the right number of drums and things in front of her, and was pleased to hear that she had no questions.
Then we started in on the "We love you Conrad" portion of the opening scene. At that point, I noticed that my drummer was "locked up" completely and was not anywhere near where she should have been in the piece.
Figuring that my less than stellar conducting may have been the cause, I stopped the group (and the thespians), and asked her what the trouble was.
It seems that we had been sent a trained drummer, all right...as long as the time fit either the "boom-chick" or "boom-chick-chick" pattern. Hit her with 5/4 mixed in with common time or cut time, and she went adrift. She could not even begin to follow the chart. (She even could not follow the 6/8 as "In two" or "In three" convention; I'm sure that she had dealt with it but probably didn't know that it was 6/8 at the time.) As BBB is short on polkas and 4/4 stuff, she was functionally useless.
A quick, pay phone call (ever try to find a working one of those when you really needed it? I ended up at a gas station across the street) to the union president revealed that she was his daughter, and she did just fine playing Legion hall stuff, polkas and the like. He should have known better but probably didn't think that it would matter.
We ended the evening with one of my trumpet players playing her trap set (with her father's agreement), and treated her chunk of dough for the night as rental for the equipment. I never dipped in that union well again for the rest of the time that I lived in the area...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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The Clarinet BBoard
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