 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 01:39
If you've played this I'd appreciate your opinion. (Been asked to play it but, for only $40/service, it needs to be a lot of fun to be worth the time.)
Thanks,
D.O.
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-04-10 05:02
Is that the part that is "E flat, Bflat and Bass clarinet"? I played that for a few months in 2008... not hard, a little boring for the last 20min of the show... really only one bit in the book where i enjoyed playing every night (the masquerade sequence that starts the 2nd act). You might like it more than me... I'd do it again if I were asked but didn't love it to death.
d
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Author: KenJarczyk
Date: 2015-04-10 05:48
Reed 4 is the Eeffer, Beeffer and Basser book. Reed 2 is flute and beeffer. Not the hardest, I've blown all the books but Reed 3 and Reed 5. (Oboe in 3, Bassoon in 5).
Minimum wage in your local should be around $125 per service.
Hold your ground, or, up to you!
Ken Jarczyk
Woodwinds Specialist
Eb, C, Bb, A & Bass Clarinets
Soprano, Alto, Tenor & Baritone Saxophones
Flute, Alto Flute, Piccolo
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-10 07:37
An old band leader/contractor told me back in the 70's that there are always musicians willing to work for scale. He was a big union guy and only hired union musicians. What I later found out was the non-union bands were paying roughly double scale for casual gigs. $40 with 2 doubles for a Broadway show...wow, that kind of boggles my mind. That might have been scale around 1945 or so, but in 2015, ya gotta be kidding me. I had an attorney/bandleader ask me to play a Broadway show with 4 doubles about ten years ago for $25 a show. I just laughed and said no thanks. You are your reputation, so if you are willing to play a show for that kind of money, why should anyone else ever pay you anything more?
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Author: cigleris
Date: 2015-04-10 11:51
Unfortunately there will always be someone who will take the gig for that, undercutting everyone in the prcocess and forcing fees down. Unfortunately this is the reality of a "professional" nowadays and has been for some time. Mediocrity rules...
Peter Cigleris
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 14:59
Here in the Washington, DC area there are several community theatres, all the work is non-union and $40-45 per service is very typical. There are many local musicians more than happy to play for that amount or less (or nothing). You can't stop them. But I don't play shows any more because of the low pay. There are just a few 'national' theatres that are unionized and I assume they pay scale.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-04-10 16:18
I am retired, and the last show I played was Diane Shuur/Bobby Cadlwell. I had actually retired 2 years prior to that, but when I got the call I decided to do it because it just sounded like too much fun. I was told it was to be a non-union band, and although I no longer belonged to the union, most of the players did. The pay was still decent, about $150 I think, and it was a very short rehearsal. In the old days if a union player played with a non-union player they would get a big fine, and nothing like this would have been allowed. Times change. Everyone was a top player, but a huge change had happened with the contract listing the band as being non-union. Leader fee for the contractors in Milwaukee had been cut by 2/3 from when I did the contracting a few years earlier. Even when I was making 30% of the total for an entire orchestra for contracting in the good days, there were still people offering to do it for free just so they could play the show and say they were the contractor. Fortunately the theater had no interest in them even though the stagehands were non-union. I guess it is a different world, and I refer to it as a race to the bottom.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2015-04-10 16:47
Most live shows on Long Island have cut back to only using piano, or piano, bass and drums. The few that use wind players pay so little, that it's not worth the gas to even consider driving and investing so many hours of time.
I did SO many shows years ago, and the pay was always at least $125 per service. Many times, much more. Sadly - no longer.
I get called frequently to play freelance classical gigs with orchestras made up of local and NYC pros. Surprisingly, they pay well because the sponsoring organizations have deep pockets and lots of benefactors.
High schools are trying to use their own students to cover the parts for their own shows - and it sounds like it.
...GBK
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 17:02
The show is the annual musical put on in the summer by a local high school - obviously nonprofit, but the school board is willing to give a small honorarium to get some of the better local amateur players into the pit. Last year (first time I played it) the show was Fiddler. I'm just trying to find out if the book in question is interesting or not.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 18:31
>High schools are trying to use their own students to cover the parts for their own shows - and it sounds like it.
>
Yes, but IMHO high schools *should* use their own student musicians to play for their student actors. Playing in a high school musical is an important part of the learning experience. How is outsourcing the music for school musicals any different from hiring local lawyers to compete in the school debate tournaments? Or hiring pro baseball players for the high school games?
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2015-04-10 18:39
Hi Dan,
You could always contact the player who does this in New York:
http://clarinet.edmatthew.com/
Sylvain
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: MartyMagnini
Date: 2015-04-10 19:23
>High schools are trying to use their own students to cover the parts for their own shows - and it sounds like it.
>
>Yes, but IMHO high schools *should* use their own student musicians to play for their student actors. Playing in a high school musical is an important part of the learning experience. How is outsourcing the music for school musicals any different from hiring local lawyers to compete in the school debate tournaments? Or hiring pro baseball players for the high school games?
Lelia,
I completely agree. I teach high school, and I sometimes get a little "pressure" from the choir folks to use "ringers" in the pit - the idea being that it will sound better. My answer is always the same "yes, you're right, but it would also sound better if we got ringers on stage to sing the lead parts, too. This is about pushing the students and music education." That being said, I will sometimes use a few pros or former students to sit next to my kids and play the same part - they're not replacing any kids, but modeling for them - the best of both worlds.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 20:44
When I play in the pit for a high school show, I'm doing it at least in part to support the kids on the stage who have devoted many weeks to preparing for a run of 3 or 4 performances. So, in a sense, the decision involves not so much what I'll get from playing but what I'm contributing to the kids' experience.
I agree that it's preferable to have students playing in the pit. I'm a little surprised that in this case they're hiring players at all (even if the fees are almost negligible). When our high school did Phantom a couple of years ago, the rental contract stipulated that the pit would consist entirely of students, and many of us old-timers who had always played for the school's productions were suddenly one job shorter. It must have worked out well, because I don't think they used adult ringers this year, either.
I think some shows (maybe the Phantom they rented two years ago) now come in school versions which, among other things, include easier pit parts than the originals. These aren't, I don't think, the same as the middle school arrangements that have been available for many years and are more heavily edited, shortened, and use keys and vocal ranges that are more early-adolescent-friendly.
Whatever anyone thinks of all-student vs. hired pits, it isn't realistic to expect AFM scale for hired adults. I know the original question had only to do with whether the specific part would be enough fun in itself to justify the time involved. But the discussion quickly veered off in the direction of the fairness of the $45/service fee. Our high school and the separate summer theater program I administered for 10 years paid somewhat better than that, but still not up to the local scale. Most of the people who played in the pit for my summer productions were friends and teaching colleagues of mine (or friends of those friends) primarily doing me a personal favor by playing for the fee we were able to offer. I wasn't too proud to ask or accept the favors. Added to the costs of material rental and performance rights, set materials, directorial staff and custodial expenses (which *are* controlled by union contracts), heating and power costs and a number of other nit-picky little expenses, a union pit would be more than any but the wealthiest schools could manage. You can only cover so much with ticket sales, refreshments in the lobby and paid ads in the program book.
Which is why fewer and fewer schools and amateur theaters are using live adult musicians and either filling their pits with unpaid students or electronic tracks.
Karl
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Author: Ed
Date: 2015-04-10 21:30
Quote:
Yes, but IMHO high schools *should* use their own student musicians to play for their student actors. Playing in a high school musical is an important part of the learning experience.
In theory I would agree, but that would be IF the students can play the parts. Many shows can be extremely hard, with technical demands, style, range and keys that are often beyond anything they have seen. To me there is not value in doing something for the experience if it is a bad experience. It is also not fair to the cast if the pit cannot comfortably play the parts.
It can be a much better educational experience if there are a few ringers in the pit to guide the students, offer inspiration and raise the level of playing. It can be extremely valuable, especially if the hired players act as mentors and help the students.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 22:33
Okay, if the ringers do act as mentors and not simply as replacements. I still think it's a better educational experience to have an all-student pit, even if that means not programming certain musicals that really are too difficult for the school musicians.
I'm thinking back to my own days (and sometimes nights) in the high school orchestra. If adults had come in to replace me and replace our other first chair people, I think that could have been a seriously demoralizing experience.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-04-10 23:02
Lelia Loban wrote:
> I'm thinking back to my own days (and sometimes nights) in the
> high school orchestra. If adults had come in to replace me and
> replace our other first chair people, I think that could have
> been a seriously demoralizing experience.
>
Lelia, I think this takes a leap to another whole dimension. I don't think anyone would argue that the regular school ensembles should include ringers on principal parts. Some smaller programs may sometimes bring in a few ringers to fill in the back of a section (strings, mostly or low brass) when there aren't kids available in the program, but I can't imagine a worthwhile school music program that brings in adult principals. Some amateur adult orchestras do this, but that's another whole topic.
A difference is that these shows aren't generally an integral part of the music department's curriculum. Often, it isn't a music department function at all. It's run by teachers in the English department as an outlet for their drama students. That the students need to sing usually ensures that someone from the music department will become involved as a vocal coach or rehearsal accompanist, but these productions run from other departments than music sometimes, apart from adult players, even hire outside music directors to conduct in the pit for the performances and dress rehearsals. I think this is a little mad and certainly denies the students in the music program a valuable opportunity.
Karl
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Author: Mark Cookson
Date: 2015-04-11 06:36
I played Reed II for this a couple of years ago. If it's the same version I did, Reed II was clarinet and flute. From memory, you are mostly being second clarinet or second flute as needed, so most of the solo stuff goes to Reed I and III. Nothing too demanding on flute (which suited me just fine!).
Mark
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-04-11 08:29
Hi Mark, did you do the 2008 production brought over from Oz? I thought they had a lame phantom, way too whiny... hope it's all good down there in the capital
d
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