Computers Replace Musicians In West End Musical

Albanach writes "The Scotsman newspaper is reporting that despite opposition from the Musician's Union, Sir Cameron Mackintosh will proceed with his plan to replace one half of the musicians in his musical Les Miserables with a computer synthesiser. The Times claims that using Sinfonia will allow the show, the third longest running musical in history, to replace 11 musicians saving 5,000 GBP ($9,450 US) per week. Sinfonia consisits of 2 PCs, one master and one backup, controlled by an trained operator using a musical keyboard."

Comments

Someone had to say it

[savagedome]

The musicians are not going to be any Less Miserable.

Sorry :)

Re:Someone had to say it

[commanderfoxtrot]

Many years ago (1996?)... the Finn brothers wrote Sibelius for Acorn computers; it was (and probably still is in its latest guise) classical composing software in the world. Users bought Acorn Risc PCs solely for Sibelius. Now it runs on Mac and Windows and Acorn's RISC OS is almost forgotten.

Circa 1997, Sibelius was connected to a grand piano and played a formidably complex Liszt piece to an enraptured audience. God knows how many clever features it has now!

Part of the appeal of the program is that it does not play the notes at the exact time specified by the score but can play in various styles, playing with human-like timing.

Here's One Positive

[tealover]

At least they didn't outsource their jobs to India !

Re:Here's One Positive

[rishistar]

Yes, but wait until the theatre gets hooked up to broadband!

Re:Here's One Positive

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you think the software was written?

Re:Here's One Positive

[dubiousmike]

"The Sinfonia is a device that stores samples of every instrument involved in the orchestral score and permits an operator to provide the instrumental performances to represent the missing conventional instrumentalists. The Union understands there are no trained operators in the UK at present."

Well hell, its not like there isn't room for any of those musicians to learn the Sinfonia and get what is likely a higher paying gig than they were getting. If you don't think other musicals aren't going to follow suit, you're crazy.

Often unions will stand up for members who are going to lose benefits (like here in the NE, where Stop and Shop is trying to take away benefits and stop paying time and a half on Sundays and holidays) but then you have the musician's union trying hard to not let progress follow through. If the audience doesn't like it, the situation will be reverted. If the audience doesn't care, then it is natural progression for Sinfonia to have a roll.

I liken it to how the american baseball union stepped in and stopped a trade that would send Arod (highest paid player in history) to be traded to the Red Sox because he and the team wanted to restructure his contract so that he'd get *over*paid only if the team were sucessful. The union stoped the trade because they didn't want a precident to show that baseball contracts for the best players that started in the past couple of years were, frankly, horribly overpaid and poorly structured. Most teams today can't and wont pay out contracts like that much to the chagrin of players who weren't lucky enough to sign a contract durring baseball's "dot com" era.

If the audience doesn't mind Sinfonia, it makes no sense that shows wouldn't use it. The end user should (and likely will) decide how this proceeds.

Defeats the purpose

[mao che minh]

People go (or in my case, get dragged) to see live orchestras because it is music being played by actual musicians. That is what differentiates the experience from merely listening to the songs on a stereo.

What is the point in going to see live, but fake, music?

Re:Defeats the purpose

[acd294]

Well the point is valid, but Les Miserables is a play. So the live music is sort of background to the story. In fact, most of the time you can't even see the orchetra.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[timeOday]

Too true! And I'm wondering who will fill in the other half of the orchestra. No doubt the Musicians Union will be picketing the show. Good luck to any scabs trying to sneak past with a double bass!

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire play, music and all, equals the whole of the experience. I can't remember ever going to a play and not seeing the live orchestra (even if they were in dark shadow).

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Killer Napkin]

Actually, Les Miserables is a musical. The music and the story go hand in hand. To make half the experience artificial is to taint the other half, also. It's not like people aren't going to be able to tell.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[darnok]

Here goes the karma...

Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

The fact that large chunks of this production of Les Mis can be played by synths tends to suggest that either the arrangements are either very straightforward or that they're particularly avant garde (i.e. it might actually be tough to find/afford musicians who can do them justice). The simple fact is (and I've been a muso in a past life so I'm gonna get beaten up if any of several people read this!) that the synths are probably *better* able to deliver the musical background that the director wants to achieve. They don't make mistakes, they don't break up with their partners just before the show, and they won't get better offers elsewhere.

Bottom line: people don't go to Les Mis to hear the orchestra play, and probably very few of them know or care whether "real" musicians are playing. They go because they think it's a good story and/or to see specific actors and/or because the director may have done something interesting with it.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Bob Zer Fish]

There is one distinct advantage of having real musicians and that is if one of the actors or whatever makes a mistake they are much more able to deal with the problem than a computer is.

Imho, good musicians will play the music very well and will also interpret the music - that means that the score is just a guide really. An example would be to listen to a good orchestra play the pink panther and then listen to a basic orchestra that just plays the notes, without interpretation or feeling. It just sounds crap.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[TheLink]

I dunno, I wouldn't be very interested in going to the theatre to see those sort of stuff. Just the same thing every time - seems more like a "dead" show than a "live" one. But I'm not one of those interested in those romance novels either, so I'm probably not the target audience.

Would be more interesting to go to one of those jazz/music improvisational stuff. Or stand up comics, or something like the "Whose line is it anyway" show.

With the typical musical sort of show, the musicians and actors are expected to do almost exactly the same thing as they did the night before, only closer and closer to what the Boss wants each time...

Whereas with the improvisational stuff, they're not supposed to do exactly the same thing they did the night before. Heck sometimes the audience takes part.

That's more like what I call a "live" show. The other shows are good as dead IMO - might as freeze em into DVDs or something.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Zenmonkeycat]

Actually, I think large chunks of the production are played /on/ synths, rather than /by/ them. So the arrangements can be anything from precise Bach chorales to Alban Berg's 12-tone funkitude, and real live musicians will still be playing along with the conductor, using the Sinfonia thing as an instrument. So those 11 musicians are really being replaced by two musicians, who play a machine.

The thing that concerns me isn't the lack of musicians (even though I'm a musician myself.) It's the non-live sound that a synth gives. As an oboist or flautist or whoever blows, their breath has subtle shifts in it; air pressure, lip tension and so on. Even though those variations are very much in the background, they can be picked up by the audience, even subliminally. Same with the vibrato that strings players use. A keyboardist (and I am one) can't hope to emulate all those nuances with ten fingers, no matter how skilled. You end up with the pre-recorded samples playing out their pre-recorded nuances, with all the feeling of a guy locked in a recording studio playing scales at different volumes.

And heaven help the production if the Sinfonist happens to have emotional problems before he shows up! All those get magnified by however many instruments he's playing, and suddenly you have all the violas and tubas feeling the sadness of breaking up with their girlfriend!

Re:Defeats the purpose

[NormalVisual]

Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

How is this different from a symphony concert? Everyone's playing what's on the stand in front of them, with little to no creative input.

The difference is in the performance itself - the performances are a little different from night to night, and a full orchestra that's paying attention to what's happening onstage will be able to compensate seamlessly with any differences in the show from night to night (dropped line, missed coda, etc.) Up until about two years ago, I had regularly performed in a pit orchestra for about 15 years, and it *does* make a difference. It's even more of a difference for something like "Les Mis", where the music is such an integral part of the show.

Knowing that a show was sequenced/synthesized would definitely temper my enthusiasm at seeing it.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Alyeska]

People go the theatre to see the story and actors. In a musical, they go to hear the singers. I've been scoring theatre productions for years with MIDI/synths/samplers, and the only complaints have been from performing musicians.

The fact is that theatre companies can't all afford to hire and orchestra and pay for rehearsal space.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Alyeska]

First, you design the score around mistakes by segmenting the music and creating arrangements that allow for actors flukes: Longer monologue this night, faster pace the next, etc. With a little design you can get around that.

Second, the people who design these computerized scores and arrangements are musicians, too, very capable of making interpretive/expressive music.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[FredFnord]

> Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have
> very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction
> between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

I'd hate to be in any of the shows YOU'VE been in. In the shows I perform in, there is plenty of interaction between cast and orchestra. Mediated, of course, through the CONDUCTOR. That's what he's there for. And the conductor is supposed to pick up the vibe from the audience, and will if he's any good, which adds a third party into the mix.

As soon as you add a synth playing six parts at once, then your tempos can't vary, you can't easily alter dynamics from night to night (unless you want to alter them all in exactly the same way, which is a bad idea), and basically you end up with a much inferior performance. But since people don't actually know what a stage show should look like these days anyway, nobody misses anything. And hey, if people will pay just as much for an inferior performance that costs less to produce, then that's what they'll get.

-fred

Re:Defeats the purpose

[fshalor]

As someone who has more than 5 musicals in a pit playing trombone, and another one working crew including:
1. La Cage A Follies
2. Gypsy
3. Anyonw Can Whistle
4. Peter Pan
5. Scruge
6. Sunday in the park with George
7. Jekyl and Hyde.

I can say without a doubt that I can and will be able to tell the difference. I can also say with 100% assurance that I am not th only one who can tell te difference.

This is actually a rather interesting development. And I must add a few points.

1. Musicians are underpaid in general. The musicals I've done usually barely paid for gas. But then again, no one gets paid in this group, even though the group is very good. (One of the best in the state.)
2. Poorer groups may not be able to afford musicians. I know this one wouldn't, it there weren't enough musicians in the town willing to do the gig for peanuts, and *able* :)
3. Thus in these cases, there may be an excuse for doing "taped" runs, or better, what this article is suggesting.
4. In Jekyl and Hyde, we used a really good yamaha keyboard to cover all the uncoverable parts (ie, cello and some harpsicord and chimes parts, etc.) This was mostly due to space concerns, but MAN-O MAN; patches have came a Long way in the last 5 years.

Still, this makes me cringe that groups who CAN pay for good musicians aren't willing to anymore. To me, for a group that is in that situation, it is a cop out of sorts. It takes away one of the dangers of things falling apart. It brings the group back from that edge, and locks it into the one keyboard jocky and the computer.

Call me a nut, but some of the best moments I've ever felt in music were when things weren't going 100% the way they were rehersed. The combined human factor of 10 pit musicians relizing that Mr. Hyde was going crazy with his stuff tonight made something come alive.

I would feel bad not allowing moments like that to go to the audience.

Next up: record the whole damn thing and play it on a big screen. Oh, wait.. Ooops. Thats a movie. :)

Re:Defeats the purpose

[SoupIsGood Food]

They can save a lot of money on trained vocalist actors by getting regular actors to lip-synch to studio recorded vocal tracks, too. So Le Mis becomes, essentially, a Milli Vanilla concert.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:Defeats the purpose

[JamieF]

>How is this different from a symphony concert? Everyone's playing what's on the stand in front of them,
Yes...

>with little to no creative input.
Wrong. Music notation is an abstraction of the notes and timing that the composer wants the performer to play, but it isn't complete. The conductor and performers read a lot into it. Some music is written without ornamentation, but with the understanding that the performer will add it themselves. Other music is written with the intention that all the notes are predefined, but with the knowledge that a performer is going to add timing, vibratto, attack, and velocity nuances to the music when it's performed. Just because modern music notation has symbols for all sorts of performance details doesn't mean that the written music actually employs all of that. There's an assumption that the performer can look at the music and know how to bring it to life.

Compare that to a sampler or synth. Those are just going to play the notes exactly as written, and it won't even sound as good as a robot playing the actual instrument because the sound is spliced together from single-note samples. You can sample multiple notes and add performance rules such as when to use rubato, but that's only as good as the person who wrote the software. Maybe someday with enough CPU power, samples will be replaced with acoustical models of real instruments and motion-capture of world-class performers, but we're not there yet (and those top-class performers would be stupid to do that anyway).

Being a performing musician is more than just being able to play the notes as written with no mistakes.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Bob Zer Fish]

What concerns me is that if we do replace everyone in an orchestra with a computer, then the quality of our music produced as well as the musicians we produce will be severely crippled.

This will have repercussions that may cripple the music industry in regard to talent, and in addition will probably reduce the number of music teachres.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[n3k5]

The parent post must have been modded to 5, insightful by clueless ppl who haven't RTFA. Okay, I also haven't read it yet, but I know Sinfonia. This isn't just a synthesizer that reproduces MIDI data coming out of a can, it is an instrument that allows the stored score to be interpreted by a musician, in real time. There is still a musician who follows the conductor closely, who sees the stage and reacts to everything happening there. He is just able to play the parts of several 'traditional' musicians at once, and it would be hard to argue that this really poses any disadvantage for the audience. Once single musician might even be able to do more. If a dancer stumbles, a conductor might want his orchestra to repeat the last two bars, but there is no chance of this actually happening, if they tried to do this, they would be thrown completely off track. With Sinfonia, however, this is no problem at all.

It is true that good musicians sound much better than a machine just reading notes off a sheet. However, Sinfonia _is_ fed with good interpretations played by good musicians. The same interpretations will be used in every show, while a real musician's performance would vary. But who's going to complain about that?

Re:Defeats the purpose

[MediaBoy77]

As soon as you add a synth playing six parts at once, then your tempos can't vary...

RTFA. In fact, the tempos and dynamics can vary. The conductor can skip or repeat verses, add ritards or rallantandos, and the system follows along. This thing is NOT a dumb MIDI sequencer that plays to a click-track.

You can argue over the morals of replacing half a pit orchestra with computers, but 99% of the audience won't be able to separate the live instruments from the synthesized/sampled ones.

As for whether it will feel more or less "human" to the audience, this is Les Miserables we're talking about. The people going to see it don't want a nuanced human performance from night to night. They want a slick Cameron Mackintosh production that is uniform, standardized, and reliably the same whether you see it in London, New York, or Kalamazoo. This technology delivers that product.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[MediaBoy77]

This "folly" has been used by road companies in the US for years and isn't going away.

Mackintosh absolutely wants automation to rigidly reproduce his vision. Have you seen Les Miserable or Phantom of the Opera? It's all about automation!

Mackintosh wants (and his audiences expect) a slick, uniform, standardized performance that's the same whether it's in the West End, Broadway, or Lubbock, Texas.

No one goes to see a production of Les Miz after all these years hoping it might be some bold new interpretation tonight. They go because they want to see the same production they saw 15 years ago. This technology delivers that.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[krunk7]

"Expression and interpretation are impossible to obtain out of a computer (and always will be, i feel)."

"Imagine going to a concert where a guy is playing his keyboard on stage emulating the sound of a great symphony orchestra. I hope that music never reaches such a low.

IMHO that is a somewhat narrow minded view of musical experssion. Performances not unlike the one you speak of occur everyday and whether you particular care for the style, to say that artists like Moby or Amon Tobin lack "Expression" would not be very accurate.

Similar things were said about electric instruments when they first made their appearance and many a great classical genius was shunned by their contemporaries because they did not conform to current ideals of "musical expression". Electronica expands the number of ways in which an artist CAN express him/herself and this can be nothing but a good thing....we must step outside of the box and ask ourselves:

"What kind of "noise" would Beethoven be making were he born today?"

There is a very good chance it would not be classical.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[qtp]

I beleive the point that Darnok is making is that replacing the musician's live performance with an automated playback reduces the feedback between cast and orchestra, in a sense you are reducing the performance to a static, dead tthing, you may as well just watch the video.

Plays, includuing musicals, are not the same as movies, and new arrangements of the story, changed dialogue, different emphesis are not only expected between one cast and another, but also happen during the production run. In musicals, the orchestra is not simply providing a soundtrack, but is part of the cast, a non-verbal equivalent of the "chorus" part in greek tragedy, that provides a necessary element of added meaning (logos), characterization (ethos), and emotion (pathos) to the performances of the actors on the stage. The orchestra rehearses with the cast, provides feedback to directly and through their music, and thus is an integral part of keeping the live performance a "live" thing. Replacing the orchestra with automation will limit the possible range of what the production can express, and brings the production one step closer to being McTheatre.

Of course, since damn thing is almost indistinguishable from an ALW production, "Les Miz" is almost as close to McTheatre as one can get.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[ericdano]

Yeah, I agree. It does make a difference. Performances are different night to night. Maybe someone on stage wants to go faster, or stretch something out. Or maybe the audience reacted to a joke better than before. Can the sythn know to vamp a little longer?

I dunno. I think a lot of this is grubby theater producers wanting to get all the money they can. So, musicians are the first thing to get cut.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[BorgCopyeditor]

Indisputably true for the kinds of instruments whose range of expression can be covered by a keyboard. Wind instruments, however, don't fare as well. The problem is not the quality of the samples, but the possibilities of the MIDI format. I know there's aftertouch and the like, but there are so many varieties of attack, sustain, vibrato, release, etc., that I think it can't (presently) be done.

Re:Defeats the purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

While your observations may have merit, the way your went about your post was a bit waspish. If you are indeed an artist, you should show at least minimal support of your fellow artist. Ridiculing his accomplishments does in no way add legitamacy to your posted opinion. You are an ass and you should be thrown to the floor and beaten with your own shoe. Thank you.

that's too bad

[DRUNK_BEAR]

I don't mind technology easying things out or to offer a divertissement (in the form of games, etc), but when it comes to art I have a hard time with it replacing entirely humans. Art should be a form of expression, not an automated process.

Just my 0.02$

Re:that's too bad

[hcetSJ]

In an opera like Les Mis, however, people don't usually come to the performance hoping to hear the orchestra. The majority of the art is performed on stage--in the form of acting and singing. The orchestra provides accompaniment to the main attraction on stage. Also, within the orchestra certain instruments usually "take center stage" more often--the first violins, the brass, and so on--and these are likely the last to be replaced by synth. So really, what they've done here is replaced the backup voices in the accompaniment with a machine. If it keeps the show open longer, it's worth it.

Re:that's too bad

[Highlander]

I think he's more interested in 5,000 GBP per week.

H

Replacing players.

[Anonymous Coward]

What not replace the entire orchestra with a CD player? Then you avoid having to use the Sinfonia's capability to play along with live musicans.

The actors and set could also be replaced by projecting an image of a pre-recorded performance onto a large screen.

If there was a way to distribute this recording, people could watch it on smaller projection screens at home, and avoid the cost of theatre tickets and the hassle of having to travel to the theatre.

The only hard part would by syncronising the CD player to the projection, but I'm sure someone will come up with a method in the future.

Re:Replacing players.

[ZoneGray]

>> replace the entire orchestra with a CD player

I think that's how They Might Be Giants got off the ground... they started out just the two of them and a cassette recorder, and it enabled them to do a lot of gigs that a full band couldn't. They'd just throw their stuff on the train and go play down in Philly or Baltimore, then take the train back to NY the same night; full bands with drums, amps, and stuff just couldn't play gigs outside the city. At a time when most NY bands were looking for that one score that would persuade the music industry to push them into the public eye, TMBG were able to quietly built an actual following.

I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point of going to a live show is just that -- to hear live music from an orchestra of real musicians. Jean Michel Jarre, in particular, has already lost a lot of concert-goers when they found out he sometimes used pre-sequenced synths instead of using an army of keyboardists and playing the lead himself, live.

Sure, some people go to a musical just for the lights, costumes and action... but how many are there? Surely the majority go for the music?

Re:I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[bugbread]

And this is something that has always boggled my mind. You go to hear music for the music, and the sights, and sounds, and smells, and feel, and tastes (just wanted to cover the 5 senses there). If everything sounds right (and looks right, etc.), what the hell does it matter what's behind the curtain. To think that a person could enjoy a concert thoroughly and have their enjoyment dashed by someone saying "the music was prerecorded" boggles my mind. That statement doesn't change a single sweet note of the music that sounded so good. And, in fact, it could be a lie. Someone could come up and say, "Actually, no, they decided not to use a CD today, so the music is live", and you'd be right back to thinking it was great.

Maybe, just maybe, people should decide their opinions of art based on the art, not on the meta-discussion behind it and the concensus of the cultural elite.

Re:I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[rokzy]

going to a concert and hearing someone play some difficult music, you think "wow, it's great to experience such great talent".

if it turns out they were just faking it with a CD playing then it IS devalued.

consider your argument in another context: someone scores 100% in a difficult exam. you think they must be very good. then the examiner tells you he was caught cheating, so you don't think he's good any more. then the examiner says he was talking about another guy who got 100%, so you think he's good once again.

even though you repeatedly change your opinion based on things that happened AFTER the exam (concert), you are completely justified in doing so.

Re:I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[bugbread]

Good response. I guess what I'm saying is that I find the whole concept of enjoying difficult music for its difficultness is beyond me. Maybe it's just my own tastes, but my qualifiers for the music I like are just the sounds, plain and simple. If they're produced by a human or a synth doesn't matter, as I'm not listening to the method of production, but the sounds.

As for the exam, that's a bit of a flawed example (or, rather, it is flawed for a person with my approach to music). The important thing in a test is not the answers, but the knowledge of the answerer. Therefore, if they cheated, that doesn't change a secondary aspect, but a primary aspect. A better example would be if I had a list of questions I needed answered, and a friend answered them. Then he said that he actually looked up the answers on the internet. That's fine by me: I don't like the answers because they were given by my friend, I like the answers because they answer my questions.

Re:I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[TurboDog99]

Your approach seems to be the "end justifies the mean" approach. There's nothing wrong with it, but many people go to these presentations to appreciate the means. There may come a time when holographic actors are indistinguishable from real actors, but some people will still have more appreciation for the human actors. It may not exactly be logical, but I don't think this perception will change anytime soon. On the flip side, others will appreciate the technology that went into being able to fake the whole thing, but I doubt theatres would bring in the kind of money they do for hitting the play button on a holographic projector.

Re:I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for.

[FredFnord]

> Maybe, just maybe, people should decide their opinions of art based on the art, not on the meta-discussion behind it and the
> concensus of the cultural elite.

This is fine for people who don't know anything about music.

Music changes from performance to performance. One night the audience gets excited at one part of the show... the director speeds everything up a little, brings up the tympani, gets the singers to kick it up a notch. Or maybe he slows things down, stretches out the tension until a moment of dead silence, that stretches out an extra two or three beats... and then comes crashing to a climax.

Look, if you don't know that there's a difference between live and recorded music, in experience, then that's fine. But if you assume that *I* can't tell, that there really isn't a difference, than you're one of those poor souls that thinks that just because he's too thick to notice something it can't exist. In reality, there's a mood in the crowd, and a good conductor with good musicians and singers can use that mood, encourage it, shape it, and then resonate with it and make the whole experience more powerful. And if you are incapible of experiencing that, then you're missing out.

Take any part of the equation away and the experience is dramatically lessened. But hey... if people will still pay the same amount for it, then who am I to say that it's bad? After all, since the only valid argument is profit these days, clearly recorded music IS far superior. Right?

-fred

A form of expression?

[cardpuncher]

>Art should be a form of expression, not an automated process

The average West End musical is a form of business. The main art involved is that of making a profit.

What about the other half?

[cannon_trodder]

Although he can replace half, there are still jobs that he needs real musicians for. I wonder if those musicians would boycott or try to put him under pressure to use real musicians for everything? They must still have some leverage if they are needed for the parts that computers can't do...

If the show is not making enough money then that is because it is past it's "sell-by" date. If it's just to make more money by cutting costs then it's pretty disgusting really. Yeah, he might make more money but how about putting money back into the community of musicians who made LM possible when computerisation was not an option? Guess I'm just an old softie really...

Re:What about the other half?

[weave]

This is only the beginning. One of the big reasons for a live orchestra was timing. The conductor has to ensure the music stays synced with what's happening on the stage. With a straight recording, that isn't possible. But now thanks to the ability to control the tempo of the music through a computer in real time, they really won't need ANY of them eventually.

I wonder if Sir Cameron Mackintosh has a Macintosh and recently got his copy if iLife '04 and started playing around with GarageBand or something!

Re:What about the other half?

[inetuid]

I know reading the article is not considered good form, but it might be worth noting that the theatre they are playing at can only hold 11 musicians!

Re:What about the other half?

[chromasoma]

This apparently has already happened: Sinfonia's Controversy response
Apparently the Opera Company of Brooklyn did not have sufficient musicians or sufficient space to hose them to stage a production of the Magic Flute. They used Sinfonia to replace the missing musicians and it was extremely successful. Based on this, they planned to stage The Marriage of Figaro only to be circumvented by the local union. According to Sinfonia, they were actually allowing the OCB to stage productions they otherwise could not have afforded to money, musician and space constraints. The article says that this is pretty much the case with the Les Mis production as well, there not being enought space for a full orchestra.
That said, even though I prefer live music at a stage production, spontaniety and change being one of the main attractions of live performance (why see a favorite band/play more than once otherwise?), I would see a production that used something like Simfonia. I live in an area with only a couple of (very conservative) large playhouses. If a smaller company could put on a production they may not have otherwise had the resources for, well, everyone wins and I would support that.

Did anyone notice.....

[Insipid Trunculance]

that the salary of a professional musician ,who has most probably spent years of training and hard work ,working for a major west end production makes only 450 a week(and this figure is most probably gross).Waiters earn this sum working 7-8 shifts.I mean what happened to cultural society?

How many musicians give up just because they cant survive on these wages?I am appalled.

Re:Did anyone notice.....

[darnok]

I think, more than anything else, the salary of an orchestral musician reflects the fact that they're generally (a) highly replaceable, and (b) not a key component of the overall package. I'm not saying they're not highly skilled, but there's an awful lot of unemployed musicians out there prepared to work for peanuts.

Exceptions obviously exist, but how often would people fork out cash to go to a play or musical because a particular musician is involved?

Re:Did anyone notice.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying I cannot make a living doing whatever the heck I want?
Well that just sucks.
I am going to have to give up on my reading Slashdot career now.

Re:Did anyone notice.....

[ricosalomar]

Hear, hear! I've been a professional musician for 20 years. I've been very succesful, played on Broadway shows (the US version of West End), Grammy-winning multi-platinum cds, international tours and TV shows etc. If you listen to the radio or watch TV, you've likely heard me play. I'm not saying this to brag, but to concur, in part, to the parent.

I've spent most of my life practicing, and studying my instrument, easily enough time to have gotten a graduate degree. And I get: waking up in motel rooms, standing in line at airports, and very occasionally, being treated like a rock star. But the society in which I live doesn't seem to consider my contribution important. There have been a couple of years where I made >$80k(US), but those years meant 200+ days gone from my wife and daughter, round the clock. Factor in gigantic phone bills, the hefty tax on being self-employed, no insurance, and you start to think about a career change. I'm getting my CS degree right now. Please don't mention India.

Now, on the topic of using computers for *live* performances, many of the acts I've played with use *recordings* of music in their live shows, sorry, but it's true. I'm sure many of you have seen performances where this was going on and didn't even know it. Some people find this offensive, some don't. But the use of digital recording technology in live performance is very widespread, and acceptable to the music industry. In addition, the singers that you hear on records(sic) are most likely not really singing those notes, they are being manipulated by software, primarily for intonation. So maybe it's not so bad that they're not singing live, either.

The unions were able to stop this replacement of artists on Broadway, but they (we) likely can't hold out forever.

Synths aren't that good yet...

[Jim Starx]

I think they'll find that while samplers can recreate the basic acoustical sound of an instrument perfectly, it just can't handle the incredible detail and expression that comes from having a good musician play the instrument live. I guess I could understand it in a normal play, but in a musical?

Well, I was going to say...

[juglugs]

I was just about to bring up the hypothetical situation that the music has to be adaptable to any hiccups that occur on the stage - i.e. an actor forgets a cue so the orchestra plays an extra intro bar.
However, I was working in the theatre when the first automated lighting desks appeared and a skillfull operator could always adapt or delay when changing to the next "scene".
Having said that, lighting is secondary to the performance compared with the music - jumping around the place would be kind of stupid. How do they cope with non-scripted events?

I'm also of the opinion that we pay pretty high ticket prices to see a "live" performance - both for the actors and the musicians - I think I'd feel ripped off knowing that it was a computer orchestra..

Re:Well, I was going to say...

[RussGarrett]

The Sinfonia site mentions that the operator can alter how it plays the music, presumably by skipping back by a few bars. Anyhow, as I mention in my comment further down, such slipups are very rare in a long-running professional production.

Having said that, last time I went to see Les Mis, with full orchestra, it was actually fairly poor musically. So maybe that'll improve, who knows.

Par for the course

[mao che minh]

The life of an artist has always been a meager one. Only on rare occassions does a musician, painter, or poet earn a gainful existance off their art alone. This is why you see so many artists that are alos waiters, waitresses, coffee shop workers, and teachers.

Basically, as an artist, unless you are a really famous poet, lauded painter, sought after comic book artist, best-selling writer, or a pop music star, you are broke.

Ticket Price better be cheaper

[cosmol]

When you buy a ticket to a live performance, you expect to see real live humans performing. If some of the human performers have been replaced with machines, one should expect the ticket prices to be lower.

I would gladly spend "full" price to see a performance which was originally meant to be done by machines. But if the spirit of a performance is changed solely to cut costs, the savings should be passed along to me, or I'd rather spend my money on the real thing.

Re:Ticket Price better be cheaper

[RussGarrett]

As the article says, it wasn't directly to cut costs, it was because they're moving to a smaller theatre where the pit can only accommodate twelve or so musicians. I'm guessing they're moving to a smaller venue because of falling audience numbers, so that is probably a factor. But if it's a case of using a computerised orchestra or the show going bankrupt, which would you choose?

This battle already fought in New York

[yelvington]

This issue led to a battle between producers and the musicians union in New York last spring, which eventually resulted in a four-day strike ended by a new contract brokered by the mayor's office. The compromise preserves live orchestras, but reduces the required size. Most media coverage has expired (or moved into paid archives) but a simple Google search turns up:

Anti-synthesizer advocacy site.

Sinfonia article.

Settlement story.

Can they recreate the sound perfectly?

[enosys]

Can they recreate the sound perfectly? I doubt it. Wavetable synthesis generally doesn't involve recording every possible tone the instrument can play. Some tones are generated from others so it's not perfect. Hopefully this system uses a lot of samples.

I'm also pretty sure that a musician playing the actual instrument can change more parameters than you can change on a synthesizer simulating that.

Even if you had a perfect recording of sound you wouldn't have the same radiation pattern from your speakers as from real instruments. I'm sure that using this you can tell if it's a live orchestra or a bunch of speakers.

not a lot of savings

[vijayiyer]

$10k per week? At a conservative $50 a pop, that's only equivalent to 200 people in the door - per week. It's sad that they're compromising the art for relatively small savings.

Read the article - small pit!

[jmorzins]

If you've been following this story, you see that the musicians aren't being replaced merely for the sake of autmation. The issue is that the particular theater is tiny, and the musician's pit can hold only about a dozen musicians.

The producer's viewpoint is that people who go to see Les Mis want to hear the full Les Mis sound, so he's using recorded music to fill in the for the people that the pit doesn't hold.

Re: But it's art

[dada21]

How do you know it won't become obsolete? Is talent even a necessity to succeed financially? I prefer live music over Britney-pop, so I'll continue to support the bands I love, but they'll never make a killing at it. They KNOW their style of music isn't financially viable, they do it out of love for performance. Their choice.

Just because it is art doesn't mean that we as a society have to accept it -- the only things that really move forward are ones that can profit for the producer -- and profit does not have to mean financially. Some musicians profit by making their audience happy or by providing themselves with happiness.

The producers of this particular theater have decided (or gambled or risked) that their customers won't mind a mechanical reproduction. They're taking the risk. The musicians, if they are good and their product is desired by some consumer(s), will find other work. If they can't find work, then they should find a new job or talent -- the public shouldn't be taxed to save what may become a dead product (or may not).

Well..

[RussGarrett]

Mackintosh says he's been forced to do this by moving to the smaller theatre because the pit can only accommodate 11 musicians. Where exactly does the Musicians' Union want to put the rest of the orchestra? Suspend them from the ceiling?

Reading the rather limited blurb about the Sinfonia on the manufacturer's site, it's not like the orchestra or conductor is playing to a click-track or anything, the Sinfonia is operated by someone, presumably playing along to a piano part or some other lead part under the control of the conductor, then the synths on it follow that. Which means the conductor still has overall control of the orchestra, and it seems that the Sinfonia operator can even repeat bars or whatever, in response to what's happening on stage (although in a professional musical, an actor forgetting their line is somewhat unlikely, those things run like clockwork).

Yes, there's no substitute for live musicians, but if it's a case between the show going ahead or not (such as this case on RMS's site), then the answer is obvious to me. It's rather amusing that the musicians' unions are worried, they should be comforted in the knowledge that they can do better than a synth. Indeed, RMS claim that the Sinfonia can free up room for more live musicians by reducing the need for seperate synth players.

Still, I'd like to have a play with it before I'm fully convinced :).

This does work

[pbooktebo]

As long as the computer is synched with the group by a person, the quality of this will be more than acceptable.

If you're listening, you'll notice that much of TV and movie music is already computerized (often with one or two real woodwinds or a real guitar, which gives it enough life to satisfy nearly anyone).

And, although the tradition of theater is for live music, our musical environments and tastes are constantly being shaped by techno, hip-hop, and even rock that relies upon computerized beats aesthetically (intentionally, to create non-human sounding grooves etc.), so many people like what they hear.

I remember being surprised reading Miles Davis' Autobiography, where he talks about making the switch to a drum machine for his records (in the 1980's). He basically said that it was easier, sounded great, and the time was better. He was convincing.

Now, in terms of putting musicians out of work, and creating a culture where most musicians don't have a chance to learn to be great by playing in bars, cafes, and pit orchestras (even Stravinsky did this in Paris), instead giving us a stream of good musicians who can't interact with a crowd or good-looking performers with shallow musical abilities? That's another, and much sadder, story.

In Other News..

[Scot Seese]

Britney Spears is scheduled to be replaced by two writers, a perfect-pitch filter, and a hacked Aibo.

Re:I do see a point to doing this

[nomadic]

I used to work on Times Square, and due to the number of slack-jawed midwesterners I had to wade through on my lunch break, I'd assume the theaters are doing fine nowadays...

Musicians and the Technology Revolution

[AnomalyConcept]

Being a musician myself (violin + percussion), I have heard many stories of this, where live musicians are being replaced by synthesizers. I've never encountered this myself, due to the fact that I don't play professionally, but it is an ongoing trend. What is the point to go watch a performance if half of the orchestra is computerized? What's to prevent you from duplicating this at home (besides the obvious gap in technology)? Musicians already have a hard time finding a source of income, and now their niche is being replaced... On a sidenote to this, one of my violin teachers is/was in the process of getting A+ certified, just so he could support his income...

Re:Musicians and the Technology Revolution

[Alyeska]

And how about all of the composers who worked hard, but can never get access to an orchestra?

Americans are used to hearing their music generated by amps & speakers. Maybe I can tell the difference and appreciate a real orchestra, but they can't. I'm happy that I can actually write and produce a score for a live production that will run for weeks. That was impossible with the cost of an orchestra.

Not so bad

[cpu_fusion]

So they outsourced the musicians eh? Well, at least the drummers are safe.

Re:go girl!

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing from a score requires a hell of a lot of creativity. If you don't think so, you should try it sometime. You can't bring the music to life by simply playing the right notes at the right time. Interpreting a piece requires all kinds of choices on the part of the performer. It is not possible to indicate every aspect of the music in a score. That's why you need musicians. A program, no matter how sophisticated, will never replace real live musicians.

Actally...

[FredFnord]

Les Miserables is an operetta.

-fred

Re:Actally...

[Galvatron]

Please tell me you're joking. Yes, Italy has a long and distinguished operatic history. But there are plenty of operas, famous ones even, that are not in Italian. Mozart's The Magic Flute is widely regarded as the first true German opera (the "German opera" you see early on in Amadeus is really more like a musical), and of course all of Wagner's work was German. La Traviata is French (the French also have a long operatic tradition, but most of them are frankly not very good, Verdi is one of the rare exeptions). English is an uncommon language for opera, but it does crop up occasionally, I saw an opera by Stravinsky in English called "The Rake's Progress," inspired by the series of paintings of the same name by William Hogarth.

Bringing this discussion back to the topic at hand, there was a period in the history of opera where the singers were exaulted while the orchestra was ignored. Pyrotechnics and elaborate sets also ruled the day. Operas from this period were generally about mythological characters, the genere was known as "opera seria." Like French grand opera, there was little of musical value during this period. Opera seria was spectacle without substance, and one of the only opera serias to be performed regularly today is Mozart's Idomeneo, and that's only because Mozart is just that good. I feel musicals are heading down a similar path to opera seria, and 200 years from now, none of them will be remembered or performed.

Lost Respect

[nuintari]

Wow, I have just lost a lot of respect for Les Mis. I go to see a show such as les mis to expiriance the talent that goes into performing it, the stage performers, the musiciansa, hell, even the ingenious nature of the stage crew entertains me. I do not go to shows to hear a computer reguritate the same shit each time.

I guess I won't be seeing/hearing les mis anymore.

I say this as a computer geek, and a drummer.

Repetition

[metadatay]

The musicians that are missing out on these jobs are just being put out of their misery. Playing the same part in the same musical night after night after night is enough to drive anyone insane.

I go to hear EVERYTHING!

[oboist311]

Les Miserables is a musical, not a play. The music is vital for setting the mood of the piece. Each character has his or her own motif which lets gives you insight into the characters. For Wagner, this was almost more important for character development than the libretto (lyrics) itself. When I go to a musical, I pay for the best seats so I can sit close to the pit. I want to see the conductor carefully watching the actors on stage and communicating with the musicians so that everything stays together. It is truly an amazing thing to see a large group of people perform together in sync.

When I was in high school, I got to see a touring company of Les Miserables. One of the parts I looked forward to seeing the most was after the barricades fall and Jean Valjean looks through the bodies for Marius. There is a huge oboe solo that plays the melody to Jean Valjean's song, "Bring Him Home." This music conveys to the audience that although Jean Valjean knows he will lose his daughter to Marius by saving him, he knows that is what he should do. As an oboe student, I listened carefully how the musician interpreted the solo. It was a rare opportunity for me to get to hear someone else besides my teachers, and a machine simply would not have been the same.

Once in college as a music major, I got to experience the musicians' union's pettiness. Many times we had to sit in rehearsal for several minutes not allowed to rehearse because our morning rehearsal had gone over several minutes and the union members' lunch break had to be exactly sixty minutes. However when it came time to play, people would get over their egos and make music. (Musicians have always been difficult to deal with - Bach stabbed a bassoonist and Handel tried to throw a soprano out a window!).

Next month, my elementary school music students are going to get a great opportunity. The Nashville Opera company is travelling to our rural mining town and performing The Barber of Seville. The school had a choice whether to watch the performance on a live internet broadcast or have a scaled down version of the opera travel to the school. We chose to have the opera come to the school because seeing it live will engage the students better and just be more exciting for them. The children are prettty pumped about it, too.

It saddens me to think that Les Mis has to move to a smaller theater because of declining ticket sales. Perhaps it would be better to let it close with a little dignity instead of letting go on forever like Cats. But Cameron Macintosh was responsible for Cats lingering on forever too!

As a theatre professional...

[WesternActor]

I have mixed feelings about this. While I believe very strongly that live music is a vital part of the theatrical experience when attending a musical, the proliferation of poor amplification or just too much amplification reduces the orchestral accompaniment in most musicals to little more than a wall of mostly uncolored sound anyway. That, of course, is why producers can get away with this--when the sound is changed/distorted electronically, the application of virtual orchestras will make it sound just good enough to be passable. You assign the particularly lively or agile passages of the score to the live musicians and let the virtual orchestra play everything else. Why not? In most cases, the audience won't be able to tell. But I think it does truly alter the experience. I've seen performances of (professional) shows using taped/recorded music, and while this isn't exactly the same thing, the experience doesn't compare with seeing a musical with a live orchestra. And, of course, that experience doesn't compare with a full-sized orchestra unamplified with unamplified singers. That is the best, most natural way to go, but that's a battle that has mostly been lost in the professional theatre arena anyway.

Les Miserables has to move out of its current theater because of renovations, and the theater they're moving into is the only one currently available. But, as it's quite a bit smaller, there's not enough room for the orchestra. But I find it odd, then, that the stage is big enough for the show (which, itself, is quite big) or the cast (which is also quite big), but the pit isn't big enough for the orchestra. And, of course, by ripping out a row or two of seats, the orchestra pit could easily be expanded. But no one wants to do that, because it would cut into the profits. The easiest thing to do for audiences who mostly don't know or care about the difference between virtual music and live music is to replace musicians. But at what point does reducing Les Miserables or any show make it no longer the same show? At a certain point during the Broadway run of the show, they just cut 15 minutes out of it to get it to run under three hours so they would have to stop paying the cast overtime. But the ticket prices, of course, didn't go down. Rest assured that audiences paying to see Les Miserables in London will not be paying less for fewer live musicians. The difference will go right into Cameron Mackintosh's pocket, as is always the case.

Personally, I think when it comes time to start cheating the audience out of the full experience of the show, as in either the current London case or the Broadway one I mentioned above, it might be best to just close the show and move on. But that's speaking from an audience member's perspective--from the perspective of someone who is something of an industry insider, sure, take the customers who don't know the difference for as much money as you can. The ones who do know the difference probably have already seen Les Miserables one or more times and have no desire to go back to see a reduced version of the show.

It really is different

[violajack]

To address a few of the concerns raised here:

Les Mis is not a play, it is a musical. In fact, there is little to no spoken word in Les Mis making it almost an opera, which would make the music quite important.

Many people seem to think that if all the musicians are doing is playing from the score, then a machine may as well be doing it. To me, that's like saying, "if all the actors are doing is reading from the script, then we may as well replace them with robots." The fact is, despite the mess of markings that is a classical score, there are many more things not on that page that musicians are expected to fill in. There is a passion and subtlety of emotion, expression, articualtion, and sound that no machine can reproduce.

As a classicaly trained musician soon to graduate with my Master's in performance, I may be a bit biased, but the majority of my training hinges on those very points. Playing the music on the page is a given, you just have to be able to do at least that. What gets you a job and makes the music worth listening to, is doing more than what's on the page.

Now admittedly, that's hard to do for a show that's been running for so long. Many people have pointed out the business end of this decission. So, lets look at this from a business point of view...If the market demand for performance of this show no longer supports it being preformed in a space big enough, then the market has no more need for this show. Maybe it's time to learn a new show.

I think that all adds up to about $.04. Thanks for reading

Expression in, expression out

[tepples]

Expression and interpretation are impossible to obtain out of a computer (and always will be, i feel).

Garbage in, garbage out. Expression in, expression out. You can get expression out of what is in essence a recording, albeit the same expression every time. More sophisticated software can receive cues from a performer in the pit, as you mention next:

Imagine going to a concert where a guy is playing his keyboard on stage emulating the sound of a great symphony orchestra.

Seeing a live performance of a musical drama is like seeing a performance by a boy band. The median viewer doesn't care much about the performers he doesn't see; he just wants their performance to match those of the performers he does see on the stage.

Why.

[Triv]

Have any of you stopped to consider WHY Cameron wants to do this and why it's a problem?

There's a musician's union for the West End. Union rules specifically state how many musicians need to be hired for any musical specifically to STOP this from happening, ie, to keep Broadway musicians employed. Believe me, if they could get away with it, pit bands would've been replaced by a CD player a long, long time ago. Broadway is exactly the same way.

McIntosh wants to replace half the orchestra, not because of artistic reasons per se, but because of practical ones - Les Mis is moving to a theater with a much, much smaller pit that simply can't accompany the number of musicians hired by the current production.

It's ALL business. Don't think art has anything to do with it. THey'd replace the actors with robots if they thought it'd make a buck and save a few more.

Triv

Are we at this point yet?

[ScottGant]

I mean, people go and see some DJ at a club. They use terms like "he's one of the best DJ's in the country". I mean...um...he spins records. How is that a musical talent? Also, I still think that hip-hop, or rap or whatever they're calling it this week is basically a bunch of guys with a rhyme dictionary and a drum machine. Perhaps that's a generalization, but it does seem to be people wanting to get into music with little to no musical knowledge and not really wanting to take the time nor the effort to learn an instrument. But I digress.

So, what are we in store for in the future. Going to see Synth programmers in concert? He'll come out on stage, take a bow and go and click a mouse, as the computer starts it's sequence. Afterwards the crowd goes wild! "He's the best synth programmer in the country, no one can beat his sequences!"

Sorry, I like my music live and for the most part acoustic. I grew up as a nerd, liking all of these things, computers doing music and artwork, digital photography and the rest. But now my tastes are going more and more ludite it seems. I keep thinking that the mindset these days seems to be if it's older than 30 years, it's outdated and everything now is better. Also many think that a computer could do everything better. Is this the case?

Yes, it's a cost thing for orchestra pit musicians being replaced by a synth. I get that. But is it "better" or are we now shooting for "just as good"?

Re:Are we at this point yet?

[NDPTAL85]

So the only music comes from those who learn to play an instrument?

Sometimes you DO need to listen to popular culture because it communicates where a society is and what it wants. With millions and millions of people around the world dancing away to hiphop and not classical theartre music, that ought to tell you something.

As for DJ's, as with anything else some are good and others are bad. A good DJ is just as good as the best bass player or violinist.

Re:Are we at this point yet?

[Monkelectric]

Good DJ's are incredibly talented, but they exist in a grey area between musician and perfomance artist. There are some talented hiphop acts but 99.99% of them are pure garbage (and I share your despise of them), and talented rap artists? I could count them all with a quadraplegics fingers and toes. If gloating about your misery and bragging about the drugs and bitches you fuck makes you a great musician, then Im sure in the right fucking business minus drugs and bitches :-)

So, what are we in store for in the future. Going to see Synth programmers in concert?

Never been to a chemical brothers concert have ya? :) Im going to be a little hard on you because Im an electronic musician myself, electronic instruments opens up NEW avenues for creativity, you can be just as expressive with a filter sweep or a finely tuned spectral delay but the 99% rule still applies (99% of everything is crap).

As for Les Mis, you're dead on -- I hate Les Mis with a passion (and all the other early 90's "we're so cultred we went to a musical" bullshit pop-musicials -- Phantom of the Opera, and cats to name a few (and I don't care if cats is cool because it uses poetry as narative structure)), but i've seen just about every other musical there is, and going to the theater is about seeing people not about listening to synthesizers. It REALLY cheezes me off when you hear synthesizers used inappropriatley -- if I came to a Les Mis show in t-shirt and shorts wearing a rastafarian hat -- wouldn't that also be inappropriate? :)

Re:Are we at this point yet?

[Teddy Beartuzzi]

So the only music comes from those who learn to play an instrument?

Um, yeah. Calling a dj a musician is like calling my mother a programmer because she installed Linux.

Without the actual artist, the dj has nothing.

Re:Are we at this point yet?

[mekkab]

actually these days, Fischer Spooner shows up with their CD, plops it on, and dances along to it. Basically, their live show is modern dance and lip sync'ing. And they are downright brazen about it!

As for music sounding dated, I've got mix cd with Yaz tracks right next to new Drum n Bass tracks. also, That dated sound is still sought out by some new bands, too (look at all the retro-electro, like Miss Kitten and the Hacker and Adult. ).

P.S.- that sounds like an AWESOME concert!

They nicked our idea.

[Happy Finish]

I've run a series of keyboard controllers midi'd to a sequencer and a bunch of modules to do a concert version of Les Miserables a number of years ago. I transcribed the main sequences from the symphonic recordings and arranged them to be played via the sequencer and for two keyboard players. During performances, I tended the sequencer, modules and played secondary parts on keyboard while the MD played and coordinated the whole thing from a performance point of view. For two guys with where the orchestra should have gone it sounded pretty impressive. Oh and it was a school production.

Virtual Orchestras becoming commonplace

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtual orchestras are not jut being used in theatrical productions but seem to be comming fairly common and inexpensive. Personal Orchestra (personalorchestra.com) is $249 and sounds pretty convincing from their mp3s. Their being used by students to learn music. According to the Personal Orchestra website, Berklee College of Music and other colleges are requiring students to have virtual orchestras for their classes.

Let's face it...

[Kjella]

As someone who has more than 5 musicals in a pit playing trombone, and another one working crew including: (...)

Call me a nut, but some of the best moments I've ever felt in music were when things weren't going 100% the way they were rehersed. The combined human factor of 10 pit musicians relizing that Mr. Hyde was going crazy with his stuff tonight made something come alive.

Now call me a nut, but unless you're really into a specific show (like, go see it multiple times) you won't notice if it's a bit off - only if it's a big screw-up. That's just you that's rehearsed it a thousand times and played it a dozen.

To you, delivering the same piece each night is routine. But to most of the audience, it's a unique experience. They won't be talking about how Mr. Hyde missed his que - they'll be talking about the entire performance of Mr. Hyde in the show, because it was all new to them.

The primary reason people go out and watch a live performance, is that it feel more "real" - you know you're watching real people, not images on a cinema screen. Same with live music vs. stereo (now I'm not talking about rock concerts where you jump with the crowd, that's a different story, but the kind of concerts where you sit in your seat and listen...)

As long as there are actors on the scene, giving you that "real" feel, I don't think most people will care about or even notice if part of it is artificial. Hell, just look at how many go to concerts with playback - it's all artifical, but still popular. It merely gives the impression of "live".

Kjella

rap

[Heisenbug]

(FYI, the most useful definition I've heard is that rap refers to the musical form, hip hop to the culture, which also includes breakdance and grafiti art)

Rap is a drum machine and a rhyme dictionary in the same way that blues is four chords and a gravelly voice, or jazz is hitting the wrong keys and pretending you did it on purpose, or rock is two power chords and a stage show, or classical is machine-like repetition of a score. There are recordings that fit those descriptions, and before you get used to the form it might all sound like that. There's also a hell of a lot more to it -- but if you don't care to learn, more power to you, it's probably not for you anyway.

If you like rock, or blues, or jazz, or classical, though, you are hereby prohibited from making stupid generalizations about rap.

Defeat's whose purpose?

[hey!]

I think it is appropriate that "Le Miz" is leading the way in this area. I've seen a few of these mega-musicals, and they are theater for dummies. If you read the Hugo's book (highly recommended), you realize exactly how how little respect the producers have for the taste and intelligence of their audiences. It's all about getting people to shell out way north of $100 per seat so they can sit there with their brains turned off.

What they are trying to do is ape Hollywood movies with explosions and eye popping effects. These things require so much stage machinery that the orchestra ends up, no longer in a pit, but actually submerged underneath the stage. In order for the music to be heard, it is amplified and played through speakers. Canning the music is just the logical next step, and I suppose the step after that is to have the actors lip synch the songs.

I have to admit, the geek in me was pleased by the special effects where Javert jumps off the bridge in Le Miz, or the helicopter in Miss Saigon. But, it's telling that those are the things that stick with you more than a few days. For the life of me I can't understand why people shell out good money for the soundtracks to these shows. They typically have one fair to middling song, which is dutifully belted out according to the show-stopper template, and the rest is sonic wallpaper.

These kinds of shows are total crap with fancy window dressing. If you have the money to go to a show, you're better off going to something put on by a small local troupe. I've got more pleasure from college student productions than I had from Les Miz. Hell, I've seen high school productions of George Bernard Shaw that were much more memorable. Stay away from "hot" Broadway shows an their touring progeny, unless maybe it's Sondheim. I'm not a huge fan of his because he serves up a rather too steady diet of cynicism for me. But he doesn't condescend to the audience and there's always something worth seeing and hearing. The Witch's big song in Into the Woods is so much better than anything in Le Miz Claude Michel Shonberg should hang his head in shame.

Live vs. Memorex

[Vizzie]

Personally, I think this is the wrong fight. If they're using synths to provide part of the music, as long as they're open about it, it's no big deal. Let the market decide if it's important. About a year and a half ago, I saw Rush in concert. They use a variety of synths, sequencers and samples on stage, and it allows the 3 of them to do amazing things. It was a fantastic and wekk-attended show, and people got exactly what they paid for.

Similarly, DJ shows can be fantastic and worthwhile as well. There's a lot more to it than "just spinning records", and again, people know exactly what they are getting.

The practice I have a problem with is pop "concerts" that are simply a choreographed show to a recording of the performer in question. It blurs the line, and people are often not aware of what they are actually seeing. That's where the real tragedy is.

Re:Wow! That's so... small-minded and ill-informed

[sahonen]

I call DJs musicians like I call drummers musicians. And I am a drummer. It takes skill, but what is produced is pure accompaniment, and will not stand up on its own as actual music. Sure a DJ can mix together some tracks and make a "song," but it's all stuff that other people, ACTUAL musicians created and put on a record for him to mix together. Sit a drummer down at an unfamiliar kit and he can jam along with whatever group he's with. I'd love to see a DJ sit in on someone else's equipment and unfamiliar records and jam with a rap/hiphop group.

In favor of Classical Music.

[tjstork]

Get out of town, dood.

At the end of the day, a good dj picks songs, and a good musician makes them. The difference between DJs and rappers versus good classically trained musicians is the same difference between VB wizard boys and fluent systems programmers.

Both can make entertaining works, but the latter invested more to get more skill, and they need to be taken more seriously because they have earned it.

If you want to see someone be good at making rhymes and picking songs for you, rap is good. But if you want someone that really understands music, then, you need someone who actually knows how to play a real musical instrument.

Re:In favor of Classical Music.

[linzeal]

I want to say something, Dance music is by and large crap from all centuries and countries. That includes Polka, Techno, and Disco and I will be the first to say that there are masters of those arts, good imitators, and the great untalanted masses. Strauss has a few polkas that make you want to get up and dance like a peasant, Ladytron a current fav of mine for parties, and who can forget ABBA with waterloo and the like? There are masters in every genre, and I would say that even about DJ/RAP/Mixers of all sorts. I don't know any but I have friends who tell legends, (I can't remember the names in other words).

Re:In favor of Classical Music.

[Lord_Dweomer]

What a troll. "But if you want someone that really understands music, then, you need someone who actually knows how to play a real musical instrument."

Right, because I'm sure all the DJs out there have no clue how music works. Maybe you should try spinning sometime, and maybe you would how much musical understanding you really need in order to be a good DJ. Not only do you have to know a lot of musical theory in order to make a halfway decent mix that sounds concrete, you also need to be quite good at keeping track of both songs (or in some case 3, or in some case other things like a 404) because you need to be able to figure out the precise place to start mixing the two together.

Tons of people have invested just as much into being a DJ as people who play instruments do. In fact, if you want to look at it in purely financial terms instead of that and time, then I'll bet the DJ spends quite more to get their setup and records.

Your post was insulting to DJs as well as having no valid points at all.

what's next

[illumina us]

replacing actors with automatons? if i wanted to see something computer generated and not performed by real people i would not go to a theatre (performance), i would go to a theater (movies).

What about projectionists?

[ex-songwriter]

I'm all for DJs getting their due, but what about the projectionists in movie theatres? They have to operate a complicated machine, their work is enjoyed by hundreds of people at a time, they help inspire a wide range of emotions in the audience. When will they be celebrated? Reviewed? Make more money? Let's stand up for the projectionists!

Re:Wow! That's so... small-minded and ill-informed

[ScottGant]

I wasn't trying to troll, I'm sorry that you became so defensive in your love of hip-hop. I was voicing my opinion.

But let's face it. The Emperor has no clothes. Hip-hop is here today, gone tomorrow. If you were as in touch as you claim to be, you would notice that hip-hop artists have zero staying power. Zero. In fact, there was a special documentory about how fleeting hip-hop artists are. You say they become public figures, and idols in their communities. Yet that only lasts about a year, perhaps more. Then they're gone. Also, I guess I'm not as shallow to think that making "shitloads of money" is a measurment of talent.

Yes, I was being general in my sweeping remarks on this genre, but that's how I feel. It's an opinion. Also, you yourself are making sweeping denigrations of what I was talking about. YOU are the one that is walking around in an opaque bubble if you think that hip-hop is "today's music". Today's music covers a very very broad spectrum and hip-hop is a small part of it. A vocal minority. Also, I wasn't rejecting anything newer than 30 years old, I was mearly pointing out that "some" people "seem" to not like anything older than 30 years old.

But your post was really defensive, if you wish to actually argue the points I would be happy to, but you need to learn a little more about today's music and get out of just one small part of it.

But I guess in your world others can't have contrasting opinions.