Broadway Musicians Replaced With Synthesizers

wooferhound writes "Sophisticated synthesizers and computer-manipulated recordings are increasingly taking over orchestras. Sounding almost like real players, while costing much less, they're especially popular with provincial or touring companies. But until mid-July — when 'West Side Story's' producers announced that a synthesizer was replacing three live violinists and two cellists, or half the orchestra's string section — staff violinist Paul Woodiel thought that at least the classics would be immune to the trend. There are computer programs able to read and play back music scores — a boon to composers who can now hear their work as they write — and software allowing conductors to control the tempo of the machine, in the same way that they direct live players."

Comments

Re:What is the issue?

[CRCulver]

Machines make perfect replications. They can play the composure exactly as written. Unfortunately, that's a beginners mistake. When you play from the sheet music, you can tell the people who are beginners. They can play the written music technically perfect, but they can't put any feeling into it.

Depends on the composer. It is true that scores of earlier epochs left much of the detail out, and the only reason we know that the musician's deviation from the score isn't incompetence but "feeling" is because of a continuous performance tradition. Of course, with ancient music there's much controversy, because the scores have very little detail at all, but we're not sure exactly how these pieces were performed.

But there are plenty of composers who want their music to be performed exactly as notated, with the musician putting what he thinks is "feeling" into it. They have gone on to add so much detail to their scores that the musician couldn't possibly introduce something extraneous. Ferneyhough's scores are hyper-notated like this, as are a few of Ligeti's pieces (the Cello Concerto, for instance). Stockhausen and Xenakis have written scores where instead of a general metronome marking for the movement, each segment is specified as a certain number of seconds so that the conductor or musicians don't add any rubato.

Re:What is the issue?

[wooferhound]

Live performances are never the same, that is why the orchestra is there. The song can be faster one night, or the onstage actor may change things up to keep it interesting, the orchestra can make changes on the fly that go along with what is happening onstage. A repeat customer appreciates the differences that they experience. It may be the same show but it is different every performance.

I am a spotlight operator at our local theater and I can assure you that a Broadway show is different every night. This is what keeps the crew awake during something that could be incredibly repetitive.