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mbarker.livejournal.com2014-12-15 01:45 pm
TECH: Music with a bit of showmanship?
Original Posting Dec. 2, 2014
That was surprisingly intriguing. Flipping across the channels the other morning, happened on a concert at 9am. But...
Imagine sitting in the audience, with the chairs and instruments on stage, brightly lit. However, no one is there! And down an aisle between the sections of the audience comes a familiar figure, the composer who does NHK kids' programs and plenty of other musical bits. He has a microphone in his hand and he seems upset. He roars...
"Where is my staff! They are supposed to start..."
He starts looking around, and suddenly walks up to a figure sitting in a chair in the audience near the front. The person is hunched over, with something in a blanket in their hand.
"There you are! What are you doing out here, and what are you hiding?"
The composer tugs at the blanket, and after a momentary struggle, the blanket slides off, and we see a sliver trumpet. The person in the chair stands up, turns, and blows a few slow, almost faltering notes. "Oh... When... The... Saints..." He pauses, and then plays them again. And once more...
A figure further back in the audience stands up, and a slide trombone answers "come marching in!"
About then, a women in a uniform with a man trailing her bustles up to the composer and shows him a ticket. He shakes his head, and she looks at the paper again. Then she pushes past him, and heads for the steps up onto the stage! The composer is muttering, "No, not up there..."
She shows the man to a front row seat on the stage, then walks back to another chair, reaches down, and swings back to us with a golden saxophone at her lips, already riffing on the growing song. And the man picks up a tuba and joins in.
Moments later, there's an array of horns on stage, busily serenading us with "When the Saints Go Marching."
But the composer shakes his head, and says, "No, there's something missing. Now what..."
He goes to the side, and shakes his finger at a man sitting there. Who picks up his snare drum, rattattatt... And marches up to join the next verse, as the backup orchestra comes streaming out to the wings.
What a beginning! This is not going to be a boring concert!
They even tossed in a small lesson on how to make an exciting concert. The composer said, "Use the 4S's" Then he explained. The first S is surprise. Do something exciting, surprising, wake up your audience. The second S is study. The performers need to know the music and their parts inside and out, and even the audience needs to know some of it. He used Carpenters Forever, a medley of Carpenter songs, to show us that well-known material helps. Then the third S. He called this Show Up. When he explained it, I thought Accents would be better, but... Add things to enliven the show. For example, they performed a very orchestral piece that I wasn't familiar with at all. But as it began, out of the wings came a towering red figure, a person on stilts with elongated arms, all in red with a demonic mask. Then another one, and another. These three stumped across the stage as the music played, then stood, as if talking off to one side. And a young woman in a white diaphanous outfit, with a gauzy layer floating around her head and arms, danced on from the other side! She came partway across, then backed away, and posed. Then a young man, in a similar white outfit with a layer of white gauze floating around him, wove through the red figures, then did a backflip in the middle of the stage.
The dancing was not distracting, more it enhanced and kept us engaged with the music, which frankly would have been a bit boring as an abstract piece without the accents (or show up) of the monstrous dancers and the white dancers.
Another one or two pieces, and they asked the composer about the last S. He smiled, and the conductor joined him. "The last S? That is sound. The music is what brings us here, and it is the reason for the concert. It must sound beautiful."
Which just about rounded out the show. A mixture of orchestral music, stagecraft, and a dash of education. Exquisite!
That was surprisingly intriguing. Flipping across the channels the other morning, happened on a concert at 9am. But...
Imagine sitting in the audience, with the chairs and instruments on stage, brightly lit. However, no one is there! And down an aisle between the sections of the audience comes a familiar figure, the composer who does NHK kids' programs and plenty of other musical bits. He has a microphone in his hand and he seems upset. He roars...
"Where is my staff! They are supposed to start..."
He starts looking around, and suddenly walks up to a figure sitting in a chair in the audience near the front. The person is hunched over, with something in a blanket in their hand.
"There you are! What are you doing out here, and what are you hiding?"
The composer tugs at the blanket, and after a momentary struggle, the blanket slides off, and we see a sliver trumpet. The person in the chair stands up, turns, and blows a few slow, almost faltering notes. "Oh... When... The... Saints..." He pauses, and then plays them again. And once more...
A figure further back in the audience stands up, and a slide trombone answers "come marching in!"
About then, a women in a uniform with a man trailing her bustles up to the composer and shows him a ticket. He shakes his head, and she looks at the paper again. Then she pushes past him, and heads for the steps up onto the stage! The composer is muttering, "No, not up there..."
She shows the man to a front row seat on the stage, then walks back to another chair, reaches down, and swings back to us with a golden saxophone at her lips, already riffing on the growing song. And the man picks up a tuba and joins in.
Moments later, there's an array of horns on stage, busily serenading us with "When the Saints Go Marching."
But the composer shakes his head, and says, "No, there's something missing. Now what..."
He goes to the side, and shakes his finger at a man sitting there. Who picks up his snare drum, rattattatt... And marches up to join the next verse, as the backup orchestra comes streaming out to the wings.
What a beginning! This is not going to be a boring concert!
They even tossed in a small lesson on how to make an exciting concert. The composer said, "Use the 4S's" Then he explained. The first S is surprise. Do something exciting, surprising, wake up your audience. The second S is study. The performers need to know the music and their parts inside and out, and even the audience needs to know some of it. He used Carpenters Forever, a medley of Carpenter songs, to show us that well-known material helps. Then the third S. He called this Show Up. When he explained it, I thought Accents would be better, but... Add things to enliven the show. For example, they performed a very orchestral piece that I wasn't familiar with at all. But as it began, out of the wings came a towering red figure, a person on stilts with elongated arms, all in red with a demonic mask. Then another one, and another. These three stumped across the stage as the music played, then stood, as if talking off to one side. And a young woman in a white diaphanous outfit, with a gauzy layer floating around her head and arms, danced on from the other side! She came partway across, then backed away, and posed. Then a young man, in a similar white outfit with a layer of white gauze floating around him, wove through the red figures, then did a backflip in the middle of the stage.
The dancing was not distracting, more it enhanced and kept us engaged with the music, which frankly would have been a bit boring as an abstract piece without the accents (or show up) of the monstrous dancers and the white dancers.
Another one or two pieces, and they asked the composer about the last S. He smiled, and the conductor joined him. "The last S? That is sound. The music is what brings us here, and it is the reason for the concert. It must sound beautiful."
Which just about rounded out the show. A mixture of orchestral music, stagecraft, and a dash of education. Exquisite!