wiseone2

How often have we heard that? How do you deal with the distance factor in performance?
Or.......... another title could be" Where"s the beat"

Wilmer

camelbrass

With full credit to Jim 'the Splitmeister' on TH..this is a great story:

"A friend of mine did a course with the LSO brass section last summer and met Mauricem (Murphy). The highlight apparently was at the end when the LSO did a John Williams concert, on doing Star Wars Maurice turned round to the student who were in the wings and told them the conductor was doing the wrong tempo. BANG Maurice started playing it his tempo (the right one that is) and the whole orchestra went with him leaving the conductor have to follow him too."

That's THE way to handle conductors who don't do what they're told.

Regards,

Trevor

davidquinlan

ha! excellent..

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they have similar ability and "authority" as Mr Murphy!

Anonymous

I thought Maurice took a job in Germany?

tpter1

I remember doing the Blatter Fanfare in college. The piece calls for many (12, I think) trumpets, with some onstage and the rest spread antiphonally throughout the hall. We did this in what we call the "big" hall on campus. It seats 1200. I was one of the farthest from the stage at the back of the hall in the balcony. I had to play very much on the front of the beat to be in time; almost early or rushed. An entrance on count one was almost on the last sixteenth of the measure before.

I am noticing on recordings of live performances with the wind ensemble that I sound a bit behind; but the conductors never mentioned it to me. But, when I'm playing, it feels in time. I will be keeping close eyes on this one; it should help me. Thanks for bringing it up, Wilmer!

KJaeger

I am wondering if there are any particularly troublesome concert halls where one must really pay attention to a potential time delay in the sound (maybe even from one part of the stage to another)?

FlugelFlyer

I couldn't hold a match to you or some of the other participants on this forum, but nonetheless I've been downright p!ssed off by directors overusing this comment. My high school director, during a rehearsal in which we were practicing Pomp & Circumc.... [mind my off-color humor, I have plenty of it], blurted out, "TRUMPETS, NO CLUE!!!" during the A section, despite the fact that I couldn't have had a better clue how to play it. That was my sophmore year.

My senior year, I was lead trumpet on a chop brutality show, and one time I was unsure of whether to play or not, and I merely played the part to myself at an incredibly soft dynamic. The director heard it, and yelled from the stands, "MIKE! I'm not sure if you did that on purpose, but that's how soft I want the part!"

That said, I loved my director, but sometimes I had to question his sanity.

MalinTrumpet

Phil Smith told me that Leinsdorf used to say "The rear is behind".

Billy B

Sometimes this can be an articulation problem.