The art of conducting

As I get to the age when most people have retired, I realise that I can't do that, and whilst I have my faculties, never will. I am one of the those fortunate ones, whose work has always been their hobby. And who ever voluntarily gives up their hobby? For me, there is nothing better than standing up in front of 70 or 80 of your colleagues and being the facilitator for everyone's talents to become one. I keep explaining, that is the job of the conductor: you have between 70 and 80 incredibly talented people on stage, all of whom believe they know the tempo and direction of the piece of music you are performing as well, if not better, than you. But you can't have 70 slightly different tempos, 70 slightly different accelerandos, 70 slightly different dynamics etc., so there has to be only one. You could sum up the art of conducting as: a dictatorship of one person with the consent of all.

Reduced sized orchestra

In these difficult times, when the outside world is going mad and everyone is so angry and intolerant of others opinions, I have been creating a library of popular pieces of music that can be played by a reduced sized orchestra so that promoters can promote with less risk and those that want to maintain social distancing can do so. The basic orchestration for most of these pieces is 1 flute, 1 oboe, 1 clarinet and 1 bassoon. 2 horns, 2 trumpets and 1 trombone with a timpanist, 2 percussion colleagues and a harp. Bringing up the body of the orchestra are the string players which can number from a few to many. This is the available repertoire Inglis Music Library. I think there's a broad cross-section of repertoire here. 

It was begun when in order to tour an orchestra with soloists or cross-over artists and make using an orchestra more viable, we had to reduce the size in order to reduce the costs. I started with a few pieces and as the concept grew, added more to the list and therefore choice. I was never interested in just dropping instruments and pretending they never existed; they did and should not be ignored. Therefore the wind and percussion sections were re-written so to the average person attending a concert, there would be no noticeable difference: it would still sound full and rich, and as close to the original as possible. For instance, generally speaking, you would not want to miss out the 3rd note of a chord in any passage; it would sound bare with just open 5ths. Quite often, the 2nd player of the woodwind section would fill these notes out. Leave out the players, you leave out the important notes. So I rearranged and and redistributed the notes. Now, no important notes are missed out, but the original spirit of the composer's intentions are maintained.

I believe in the idea so much that we are taking it to some smaller theatres where a full sized orchestra of 70 or 80 musicians would make no financial sense. However, one of 33(ish) most definitely does. 

If in Milton Keynes, Oxford and Richmond in March and April 2022, look out for us! 

Visiting a new orchestra

It has been a long time since I last posted anything on this site, so having been out to Thailand for a very fleeting visit (3 nights!), I thought I would write of what it is like to visit a new orchestra. I should add that my visit last week was not in fact brand new, as I had last conducted the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra in March 2011 when minus its royal title. But though I remembered I had conducted them, I remembered nothing else of my visit apart from the fact I thought they had a reasonable standard. 

The orchestra and I were to support the mezzo Katherine Jenkins and as there was no other vocal support, we would need to provide some orchestral items during the performance for her to have a little break and change dresses. Remembering my previous visit, I thought I could challenge them with some well-loved popular pieces of classical music and chose: Shostakovich Festive Overture, Bernstein Candide Overture, Libertango, Traviata Prelude, Prelude to Carmen and Faust ballet music. I had been provided with four three-hour rehearsals plus a general and was asked whether I wanted more! I replied, absolutely not. It is easy to over-rehearse; one must always leave something for the performance. However, they decided to rehearse the orchestral items with a local conductor the day before I arrived. I'm glad they did. 

At my first rehearsal, a number of musicians remembered me from my previous visit and I was not sure whether that was a good thing or not. Did they remember me because I was inspiring, or because I was rubbish? I have to say I could not remember any of them.......it was 12 years previously and I had conducted many orchestras since! 

However, we started and by the break, my first impression was that I was pleased I had 4 rehearsals prior to Katherine joining us. Katherine's rep is technically not challenging to play, but it has a style all of its own and the tuning is very important. Sometimes, a song will start on a high note in the violins and it is vital that is prepared carefully before the downbeat. At other times, the sound created by arrangers such as David Foster, Stephen Baker and Patrick Hamilton requires a delicacy of touch rather than a fortissimo of attack! So I devoted two rehearsals to Katherine's rep and the other two to the six orchestral items, all of which have their technical challenges. 

With a great deal of hard work and yes, humour, we broke down the compositions into their various sections, playing them slowly and quietly before gradually picking up the pace and dynamic until we were at tempo and could play them. I believe music should be taken very seriously, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun and enjoy it! One of the comments often made to me is, how much fun my rehearsals are. I believe laughter is good for the soul, just as I believe music is good for the soul. So when you combine the two, well, you've reached nirvana! 

The resultant concert in the Cultural Hall attracted a standing ovation for Katherine and the musicians of the orchestra who had played unbelievably well. Both Katherine and I received plaudits for the orchestra, with lots saying they had never heard the orchestra play so well. This was as a direct result of the star performer, who elevates everyone around her to give of their best, and the hard work done by us at the rehearsals. 

Well done RBSO. I hope it is not another 11 years before I see you again!

Terrible Times part 1

I thought it might be of interest to any blog readers I may have, to know what I am doing during the current terrible times for the entertainment industry. On 18th March 2020 I conducted what, unknown to me at the time, was to be my last concert until.......well, that has not yet been decided. I had conducted in St David's Hall a few days previously, and we had wondered at that time whether the concert on the 18th would go ahead. But to those musicians like myself who were hopping from the London Concert Orchestra to the National Symphony Orchestra, much to our surprise it went ahead. Little did we know then how long this close-down would last. We all thought it would be a month, maybe 6 weeks and we'd be up and running with the summer concerts. Now here we are nearly 5 months later and no sign of this disastrous state of affairs ending. To begin with, as I thought this would be temporary, I started to do some on-line videos with the London Concert Orchestra playing individually at home. I think I'm right in saying we were one of the first, if not the very first, to attempt to do this with an orchestra by using multi-screen of the musicians, and we had 30 musicians on the screen at the end. I asked my old mate Wynne Evans, a tenor I have known a long time and who has found fame as the face (and voice) of a certain comparison website to sing Nessun Dorma; but this would be Nessun Dorma with a difference. We would alter the words and pay tribute to all those essential workers who were doing so much to fight this frightening disease that at the beginning no-one knew how to fight. And some were paying with their lives. From my life with the Two Ronnies, I knew the theory of making a click track, and then playback to that click track, but not how then to put that into practise on the screen. So I rang another mate, Steve Carr who happens to be one of the very best sound engineers mixing for all sorts of orchestras and stars including Katherine Jenkins, and explained the theory. He thought a bit and said, yeah, that should work! Then I had to find someone to do the vision. I didn't know a vision mixer, so inquired of my eldest son, who is a pilot in the RAF and therefore technically minded, if he would do it. He thought a bit, looked into the possibility, asked for a video editing software package and agreed to learn. It was a very steep learning curve for him, which he overcame brilliantly. Not knowing what reaction I would get from the musicians themselves, I tentatively emailed around and of course, received 100% enthusiastic replies from this marvellous orchestra, who all contributed their amazing talent. So I made a click track, which when you've got a piece with plenty of rubato, pauses, rits and accels, is not that easy. But I worked out how to do all of that, sent it to the musicians and Wynne and the result is for all to see at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=addeWnAwMxQ more soon...................

Live music at all costs

On the current Katherine Jenkins Guiding Light tour on which I am conducting my own orchestra The London Concert Orchestra, as well as the Manchester and Scottish concert orchestras and Ulster Orchestra, I must give a huge shout-out to Katherine who has mentioned in concerts the orchestra and how important live music is to her and how easy it would be for her to follow others and cut the number of musicians. Of course she's quite right to think of the importance of live music, but I thought I would explain why she's right. In this day and age where profit versus cost seems to hold sway over the most ardent of artists, the end result seems to get lost in the ever-persuing race to maximise the profit. The first thing to be cut in this race are the musicians, but of course there is a limit to the numbers that it is possible to cut, and the danger is we go beyond that number. A normal orchestra is between 70 and 80 musicians depending on the repertoire. But we are realists and realise in this day and age, unless you have massive sponsorship the costs of touring an 80 piece orchestra are too enormous to contemplate without that sponsorship, not just in wages (though God knows those national wages are scandalously small for such highly qualified people), but in hotels and travel costs etc. So we reduce the size of the orchestra to make it more viable. What has to be to remembered though in this over-amplified world is that you cannot amplify what is not there. This may sound obvious, but I'm not talking about a missing trummpet or a missing flute, but the sheer body of sound. 16 1st violins playing together will sound better accoustically than 10, which will sound better than 4, which of course sound better than 1. It is the same when put down some wires to a Yamaha sound desk at the back of a hall. Whatever the big sound desk says, it cannot recreate the sound of 16 violins when only 1 is playing. No amount of reverb or technical wizardry will make it so! Similarly no machine has been invented that can mimic the sound of finger on finger-board, bow on string, vibrato and articulation, no matter who says it, and some extremely well known names have! But of course the accountants will say every finger that touches wood or brass has a cost, whereas one machine, after its initial outlay, costs no more than one human being and a little bit of electricity. We have to compromise and help with the costs and make the accountants realise every single human being on that stage matters and has a role to play in helping the solo artist relax and perform at the peak of their powers. This then makes audiences around the world want to come back. So how do we balance cost versus size? I had to think of a combination that was cost effective yet would create a sound and colour that would be as close to the original as possible, not just to the audience but to Katherine and me. In other words I had to weigh up the balance of the orchestra versus cost. I originally came up with the ideal reduced orchestra line-up in 2004 when Katherine and I first started working together, and whenever a full orchestra is not available she has performed with it ever since: 1 each of flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon (the woodwind); 2 horns, 2 trumpets and 1 trombone (the brass); 3 percussion who play everything; harp and keyboard; and 6 1st violins, 5 2nd violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos and 2 double bass (the strings). This balances beautifully. The brass do not drown the strings or woodwind, and the woodwind can have their solos, the strings balance aginst the wind: it's perfect! The sound department also have something to amplify. We have a team of wonderful engineers on this tour headed by Steve Carr who has some state-of-the-art equipment supplied by the best in the business R G Jones, and as he says, he doesn't interfere with the process of musical recreation. He leaves the dynamics entirely up to the orchestra and me. The result is as close as it's possible to get if you were standing where I am. Everyone hears the musicians creating the light and shade, and we have had many wonderful comments as a result. There is no chasing by the sound engineer's fingers on a fader of individual musicians; it is set at the rehearsal, adjusted for the hall we're in and left alone. As a result, hopefully we won't get the revue one artist touring with a small cut-down orchestra did of bombastic, loud, terrible sound. I'm assuming the sound department would have been trying to amplify what is not there. There never was a better adage: more is less, but in this case it is more going in is less coming out! Possibly even more importantly, everything we play has been arranged specifically for this combination of players, we do not play something written for full orchestra, then just drop various instruments. I have arranged specially for this combination of musicians all the orchestral music for this tour including the Swan Lake Suite. We do have to make compromises, such as the cygnets, originally written with a prominent part for 2 oboes. The 2nd oboe part has been transferred to the clarinet (as we do not have 2 oboes), and the clarinet part elsewhere within the orchestra. Afficionados will notice, but I think we maintain the integrity of the dance and the music and not many will notice. We just have to be practical and realise that in order to tour, occasionally we have to think outside the box and do things a little differently. It has meant employment for 33 musicians and a wonderful chance to perform great music with a star singer, and hopefully entertain thousands of people in venues up and down the country. Judging from the reaction to Katherine and the orchestra, we have succeeded. So thank you Katherine Jenkins for having faith in the product and helping you on stage. It is a privilege.

click tracks

Click Tracks! Two words immediately designed to set me on edge! Let me start off by saying I have no objection to them being used in a production where it is necessary, or as a brief interlude that adds something to the music that is being performed. In this day and age, it can be of benefit. But for a whole concert? That for me detracts. I know I am a musician and perhaps might notice things others don't, for instance, a small orchestra in vision when suddenly I hear some trumpets or timps playing yet none are visible within the orchestra. That annoys me hugely as I think it's a con! But it's so much more than that. A click track restricts the way a musician performs; it limits hugely his or her performance. They can only do what the track dictates and if is a repeat performance, what the track did on the previous occasion and the previous occasion to that. Also, the musician must surely be concentrating intently on the click/count through some headphones and not listening to the other musicians around them or their own playing, a practise that is so vital to a shared musical experience. They certainly wouldn't need the conductor. There is no room for spontaneity or that freedom that musicians like to call "art". They are confined to the rhythm, tempo and dynamics of the track. I come across music to be played at a live concert that has been written for a recording orchestra to play, and the rit(ardandos) have been written out so they fit with the clicks. For those not cogniscent with Italian(!), ritardandos mean slowing down in Italian, the language of music. So, if the music is written in 4/4 (4 beats to the bar) and the arranger wants it to slow down, the click that the orchestra records to and to which they are all listening, is given 5 or maybe 6 beats in that rit bar. That of course extends the bar and is supposed to make it sound as though it's slowing down. But in reality, all it does is give an extra beat or two to the bar, a pause, and not a gradual slowing down of the music. My understanding is that it is easier for producers to edit a click recording should they need to. I was once asked to conduct a recording session for an international singing group that always perform to playback. The recording session, played by musicians of a full symphony orchestra would all be wearing headphones and listening to a click. I asked what I would actually be doing. I presumably didn't even need to start or stop it, as there would be a count in! Of course I turned it down saying I was a musician who wanted to make music with the orchestra, not a traffic policeman waving my arms about in front of a wonderful body of players, all of whom would be ignoring me! And no, the redundancy of conductors is not really what appalls me about this! To put the opposing view, I can understand that if an artist wants to do the same thing every night, then it is very easy to just stick on a playback CD and do the same as you've done every other night. But surely, if you're a real artist then you want to do something different every night. To get that spark of spontaneity and strive to reach the heights of greatness, you have to live dangerously and do something slightly different every night. You don't want to do exactly what you did at the previous performance. There may be occasions at a live show where all does not go smoothly, but hopefully on those occasions no-one in the audience would notice. We are professionals and never fall below a certain standard. But then you can get those marvellous evenings where the performance takes on a special meaning. It has the indefinable degree of greatness that all who are there know happened, and it was shared by audience and performers alike. That is what we all strive to do every time we walk on to a concert platform. No, for me, keep music and musicians live. One reason why I adore my work with Katherine Jenkins. She is an artist that doesn't use click tracks, always sings live and together with the orchestra I think we make music that never falls below the level of wonderful. We lay ourselves open to failure every single time, and every single time we win. Everyone should do that. That's art.

Rewards in Music

There are so many rewards in music for a conductor, it is difficult to know where to start. But the rewards for musicians in an orchestra are fewer and harder to quantify. They are horrendously underpaid, yet those in the premier orchestras are at the top of their craft. They have spent years studying and have reached the pinnacle of orchestral playing. When they do a live concert, they have a 3 hour rehearsal on the day in addition to the concert (so let's say 5.5 playing hours); got to the venue either by public transport or their own car/bike; parked the same and paid for the privilege. They have had to pay for refreshments/meal, provided their (expensive) instrument and their concert clothing. All this for a fee that is sometimes scandalously in the low one hundred pounds. No, the rewards in music are not of the pecuniary sort for the musicians in an orchestra! Rather, they come in the performance that goes to a level others don't reach. And when the audience react in a way that makes you realise they too have experienced the out-of-the-ordinary, the rewards are of a different kind. This it has to be said is not a regular occurrence, the majority of performances being merely wonderful. Wonderful is good, wonderful is rewarding. But wonderful should be rewarded better, and not just by the reaction of the audience. Wonderful should be financial security. The problem we have here, is that an orchestra is labour intensive. You can't just drop a trumpet because the box-office figures don't stack up. It would be like only booking 2 original members of The Who because you can't afford all 4! Actually that's a bad example, because there are only 2 out of the 4 now left, so only 2 of the original group ever turn up! But those 2 are the originators of their music and have rearranged their music to cater for the band being cut in half, or added extra players to take the parts no longer played by the 2 original members. We can't get in touch with Beethoven and tell him to cut a trumpet and some violins! Then you have to balance the loud instruments with the soft and make sure you have enough of the soft instruments to balance with the loud! No, we are labour intensive and cannot cut. What is the solution? Performance related pay? Only get paid by the numbers in the audience? Sadly, it would be wall to wall Mozart and Tchaikovsky and then only limited pieces. Music would die and we would be thought of as a museum experience. We must experiment to find the next composer; we must experiment to be creative. The best way forward to achieve good audience numbers is for the orchestra, soloists and conductor to take the audience on a journey together. A journey of discovery and creativity. Then ensure they stay with you for life as you perform the interesting and the challenging alongside musical favourites. The problem with all that is the people who are prepared to do that, stay with you through thick and thin of the journey, are not infinite in numbers. In fact quite the opposite. This is where government and the Arts Council step in. Which may be where my next blog takes me. Meanwhile, reward better the musicians who bring you that great art with their huge talent and expertise. Otherwise, fewer musicians will be able to afford to learn an instrument, knowing their financial security for them and their family is pitiful.