How to Handle the Pit

Sunday was the first concert of my chamber series "Concerts at St. Mary's" and after months of planning and scheduling and stressing having it finally come to fruition is an amazing thing! I want to take this space to thank again Michele Williams and Nathan Hubbard who performed with me today for rolling with the punches and time restraints and helping me to put on a great show!! I also want to thank anyone who might be reading who came out. It means a lot to me how much support I have!!

Sometime soon I hope to do a post on putting together a concert series (part 1) but I want to see the aftermath of this past concert and how it effects the next one (regarding audience size especially). I am very hopeful that I can generate a strong following for years to come!

Currently I am also in the middle of the rehearsal process for Elektra with the Michigan Opera Theatre. The opera is great but a bit insane and I am so excited to have been given the opportunity to perform it! This leads us to todays topic of discussion; opera pit do's and don'ts.

Victor Borge compared the Orchestra Pit to a ditch on the side of the road calling it the "orchestra ditch" and this sometimes is exactly how it feels to be part of a production where you are cut off from the action happening on stage. I love this comparison also because when being told you will be in the "pit" you never really know what you're up for. Right now with MOT for example I am in a proper pit (uncovered) but this is not always the case. Sometimes you are in a totally separate room with microphones feeding in the sound to the theatre and sometimes you are sitting in plain view in front of or to the side of the stage.  Once while I was in San Francisco I was even in a pit that was us sitting in the front row of theatre seats! Talk about awkward...we were all staring the vocalists in the face the entire time and the conductor was facing away from them!

Having said this I am not ready to make point number 1. Make sure that the "pit black" you own also looks nice! You will never show up to a gig having not known what kind of pit you will be in but I have been totally appalled showing up to performances when we are in plain view, have been told to wear "pit black", and musicians show up in a faded black polo and black jeans. WHAT?! I mean come on you are looking into the eyes of the patrons and it is so disrespectful to them and the vocalists that you came dressed for beat poetry in a bar that illegally still allows smoking inside. "Pit black" sometimes does include black jeans, etc but please also make sure you have on hand black slacks and a black button up with a black tie. It's simple, comfortable, and looks great.

Point number 2; DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES IN THE PIT!!!! There is always that one person who thinks "oh my feet don't smell" or "I need to air these puppies out". Typically it is a musician who doesn't need to breathe as part of playing and let me tell you this is MURDER for the wind players! Your feet? The DO smell. They ALWAYS smell. Don't do it!

This brings us to smells in general (point 3). Don't wear perfume or cologne. Someone might be allergic for one thing and for another when you're in a small underground type pit the smells all combine together and make it hard to breathe after a while. This is especially true if you are a smoker because the smoke scent will follow you no matter how much you spray yourself after break and then you bring not one but TWO smells into the pit and I don't want to feel queazy while playing Mozart y'all. Lastly, please wash your performance attire before and between performances and runs of the show. Sometimes 25 musty tux jackets make the difference (and not in a good way).

My final point is keep talking in the pit to a minimum. You might feel that because you aren't seen it is ok but I find this to be exceptionally distracting while I am playing or counting rests. Also most pits now have microphones in them to help to get a better "mix" of the orchestra and chances are you will get picked up and be heard in the audience. It is not always audible but be careful...you never know what might be overheard!

Hopefully this sheds some light on life in the ditch! If you are so inclinced the performances for Elektra are; 

Satruday October 18th at 7:30 pm

Wednesday October 22nd at 7:30 pm

Saturday October 25th at 7:30 pm

Sunday October 26th at 2:30 pm

The Elektra set from the pit

Blah!

Sometimes it is hard to care. Sometimes it is hard to want to work hard. Sometimes the idea of getting up is so daunting that we pretend the alarm never happened.

I am the first to admit that although it appears that I am always optimistic, always trying to move forward, and am "doing it" that I have my days as well where I wish real life could pause itself. Sometimes I want to wrap myself in a blanket burrito with Netflix and eat chinese food and pretend that I am 12 years old again (cough cough last night). This has been a lot of the past week for me honestly. The spark has fizzled out a bit.

The reason I felt the need to write today (considering I also did not want to blog this week) is that I allow myself to embrace these feelings because I know that my personality will eventually take back over and kick me in the ass like I need it to. That is something that as musicians, artists, workers of any kind we need to train ourselves to be. I am naturally a go-getter but after so many tumbles and falls there is a point where anyone will break down a bit and it is only with constant diligence that we our able to train ourselves to care beyond what is natural. 

Let's face it, if you want a career in the arts that's what you need. You need to care beyond what is natural and take pride in what you produce. You do not have the privilege to waltz into a rehearsal super hung over and just kind of "keep your head down" because your tone and intonation will suffer and be noticed. "Dressing down" a bit one day is not possible when the dress code for most orchestral performances is a tux and any other time you are more than likely to be asked to wear some kind of button up shirt tie combo (if you're a guy at least). Worrying about work before you get there is unavoidable if you warm up prior to rehearsal and honestly the soundtrack in my head is enough to deafen anyone.

When life gives you lemons, sometimes you just need to bite down hard. Accept the sour taste it leaves you with. We can learn from it and we can also just let it pass. Eventually you will feel normal again. And if you don't? Play Bach.

B-Randon...OUT!