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Music Media Businesses The Almighty Buck

Computers Replace Musicians In West End Musical 411

Posted by timothy from the sorry-fellas dept.
Albanach writes "The Scotsman newspaper is reporting that despite opposition from the Musician's Union, Sir Cameron Mackintosh will proceed with his plan to replace one half of the musicians in his musical Les Miserables with a computer synthesiser. The Times claims that using Sinfonia will allow the show, the third longest running musical in history, to replace 11 musicians saving 5,000 GBP ($9,450 US) per week. Sinfonia consisits of 2 PCs, one master and one backup, controlled by an trained operator using a musical keyboard."
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Computers Replace Musicians In West End Musical More

Computers Replace Musicians In West End Musical

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  • Someone had to say it (Score:5, Funny)

    by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:05AM (#8279453)
    The musicians are not going to be any Less Miserable.

    Sorry :)

    • Re:Someone had to say it (Score:5, Informative)

      by commanderfoxtrot ( 115784 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @02:03PM (#8280497) Homepage
      Many years ago (1996?)... the Finn brothers wrote Sibelius [sibelius.com] for Acorn computers; it was (and probably still is in its latest guise) classical composing software in the world. Users bought Acorn Risc PCs solely for Sibelius. Now it runs on Mac and Windows and Acorn's RISC OS is almost forgotten.

      Circa 1997, Sibelius was connected to a grand piano and played a formidably complex Liszt piece to an enraptured audience. God knows how many clever features it has now!

      Part of the appeal of the program is that it does not play the notes at the exact time specified by the score but can play in various styles, playing with human-like timing.

  • Here's One Positive (Score:4, Funny)

    by tealover ( 187148 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:05AM (#8279454)
    At least they didn't outsource their jobs to India !

    • Re:Here's One Positive (Score:5, Funny)

      by rishistar ( 662278 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:10AM (#8279485) Homepage
      Yes, but wait until the theatre gets hooked up to broadband!

    • Re:Here's One Positive (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Where do you think the software was written?
    • "The Sinfonia is a device that stores samples of every instrument involved in the orchestral score and permits an operator to provide the instrumental performances to represent the missing conventional instrumentalists. The Union understands there are no trained operators in the UK at present."

      Well hell, its not like there isn't room for any of those musicians to learn the Sinfonia and get what is likely a higher paying gig than they were getting. If you don't think other musicals aren't going to follow s

  • Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:06AM (#8279461) Journal
    People go (or in my case, get dragged) to see live orchestras because it is music being played by actual musicians. That is what differentiates the experience from merely listening to the songs on a stereo.

    What is the point in going to see live, but fake, music?

    • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:4, Informative)

      by acd294 ( 685183 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:09AM (#8279483) Homepage
      Well the point is valid, but Les Miserables is a play. So the live music is sort of background to the story. In fact, most of the time you can't even see the orchetra.

      • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The entire play, music and all, equals the whole of the experience. I can't remember ever going to a play and not seeing the live orchestra (even if they were in dark shadow).

        • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fshalor ( 133678 ) <fshalor@comcas t . net> on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:53PM (#8280085) Homepage Journal
          As someone who has more than 5 musicals in a pit playing trombone, and another one working crew including:
          1. La Cage A Follies
          2. Gypsy
          3. Anyonw Can Whistle
          4. Peter Pan
          5. Scruge
          6. Sunday in the park with George
          7. Jekyl and Hyde.

          I can say without a doubt that I can and will be able to tell the difference. I can also say with 100% assurance that I am not th only one who can tell te difference.

          This is actually a rather interesting development. And I must add a few points.

          1. Musicians are underpaid in general. The musicals I've done usually barely paid for gas. But then again, no one gets paid in this group, even though the group is very good. (One of the best in the state.)
          2. Poorer groups may not be able to afford musicians. I know this one wouldn't, it there weren't enough musicians in the town willing to do the gig for peanuts, and *able* :)
          3. Thus in these cases, there may be an excuse for doing "taped" runs, or better, what this article is suggesting.
          4. In Jekyl and Hyde, we used a really good yamaha keyboard to cover all the uncoverable parts (ie, cello and some harpsicord and chimes parts, etc.) This was mostly due to space concerns, but MAN-O MAN; patches have came a Long way in the last 5 years.

          Still, this makes me cringe that groups who CAN pay for good musicians aren't willing to anymore. To me, for a group that is in that situation, it is a cop out of sorts. It takes away one of the dangers of things falling apart. It brings the group back from that edge, and locks it into the one keyboard jocky and the computer.

          Call me a nut, but some of the best moments I've ever felt in music were when things weren't going 100% the way they were rehersed. The combined human factor of 10 pit musicians relizing that Mr. Hyde was going crazy with his stuff tonight made something come alive.

          I would feel bad not allowing moments like that to go to the audience.

          Next up: record the whole damn thing and play it on a big screen. Oh, wait.. Ooops. Thats a movie. :)

          • Let's face it... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Kjella ( 173770 )
            As someone who has more than 5 musicals in a pit playing trombone, and another one working crew including: (...)

            Call me a nut, but some of the best moments I've ever felt in music were when things weren't going 100% the way they were rehersed. The combined human factor of 10 pit musicians relizing that Mr. Hyde was going crazy with his stuff tonight made something come alive.

            Now call me a nut, but unless you're really into a specific show (like, go see it multiple times) you won't notice if it's a bit of

      • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Killer Napkin ( 221026 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:24AM (#8279562)
        Actually, Les Miserables is a musical. The music and the story go hand in hand. To make half the experience artificial is to taint the other half, also. It's not like people aren't going to be able to tell.

      • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

        by darnok ( 650458 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:28AM (#8279573)
        Here goes the karma...

        Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

        The fact that large chunks of this production of Les Mis can be played by synths tends to suggest that either the arrangements are either very straightforward or that they're particularly avant garde (i.e. it might actually be tough to find/afford musicians who can do them justice). The simple fact is (and I've been a muso in a past life so I'm gonna get beaten up if any of several people read this!) that the synths are probably *better* able to deliver the musical background that the director wants to achieve. They don't make mistakes, they don't break up with their partners just before the show, and they won't get better offers elsewhere.

        Bottom line: people don't go to Les Mis to hear the orchestra play, and probably very few of them know or care whether "real" musicians are playing. They go because they think it's a good story and/or to see specific actors and/or because the director may have done something interesting with it.
        • There is one distinct advantage of having real musicians and that is if one of the actors or whatever makes a mistake they are much more able to deal with the problem than a computer is.

          Imho, good musicians will play the music very well and will also interpret the music - that means that the score is just a guide really. An example would be to listen to a good orchestra play the pink panther and then listen to a basic orchestra that just plays the notes, without interpretation or feeling. It just sounds

          • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:3, Informative)

            by Alyeska ( 611286 )
            First, you design the score around mistakes by segmenting the music and creating arrangements that allow for actors flukes: Longer monologue this night, faster pace the next, etc. With a little design you can get around that.

            Second, the people who design these computerized scores and arrangements are musicians, too, very capable of making interpretive/expressive music.

            • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:3, Insightful)

              by qtp ( 461286 )
              I beleive the point that Darnok is making is that replacing the musician's live performance with an automated playback reduces the feedback between cast and orchestra, in a sense you are reducing the performance to a static, dead tthing, you may as well just watch the video.

              Plays, includuing musicals, are not the same as movies, and new arrangements of the story, changed dialogue, different emphesis are not only expected between one cast and another, but also happen during the production run. In musicals,

          • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Informative)

            by n3k5 ( 606163 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:25PM (#8280281) Journal
            The parent post must have been modded to 5, insightful by clueless ppl who haven't RTFA. Okay, I also haven't read it yet, but I know Sinfonia. This isn't just a synthesizer that reproduces MIDI data coming out of a can, it is an instrument that allows the stored score to be interpreted by a musician, in real time. There is still a musician who follows the conductor closely, who sees the stage and reacts to everything happening there. He is just able to play the parts of several 'traditional' musicians at once, and it would be hard to argue that this really poses any disadvantage for the audience. Once single musician might even be able to do more. If a dancer stumbles, a conductor might want his orchestra to repeat the last two bars, but there is no chance of this actually happening, if they tried to do this, they would be thrown completely off track. With Sinfonia, however, this is no problem at all.

            It is true that good musicians sound much better than a machine just reading notes off a sheet. However, Sinfonia _is_ fed with good interpretations played by good musicians. The same interpretations will be used in every show, while a real musician's performance would vary. But who's going to complain about that?
        • Actually, I think large chunks of the production are played /on/ synths, rather than /by/ them. So the arrangements can be anything from precise Bach chorales to Alban Berg's 12-tone funkitude, and real live musicians will still be playing along with the conductor, using the Sinfonia thing as an instrument. So those 11 musicians are really being replaced by two musicians, who play a machine.

          The thing that concerns me isn't the lack of musicians (even though I'm a musician myself.) It's the non-live soun

        • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NormalVisual ( 565491 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:34PM (#8279976)
          Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

          How is this different from a symphony concert? Everyone's playing what's on the stand in front of them, with little to no creative input.

          The difference is in the performance itself - the performances are a little different from night to night, and a full orchestra that's paying attention to what's happening onstage will be able to compensate seamlessly with any differences in the show from night to night (dropped line, missed coda, etc.) Up until about two years ago, I had regularly performed in a pit orchestra for about 15 years, and it *does* make a difference. It's even more of a difference for something like "Les Mis", where the music is such an integral part of the show.

          Knowing that a show was sequenced/synthesized would definitely temper my enthusiasm at seeing it.

          • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Informative)

            by JamieF ( 16832 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:15PM (#8280216) Homepage
            >How is this different from a symphony concert? Everyone's playing what's on the stand in front of them,
            Yes...

            >with little to no creative input.
            Wrong. Music notation is an abstraction of the notes and timing that the composer wants the performer to play, but it isn't complete. The conductor and performers read a lot into it. Some music is written without ornamentation, but with the understanding that the performer will add it themselves. Other music is written with the intention that all the notes are predefined, but with the knowledge that a performer is going to add timing, vibratto, attack, and velocity nuances to the music when it's performed. Just because modern music notation has symbols for all sorts of performance details doesn't mean that the written music actually employs all of that. There's an assumption that the performer can look at the music and know how to bring it to life.

            Compare that to a sampler or synth. Those are just going to play the notes exactly as written, and it won't even sound as good as a robot playing the actual instrument because the sound is spliced together from single-note samples. You can sample multiple notes and add performance rules such as when to use rubato, but that's only as good as the person who wrote the software. Maybe someday with enough CPU power, samples will be replaced with acoustical models of real instruments and motion-capture of world-class performers, but we're not there yet (and those top-class performers would be stupid to do that anyway).

            Being a performing musician is more than just being able to play the notes as written with no mistakes.
          • Yeah, I agree. It does make a difference. Performances are different night to night. Maybe someone on stage wants to go faster, or stretch something out. Or maybe the audience reacted to a joke better than before. Can the sythn know to vamp a little longer?

            I dunno. I think a lot of this is grubby theater producers wanting to get all the money they can. So, musicians are the first thing to get cut.

        • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

          by FredFnord ( 635797 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:47PM (#8280054)
          > Unless someone's done something interesting with arrangements, the musicians playing the score for Les Mis have
          > very little to no creative input in the music they're producing. They play what's on the score, and there's very little interaction
          > between the cast and orchestra in a typical concert hall.

          I'd hate to be in any of the shows YOU'VE been in. In the shows I perform in, there is plenty of interaction between cast and orchestra. Mediated, of course, through the CONDUCTOR. That's what he's there for. And the conductor is supposed to pick up the vibe from the audience, and will if he's any good, which adds a third party into the mix.

          As soon as you add a synth playing six parts at once, then your tempos can't vary, you can't easily alter dynamics from night to night (unless you want to alter them all in exactly the same way, which is a bad idea), and basically you end up with a much inferior performance. But since people don't actually know what a stage show should look like these days anyway, nobody misses anything. And hey, if people will pay just as much for an inferior performance that costs less to produce, then that's what they'll get.

          -fred
          • As soon as you add a synth playing six parts at once, then your tempos can't vary...

            RTFA. In fact, the tempos and dynamics can vary. The conductor can skip or repeat verses, add ritards or rallantandos, and the system follows along [rms.biz]. This thing is NOT a dumb MIDI sequencer that plays to a click-track.

            You can argue over the morals of replacing half a pit orchestra with computers, but 99% of the audience won't be able to separate the live instruments from the synthesized/sampled ones.

            As for whether it will
        • They can save a lot of money on trained vocalist actors by getting regular actors to lip-synch to studio recorded vocal tracks, too. So Le Mis becomes, essentially, a Milli Vanilla concert.

          SoupIsGood Food
    • Too true! And I'm wondering who will fill in the other half of the orchestra. No doubt the Musicians Union will be picketing the show. Good luck to any scabs trying to sneak past with a double bass!

    • Re:Defeats the purpose (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alyeska ( 611286 )
      People go the theatre to see the story and actors. In a musical, they go to hear the singers. I've been scoring theatre productions for years with MIDI/synths/samplers, and the only complaints have been from performing musicians.

      The fact is that theatre companies can't all afford to hire and orchestra and pay for rehearsal space.

    • Defeat's whose purpose? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      I think it is appropriate that "Le Miz" is leading the way in this area. I've seen a few of these mega-musicals, and they are theater for dummies. If you read the Hugo's book (highly recommended), you realize exactly how how little respect the producers have for the taste and intelligence of their audiences. It's all about getting people to shell out way north of $100 per seat so they can sit there with their brains turned off.

      What they are trying to do is ape Hollywood movies with explosions and eye popp

  • that's too bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DRUNK_BEAR ( 645868 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:07AM (#8279467)
    I don't mind technology easying things out or to offer a divertissement (in the form of games, etc), but when it comes to art I have a hard time with it replacing entirely humans. Art should be a form of expression, not an automated process.

    Just my 0.02$

    • I agree, but let's look at this from sir Cameron Mackintosh's perspective, he is more interested in flawlessness and accuracy, which the automation will give him without fail.

    • Re:that's too bad (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hcetSJ ( 672210 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:08PM (#8279796)
      In an opera like Les Mis, however, people don't usually come to the performance hoping to hear the orchestra. The majority of the art is performed on stage--in the form of acting and singing. The orchestra provides accompaniment to the main attraction on stage. Also, within the orchestra certain instruments usually "take center stage" more often--the first violins, the brass, and so on--and these are likely the last to be replaced by synth. So really, what they've done here is replaced the backup voices in the accompaniment with a machine. If it keeps the show open longer, it's worth it.
    • They're not replacing the composer with computers, music is still going to need to be written by people who can feel. They're just using computers here to perform the more technical tasks. The people in the pit orchestra aren't expressing themselves, they're reproducing the music on the paper to the best of their abilities. Seems like the perfect candidate for automation, as much as I hate to see my musician friends losing another opportunity for work.

  • Replacing players. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:08AM (#8279476)
    What not replace the entire orchestra with a CD player? Then you avoid having to use the Sinfonia's capability to play along with live musicans.

    The actors and set could also be replaced by projecting an image of a pre-recorded performance onto a large screen.

    If there was a way to distribute this recording, people could watch it on smaller projection screens at home, and avoid the cost of theatre tickets and the hassle of having to travel to the theatre.

    The only hard part would by syncronising the CD player to the projection, but I'm sure someone will come up with a method in the future.

    • Re:Replacing players. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ZoneGray ( 168419 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:33AM (#8279601) Homepage
      >> replace the entire orchestra with a CD player

      I think that's how They Might Be Giants got off the ground... they started out just the two of them and a cassette recorder, and it enabled them to do a lot of gigs that a full band couldn't. They'd just throw their stuff on the train and go play down in Philly or Baltimore, then take the train back to NY the same night; full bands with drums, amps, and stuff just couldn't play gigs outside the city. At a time when most NY bands were looking for that one score that would persuade the music industry to push them into the public eye, TMBG were able to quietly built an actual following.

  • I hope nobody finds out, or they're done for. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:09AM (#8279480)
    The point of going to a live show is just that -- to hear live music from an orchestra of real musicians. Jean Michel Jarre, in particular, has already lost a lot of concert-goers when they found out he sometimes used pre-sequenced synths instead of using an army of keyboardists and playing the lead himself, live.

    Sure, some people go to a musical just for the lights, costumes and action... but how many are there? Surely the majority go for the music?
    • And this is something that has always boggled my mind. You go to hear music for the music, and the sights, and sounds, and smells, and feel, and tastes (just wanted to cover the 5 senses there). If everything sounds right (and looks right, etc.), what the hell does it matter what's behind the curtain. To think that a person could enjoy a concert thoroughly and have their enjoyment dashed by someone saying "the music was prerecorded" boggles my mind. That statement doesn't change a single sweet note of t
      • going to a concert and hearing someone play some difficult music, you think "wow, it's great to experience such great talent".

        if it turns out they were just faking it with a CD playing then it IS devalued.

        consider your argument in another context: someone scores 100% in a difficult exam. you think they must be very good. then the examiner tells you he was caught cheating, so you don't think he's good any more. then the examiner says he was talking about another guy who got 100%, so you think he's good onc
        • Good response. I guess what I'm saying is that I find the whole concept of enjoying difficult music for its difficultness is beyond me. Maybe it's just my own tastes, but my qualifiers for the music I like are just the sounds, plain and simple. If they're produced by a human or a synth doesn't matter, as I'm not listening to the method of production, but the sounds.

          As for the exam, that's a bit of a flawed example (or, rather, it is flawed for a person with my approach to music). The important thing i
          • Your approach seems to be the "end justifies the mean" approach. There's nothing wrong with it, but many people go to these presentations to appreciate the means. There may come a time when holographic actors are indistinguishable from real actors, but some people will still have more appreciation for the human actors. It may not exactly be logical, but I don't think this perception will change anytime soon. On the flip side, others will appreciate the technology that went into being able to fake the wh
          • Okay, let's bring the analogy back to music. Would you be okay if you went to see your favorite band and they simply inserted their CD and pretended to play and sing? What if they didn't even record the original CD (a la Milli Vanilli), would you still pay to see the show?

            I've never been big on seeing live orchestas (though I've been to a few musicals with live orchestras), but I've see plenty of live music and you get something you don't from a CD. There's something very impressive about seeing a skil

      • > Maybe, just maybe, people should decide their opinions of art based on the art, not on the meta-discussion behind it and the
        > concensus of the cultural elite.

        This is fine for people who don't know anything about music.

        Music changes from performance to performance. One night the audience gets excited at one part of the show... the director speeds everything up a little, brings up the tympani, gets the singers to kick it up a notch. Or maybe he slows things down, stretches out the tension until a

  • A form of expression? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cardpuncher ( 713057 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:11AM (#8279491)
    >Art should be a form of expression, not an automated process

    The average West End musical is a form of business. The main art involved is that of making a profit.

  • What about the other half? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cannon_trodder ( 264217 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:12AM (#8279496)
    Although he can replace half, there are still jobs that he needs real musicians for. I wonder if those musicians would boycott or try to put him under pressure to use real musicians for everything? They must still have some leverage if they are needed for the parts that computers can't do...

    If the show is not making enough money then that is because it is past it's "sell-by" date. If it's just to make more money by cutting costs then it's pretty disgusting really. Yeah, he might make more money but how about putting money back into the community of musicians who made LM possible when computerisation was not an option? Guess I'm just an old softie really...
    • Union/guild infighting a big deal on Broadway - this probably REALLY rubs them the wrong way because a long musicians strike was just resolved last year. You can, of course, replace the entire orchestra with a sound tech and a technician. This is the norm in theatres that don't have an orchestra. The whole point of a major Broadway musical is the production, including a live orchestra. Otherwise you way as well just watch it on TV.

    • Re:What about the other half? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by weave ( 48069 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:33AM (#8279605) Journal
      This is only the beginning. One of the big reasons for a live orchestra was timing. The conductor has to ensure the music stays synced with what's happening on the stage. With a straight recording, that isn't possible. But now thanks to the ability to control the tempo of the music through a computer in real time, they really won't need ANY of them eventually.

      I wonder if Sir Cameron Mackintosh has a Macintosh and recently got his copy if iLife '04 and started playing around with GarageBand or something!

    • I know reading the article is not considered good form, but it might be worth noting that the theatre they are playing at can only hold 11 musicians!

  • Did anyone notice..... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Insipid Trunculance ( 526362 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:15AM (#8279504) Homepage
    that the salary of a professional musician ,who has most probably spent years of training and hard work ,working for a major west end production makes only 450 a week(and this figure is most probably gross).Waiters earn this sum working 7-8 shifts.I mean what happened to cultural society?

    How many musicians give up just because they cant survive on these wages?I am appalled.
    • The life of an artist has always been a meager one. Only on rare occassions does a musician, painter, or poet earn a gainful existance off their art alone. This is why you see so many artists that are alos waiters, waitresses, coffee shop workers, and teachers.

      Basically, as an artist, unless you are a really famous poet, lauded painter, sought after comic book artist, best-selling writer, or a pop music star, you are broke.

    • Re:Did anyone notice..... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by darnok ( 650458 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:36AM (#8279623)
      I think, more than anything else, the salary of an orchestral musician reflects the fact that they're generally (a) highly replaceable, and (b) not a key component of the overall package. I'm not saying they're not highly skilled, but there's an awful lot of unemployed musicians out there prepared to work for peanuts.

      Exceptions obviously exist, but how often would people fork out cash to go to a play or musical because a particular musician is involved?

    • Re:Did anyone notice..... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:45AM (#8279681)
      Are you implying I cannot make a living doing whatever the heck I want?
      Well that just sucks.
      I am going to have to give up on my reading Slashdot career now.
    • Hear, hear! I've been a professional musician for 20 years. I've been very succesful, played on Broadway shows (the US version of West End), Grammy-winning multi-platinum cds, international tours and TV shows etc. If you listen to the radio or watch TV, you've likely heard me play. I'm not saying this to brag, but to concur, in part, to the parent.

      I've spent most of my life practicing, and studying my instrument, easily enough time to have gotten a graduate degree. And I get: waking up in motel rooms, stand

  • I think they'll find that while samplers can recreate the basic acoustical sound of an instrument perfectly, it just can't handle the incredible detail and expression that comes from having a good musician play the instrument live. I guess I could understand it in a normal play, but in a musical?
    • Can they recreate the sound perfectly? I doubt it. Wavetable synthesis generally doesn't involve recording every possible tone the instrument can play. Some tones are generated from others so it's not perfect. Hopefully this system uses a lot of samples.

      I'm also pretty sure that a musician playing the actual instrument can change more parameters than you can change on a synthesizer simulating that.

      Even if you had a perfect recording of sound you wouldn't have the same radiation pattern from your speake

  • Well, I was going to say... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by juglugs ( 652924 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:15AM (#8279511) Homepage
    I was just about to bring up the hypothetical situation that the music has to be adaptable to any hiccups that occur on the stage - i.e. an actor forgets a cue so the orchestra plays an extra intro bar.
    However, I was working in the theatre when the first automated lighting desks appeared and a skillfull operator could always adapt or delay when changing to the next "scene".
    Having said that, lighting is secondary to the performance compared with the music - jumping around the place would be kind of stupid. How do they cope with non-scripted events?

    I'm also of the opinion that we pay pretty high ticket prices to see a "live" performance - both for the actors and the musicians - I think I'd feel ripped off knowing that it was a computer orchestra..

    • The Sinfonia site [rms.biz] mentions that the operator can alter how it plays the music, presumably by skipping back by a few bars. Anyhow, as I mention in my comment further down, such slipups are very rare in a long-running professional production.

      Having said that, last time I went to see Les Mis, with full orchestra, it was actually fairly poor musically. So maybe that'll improve, who knows.

  • Ticket Price better be cheaper (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cosmol ( 143886 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:24AM (#8279559)
    When you buy a ticket to a live performance, you expect to see real live humans performing. If some of the human performers have been replaced with machines, one should expect the ticket prices to be lower.

    I would gladly spend "full" price to see a performance which was originally meant to be done by machines. But if the spirit of a performance is changed solely to cut costs, the savings should be passed along to me, or I'd rather spend my money on the real thing.

    • At a guess, a large consideration in this decision was to reduce the cost of "delivering" the music.

      If so, maybe this was the only way they could afford to stage the show at all.

    • As the article says, it wasn't directly to cut costs, it was because they're moving to a smaller theatre where the pit can only accommodate twelve or so musicians. I'm guessing they're moving to a smaller venue because of falling audience numbers, so that is probably a factor. But if it's a case of using a computerised orchestra or the show going bankrupt, which would you choose?

  • This battle already fought in New York (Score:5, Informative)

    by yelvington ( 8169 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:29AM (#8279581) Homepage
    This issue led to a battle between producers and the musicians union in New York last spring, which eventually resulted in a four-day strike ended by a new contract brokered by the mayor's office. The compromise preserves live orchestras, but reduces the required size. Most media coverage has expired (or moved into paid archives) but a simple Google search turns up:

    Anti-synthesizer advocacy site. [savelivebroadway.com]

    Sinfonia article. [sltrib.com]

    Settlement story. [ccchronicle.com]
    • No problem. Once such music-synthesizing software programs will grow smarter, they will create their own unions.

      So, what laws says about conflicts between unions?

      Well, knowing unions I can say they will unite soon, and the battle will be over. The music producer will have to hire either alive musicians from the union, or the software from the same union.

      Everyone's happy. Problem's solved.

  • Most of us are only looking at some musicians who will be losing this particular job. When you have a career or an ability, you have to gauge your chances of marketing said ability. If I was a horse-shoer or a gaslamp-lighter, I'd probably not find many job opportunities.

    It is said that these individuals have lost these particular jobs, but what about what others have gained? The producers of this show will save money, which means they'll have more disposable income to spend on other things they want (m
    • If I go to the opera or to a musical, I expect live musicians and actors/singers. If I wanted canned music, I would save a bunch of money and buy a CD or DVD. I don't care how many whiz-bang gadgets are in the synthesizer, it isn't going to sound like real musicians playing real instruments.
      • No, ONE customer minds. One customer makes not a profitable business. If this business' owners believe they can make a profit by throwing away live musicians, then they can only do so if their customers are willing to accept it. You may decide to not go to this particular theater, and spend your dollars wisely elsewhere.
      • If there were more people like you around, Britney wouldn't stand a chance. In fact, you're probably already depriving her of income she's entitled to by not buying her music.

        That's it buddy - I'm calling the RIAA!

        The simple fact is - most people would rather hear music played "perfectly" and look at the pretty pictures, than listen to the mistakes that real musos make.

  • not a lot of savings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vijayiyer ( 728590 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:38AM (#8279630)
    $10k per week? At a conservative $50 a pop, that's only equivalent to 200 people in the door - per week. It's sad that they're compromising the art for relatively small savings.

  • Read the article - small pit! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jmorzins ( 86648 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @11:45AM (#8279675)
    If you've been following this story, you see that the musicians aren't being replaced merely for the sake of autmation. The issue is that the particular theater is tiny, and the musician's pit can hold only about a dozen musicians.

    The producer's viewpoint is that people who go to see Les Mis want to hear the full Les Mis sound, so he's using recorded music to fill in the for the people that the pit doesn't hold.
  • Since pretty much all the well known musicals today are found in New York City on Broadway. This presents a problem because people aren't going to New York as much as they use to due to terrorism concerns. Some musicals had to close because no one was going to NYC. I don't know if the audience numbers have returned to pre-Sept 11th levels or not, but saving a little money can be helpful. However, it really does ruin the experiance, sure the music may be accurate everytime, but I think that the a real musici

  • Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RussGarrett ( 90459 ) * <russ.garrett@co@uk> on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:08PM (#8279794) Homepage

    Mackintosh says he's been forced to do this by moving to the smaller theatre because the pit can only accommodate 11 musicians. Where exactly does the Musicians' Union want to put the rest of the orchestra? Suspend them from the ceiling?

    Reading the rather limited blurb [rms.biz] about the Sinfonia on the manufacturer's site, it's not like the orchestra or conductor is playing to a click-track or anything, the Sinfonia is operated by someone, presumably playing along to a piano part or some other lead part under the control of the conductor, then the synths on it follow that. Which means the conductor still has overall control of the orchestra, and it seems that the Sinfonia operator can even repeat bars or whatever, in response to what's happening on stage (although in a professional musical, an actor forgetting their line is somewhat unlikely, those things run like clockwork).

    Yes, there's no substitute for live musicians, but if it's a case between the show going ahead or not (such as this case [rms.biz] on RMS's site), then the answer is obvious to me. It's rather amusing that the musicians' unions are worried, they should be comforted in the knowledge that they can do better than a synth. Indeed, RMS claim that the Sinfonia can free up room for more live musicians by reducing the need for seperate synth players.

    Still, I'd like to have a play with it before I'm fully convinced :).

  • I was right in the middle of a solo, and the music went like beep beep beep and then it was dead and I had to start all over again! And it was a really good solo!

  • "to replace 11 musicians saving 5,000 GBP ($9,450 US) per week."

    That works out to $454.54 per week per musician.
    I can assure you that these guys aren't living a rockstar life.
    Perhaps the musicians will feel rewarded by the irony of the situation?

  • This does work (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pbooktebo ( 699003 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:22PM (#8279905)
    As long as the computer is synched with the group by a person, the quality of this will be more than acceptable.

    If you're listening, you'll notice that much of TV and movie music is already computerized (often with one or two real woodwinds or a real guitar, which gives it enough life to satisfy nearly anyone).

    And, although the tradition of theater is for live music, our musical environments and tastes are constantly being shaped by techno, hip-hop, and even rock that relies upon computerized beats aesthetically (intentionally, to create non-human sounding grooves etc.), so many people like what they hear.

    I remember being surprised reading Miles Davis' Autobiography, where he talks about making the switch to a drum machine for his records (in the 1980's). He basically said that it was easier, sounded great, and the time was better. He was convincing.

    Now, in terms of putting musicians out of work, and creating a culture where most musicians don't have a chance to learn to be great by playing in bars, cafes, and pit orchestras (even Stravinsky did this in Paris), instead giving us a stream of good musicians who can't interact with a crowd or good-looking performers with shallow musical abilities? That's another, and much sadder, story.

  • In Other News.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scot Seese ( 137975 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:27PM (#8279929)
    Britney Spears is scheduled to be replaced by two writers, a perfect-pitch filter, and a hacked Aibo.

  • Being a musician myself (violin + percussion), I have heard many stories of this, where live musicians are being replaced by synthesizers. I've never encountered this myself, due to the fact that I don't play professionally, but it is an ongoing trend. What is the point to go watch a performance if half of the orchestra is computerized? What's to prevent you from duplicating this at home (besides the obvious gap in technology)? Musicians already have a hard time finding a source of income, and now their
    • And how about all of the composers who worked hard, but can never get access to an orchestra?

      Americans are used to hearing their music generated by amps & speakers. Maybe I can tell the difference and appreciate a real orchestra, but they can't. I'm happy that I can actually write and produce a score for a live production that will run for weeks. That was impossible with the cost of an orchestra.

  • Not so bad (Score:5, Funny)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:33PM (#8279968)
    So they outsourced the musicians eh? Well, at least the drummers are safe.

  • Lost Respect (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nuintari ( 47926 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @12:45PM (#8280046) Homepage
    Wow, I have just lost a lot of respect for Les Mis. I go to see a show such as les mis to expiriance the talent that goes into performing it, the stage performers, the musiciansa, hell, even the ingenious nature of the stage crew entertains me. I do not go to shows to hear a computer reguritate the same shit each time.

    I guess I won't be seeing/hearing les mis anymore.

    I say this as a computer geek, and a drummer.

  • I go to hear EVERYTHING! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oboist311 ( 627447 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:10PM (#8280180)

    Les Miserables is a musical, not a play. The music is vital for setting the mood of the piece. Each character has his or her own motif which lets gives you insight into the characters. For Wagner, this was almost more important for character development than the libretto (lyrics) itself. When I go to a musical, I pay for the best seats so I can sit close to the pit. I want to see the conductor carefully watching the actors on stage and communicating with the musicians so that everything stays together. It is truly an amazing thing to see a large group of people perform together in sync.

    When I was in high school, I got to see a touring company of Les Miserables. One of the parts I looked forward to seeing the most was after the barricades fall and Jean Valjean looks through the bodies for Marius. There is a huge oboe solo that plays the melody to Jean Valjean's song, "Bring Him Home." This music conveys to the audience that although Jean Valjean knows he will lose his daughter to Marius by saving him, he knows that is what he should do. As an oboe student, I listened carefully how the musician interpreted the solo. It was a rare opportunity for me to get to hear someone else besides my teachers, and a machine simply would not have been the same.

    Once in college as a music major, I got to experience the musicians' union's pettiness. Many times we had to sit in rehearsal for several minutes not allowed to rehearse because our morning rehearsal had gone over several minutes and the union members' lunch break had to be exactly sixty minutes. However when it came time to play, people would get over their egos and make music. (Musicians have always been difficult to deal with - Bach stabbed a bassoonist and Handel tried to throw a soprano out a window!).

    Next month, my elementary school music students are going to get a great opportunity. The Nashville Opera company is travelling to our rural mining town and performing The Barber of Seville. The school had a choice whether to watch the performance on a live internet broadcast or have a scaled down version of the opera travel to the school. We chose to have the opera come to the school because seeing it live will engage the students better and just be more exciting for them. The children are prettty pumped about it, too.

    It saddens me to think that Les Mis has to move to a smaller theater because of declining ticket sales. Perhaps it would be better to let it close with a little dignity instead of letting go on forever like Cats. But Cameron Macintosh was responsible for Cats lingering on forever too!

  • As a theatre professional... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WesternActor ( 300755 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:16PM (#8280221) Homepage
    I have mixed feelings about this. While I believe very strongly that live music is a vital part of the theatrical experience when attending a musical, the proliferation of poor amplification or just too much amplification reduces the orchestral accompaniment in most musicals to little more than a wall of mostly uncolored sound anyway. That, of course, is why producers can get away with this--when the sound is changed/distorted electronically, the application of virtual orchestras will make it sound just good enough to be passable. You assign the particularly lively or agile passages of the score to the live musicians and let the virtual orchestra play everything else. Why not? In most cases, the audience won't be able to tell. But I think it does truly alter the experience. I've seen performances of (professional) shows using taped/recorded music, and while this isn't exactly the same thing, the experience doesn't compare with seeing a musical with a live orchestra. And, of course, that experience doesn't compare with a full-sized orchestra unamplified with unamplified singers. That is the best, most natural way to go, but that's a battle that has mostly been lost in the professional theatre arena anyway.

    Les Miserables has to move out of its current theater because of renovations, and the theater they're moving into is the only one currently available. But, as it's quite a bit smaller, there's not enough room for the orchestra. But I find it odd, then, that the stage is big enough for the show (which, itself, is quite big) or the cast (which is also quite big), but the pit isn't big enough for the orchestra. And, of course, by ripping out a row or two of seats, the orchestra pit could easily be expanded. But no one wants to do that, because it would cut into the profits. The easiest thing to do for audiences who mostly don't know or care about the difference between virtual music and live music is to replace musicians. But at what point does reducing Les Miserables or any show make it no longer the same show? At a certain point during the Broadway run of the show, they just cut 15 minutes out of it to get it to run under three hours so they would have to stop paying the cast overtime. But the ticket prices, of course, didn't go down. Rest assured that audiences paying to see Les Miserables in London will not be paying less for fewer live musicians. The difference will go right into Cameron Mackintosh's pocket, as is always the case.

    Personally, I think when it comes time to start cheating the audience out of the full experience of the show, as in either the current London case or the Broadway one I mentioned above, it might be best to just close the show and move on. But that's speaking from an audience member's perspective--from the perspective of someone who is something of an industry insider, sure, take the customers who don't know the difference for as much money as you can. The ones who do know the difference probably have already seen Les Miserables one or more times and have no desire to go back to see a reduced version of the show.

  • It really is different (Score:5, Insightful)

    by violajack ( 749427 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:23PM (#8280267)
    To address a few of the concerns raised here:

    Les Mis is not a play, it is a musical. In fact, there is little to no spoken word in Les Mis making it almost an opera, which would make the music quite important.

    Many people seem to think that if all the musicians are doing is playing from the score, then a machine may as well be doing it. To me, that's like saying, "if all the actors are doing is reading from the script, then we may as well replace them with robots." The fact is, despite the mess of markings that is a classical score, there are many more things not on that page that musicians are expected to fill in. There is a passion and subtlety of emotion, expression, articualtion, and sound that no machine can reproduce.

    As a classicaly trained musician soon to graduate with my Master's in performance, I may be a bit biased, but the majority of my training hinges on those very points. Playing the music on the page is a given, you just have to be able to do at least that. What gets you a job and makes the music worth listening to, is doing more than what's on the page.

    Now admittedly, that's hard to do for a show that's been running for so long. Many people have pointed out the business end of this decission. So, lets look at this from a business point of view...If the market demand for performance of this show no longer supports it being preformed in a space big enough, then the market has no more need for this show. Maybe it's time to learn a new show.

    I think that all adds up to about $.04. Thanks for reading

  • Why. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Saturday February 14, 2004 @01:38PM (#8280353) Journal
    Have any of you stopped to consider WHY Cameron wants to do this and why it's a problem?

    There's a musician's union for the West End. Union rules specifically state how many musicians need to be hired for any musical specifically to STOP this from happening, ie, to keep Broadway musicians employed. Believe me, if they could get away with it, pit bands would've been replaced by a CD player a long, long time ago. Broadway is exactly the same way.

    McIntosh wants to replace half the orchestra, not because of artistic reasons per se, but because of practical ones - Les Mis is moving to a theater with a much, much smaller pit that simply can't accompany the number of musicians hired by the current production.

    It's ALL business. Don't think art has anything to do with it. THey'd replace the actors with robots if they thought it'd make a buck and save a few more.

    Triv

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