[Fmpro] Opera

[Ted Peterson]

You know, I always got better performances by being better prepared  
than the musicians. Every time I had problems, I found it was due to  
my lack of prep. I have had to fire musicians,  though, but I never  
do it publicly and I always pay them something for their time. I have  
had some people totally misrepresent their abilities to play and  
didn't find out until the first rehearsal. But if I'm not prepared, I  
can hardly blame someone else.  So I made sure I knew every note and  
had what I wanted to do with the piece down. Sometimes, with short  
rehearsal schedules, it has been nightmarish to replace musicians but  
sometimes that's just the way things work out. I have even had  
initial performances where I did nothing more than beat rhythm and  
play to safe points so that if someone got lost they would play from  
a specific cue at a certain hand gesture. I got this technique from  
Pierre Boulez who found himself in the same boat many times with new  
works. With war horses, you have no excuse. They have been such a  
part of our culture that you should never have a problems with  
anything. Hell, most musicians can play them without conductors and  
that includes the Rite.

Ted Peterson

On Mar 1, 2008, at 12:50 PM, Louis King wrote:

> WOW LOL ...... so you felt the best way you could lead an orchestra
> was to embarrass someone ...
>
> I've conducted maybe 1500 or more  recording sessions with 60 piece
> groups to big bands to quartets and I don't think I've ever had the
> need to create a great performance by demeaning anyone in the group.
>
>
> On Mar 1, 2008, at 3:29 PM, Marinho Nobre wrote:
>
>> if I record in NYC sometime will you come conduct for me Marinho?
>> It will be my pleasure... In NYC or anywhere else. Have batoon,
>> will travel...
>>
>> Musicians are what make conducting a tricky thing. On my very few
>> first
>> ventures, I had to deal with all sorts of cracks from wise ass
>> Juilliard
>> students. One thing I have learned that overcomes all problems is
>> called
>> respect.  Once I started cracking back at them and made them
>> understand
>> that they had to work hard and take me seriously or else, evrything
>> started sounding
>> a lot better. At some point I was banned from conducting on
>> composition classes
>> after I made a French Horn girl walk out of the class in tears. She
>> made the same mistake
>> 3 times. I interrupted the class and asked her. What's your name
>> dear ? She told me her
>> name and asked me why I wanted to know. I then mentioned that I
>> wanted to make
>> sure that I would never ever ever hire her for any of my work. I
>> was suspended for 3 weeks,
>> enough time for the word to go around, and next time I showed up it
>> was a breeze man.
>> I never had to say a word. They all read my eyes and gave their
>> very best.
>> I will be going to Prague later this year, lets see how they do...
>>
>>
>> Marinho Nobre
>> Music for Motion Picture
>> score at marinhonobre.com
>> Voice 347-424-4985  Fax - (718) 210-3151
>> http://www.marinhonobre.com
>> http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1971862/
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