Texas Ballet Company using Canned Music instead of Orchestra

[Matt Good]

I wonder if the dancers really care if the music is live or canned?

I do know that the dancers tacitly support the musicians of Local 72-147 and want to perform with live music.

With canned music at least from the dancers perspective there are no surprises from night to night and the tempo is always the same.

A ballet orchestra's job is to accompany the dancers. More than often in ballet, s**t happens on-stage and the flexibility of the orchestra and dancers are what makes each performance an event.

-Matt

[Drew McManus]

I wonder if the dancers really care if the music is live or canned? With canned music at least from the dancers perspective there are no surprises from night to night and the tempo is always the same. Just trying to look at it from a different perspective.

I think those are all very good questions and exactly the sort of thing that might go through a patron's mind when examining the situation. I know that the dancers I talk to care very much and in the case of Pittsburgh, there was an excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which did an excellent job of explaining why live music is much better from the dancer's perspective.

Best,
Drew

[OldsRecording]

I'm not at all surprised to hear about this. Pre-recorded music and even electonically-generated music have been creeping into all of the traditional live music venues for several years. Ask anyone on the US coasts who used to fill their calendars with recording gigs 20 years ago...the jobs are fading away. Anyone remember the movie "Crimson Tide" from 1995? That's just one example (and one of the earliest, I believe) of an entire movie score that was completely synthetic (no live musicians, just synthesizers and computers). Google the internet and see how many companies offer a "MIDI setup with thousands of sounds for complete music production and film scoring."

Canned Taps at military funerals. Enough said. Ticks me off to no end.

I was at a funeral the other week, and there was an Air Force honor guard there. At the gravesite, I noticed a young corporal standing off to the side carrying an odd-looking bugle. I didn't think anything of it until the young man snapped to attention, crisply brought the horn to his lips, and the sound that came out sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep well. Earlier in the day I was thinking of asking my friend (whose father it was that died) if anyone was going to play Taps at the gravesite, but I didn't, although I wished I had.

[OldsRecording]

Canned Taps at military funerals. Enough said. Ticks me off to no end.

I was at a funeral the other week, and there was an Air Force honor guard there. At the gravesite, I noticed a young corporal standing off to the side carrying an odd-looking bugle. I didn't think anything of it until the young man snapped to attention, crisply brought the horn to his lips, and the sound that came out sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep well. Earlier in the day I was thinking of asking my friend (whose father it was that died) if anyone was going to play Taps at the gravesite, but I didn't, although I wished I had.

Bugleweb.jpg