[Trombone-l] Pit Stories

[Clay McCarter]

I play in a big band and once played a chart with backwards note stems.
Another piece had very strange markings for quarter rests (made sight
reading the thing an experience).


Clay

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:00 PM, Eric McKee <EMcKee at misupply.com> wrote:

> I used to hate playing pit orchestra gigs because the music was so
> difficult to read.  The parts were always hand written (badly) with as
> much shorthand as possible. Throw in tons of mute changes and tons of
> key changes and tons of accidentals and very little rehearsal time and
> it adds up to aggravation.  I always found it funny when there would be
> a string of notes above the staff.  The notes would line up horizontally
> but there would be different numbers of ledger lines beneath them.
>
> However, I recently played Annie and had a nice spiral-bound computer
> printed part.  I also have seen the parts for a few other musicals
> recently and they seem to be in the same format.
>
> Please tell me that this is the new trend, and that those crappy
> chicken-scratch parts are a thing of the past!  If that's true, I will
> be much more willing to play these gigs in the future.
>
> Thanks
>
> Eric McKee
> Woodwind Products Buyer (but a trombone player nonetheless)
> Woodwind and Brasswind
> 800-348-5003, ext 2264
> ericm at wwbw.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu
> [mailto:trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu] On Behalf Of Harlan Feinstein
> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 5:35 PM
> To: Clay McCarter
> Cc: Mailing List - Trombone-L
> Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Pit Stories
>
>
> On Dec 5, 2008, at 2:04 PM, Clay McCarter wrote:
>
> > I've really enjoyed reading about players experiences with Wicked.
> > Anyone
> > else out there playing in a pit for a show?  I'd love to hear
> > stories about
> > your past and present gigs.
>
> The story I've got is a past production of West Side Story.  The
> director approached the music director during one of the dress
> rehearsals, asked him to play a given song faster (don't remember what
> song).  The MD [wisely] replied that the orchestra couldn't hold it
> together much faster.  The director told him (well within the
> orchestra's hearing), "I don't care WHAT it SOUNDS like, play it
> FASTER!"
>
> --Harlan
>
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