So, what does a musical coordinator do?

If you google for a musical coordinator, you will find many pages telling you what a musical coordinator does. None of them are really in agreement, and none of them really describe what a musical coordinator really do. So, here is my take on what a musical coordinator does.

In summary, a musical coordinates all the aspects relating to the music in the production of a musical theatre show. A musical coordinator's job is to do everything that nobody else does.

The tasks listed here are usually the responsibilities of the musical director, but the musical coordinator does not report to the musical director. If he does, he would be called an 'assistant to the musical director'. He would still do all the same tasks. The only difference is, if you report to the musical director, you do what the musical director tells you to do, but if you report to the producer, then you have to take the initiative, check for everything that needs be done, and do it - or find somebody to do it.

In our show, I am performing the role of the musical coordinator. As the production developed, I invented this job myself, and are making up the job description as I go along. Your job description will be different from show to show and in many cases, some of these tasks are not relevant. Just for the sake of completeness, I will add some tasks which I do not perform in this show, but which may normally form part of your task.

1. Song writing

This will depend on the show. The director may ask you to write some songs if he can not find an appropriate song to fill a specific gap. You have to write a song 'to spec'. The director will tell you what mood and feel is needed, and sometimes what the lyrics of song is about. This is not your chance to showcase your personal favorite from your own past catalog. Write a new song according to what the director want. If you can not write your own songs, coordinate with a songwriter. If the show is for a non-profit organization, chances are that you will not get paid for it. Just make sure that you sign a songwriting agreement and retain all the rights to the songs you write. That way you might be able to use the song again in another show or demo reel.

2. Music licensing

If the director makes use of pre existing hit songs, make sure that you obtain permission to use that music from the local music rights organization (SAMRO, BMI, ASCAP, etc.). This may require you to do some research to determine who the rights holders are and fill in the forms, or at least assist the producer in these tasks.

3. Music budget

Ok, in this case, I have no responsibility regarding the budget, but in many instances, the producer may give you a maximum budget within which you have to hire musicians, musical directors and pianists, etc. At least, if the director handles the full budget himself, you may have to make sure that you are compensated for all your own expenses,

4. Hiring

This is a difficult one. It is the responsibility of the show director to hire a musical director. The musical director must be responsible to the director. If the director ask for your assistance in this regards, make sure that everybody understands that you are only acting on behalf of the director. The musical director may ask you to hire a rehearsal pianist. It would be ideal to have the show pianist and the rehearsal pianist as the same person, but it is not always possible. If you have a large orchestra, you also may need to hire a conductor.

5. Musicians

The musical director may abdicate her responsibility regarding the band to you. Check with the director and musical director what kind of sound they want, and put a band together according to their needs. In the average non-profit show you may end up with a 4 or 5 piece band (drums, bass, piano, guitar, saxophone). In the average Broadway show you may have a 9 to 24 piece orchestra.

The director may have made commitments to some people or friends to include in the band. Make sure you adhere to his wishes. Where there are gaps, get somebody. It may even mean that you fill in a seat yourself - just leave your ego at home. This is not a time for you to showcase your talents as lead guitarist, but rather an opportunity to demonstrate how well you can make things happen 'behind the scenes'.

6. Band practice

You must make sure that the band know the songs. Draw up a schedule and agree the schedule with the director, musical director, choreographer, producer, and band members. It is very unlikely that you will get all those people in one place at one time, so you will be required to do a lot of walking and phoning around. The normal schedule would include:

• Singers training and rehearsals. This is almost always the job of the musical director. Attend the sessions to understand what keys they sing in, what verses gets dropped, and what tempo songs are done in. Record the singers and play it to the band. Keep on recording the songs at each rehearsal and always keep the latest and best version.
• Band practice. Give the band enough time to get to know the songs before they rehearse with the singers. First just practice the songs until all band members know the music, the chords, and the tempo, etc. The songs don't have to be practiced in any specific order. Spend as much time on each song as may be needed. More difficult songs may need more time.
• Band rehearsals. When all band members know all the songs, rehearse the whole show from start to finish. At this stage each musician must be on the instrument he or she will use during the show. It is fine for the pianist to use an electronic keyboard during practice, or the guitarist using an acoustic guitar. In rehearsals the pianist must use a real piano if that is what she will use in the show, and the guitarist must switch to the electric guitar if the show needs it.

• Rehearsals with singers and dancers. Somebody invented the name 'sitzprobe' for this. I have no idea what it means, but it sounds epic. It is your job to make sure that the band knows all the songs by heart by this time. There may be some surprises as you may need to adjust some songs in tempo or key at this stage. During rehearsals songs may be done in whatever order is convenient. Coordinate with the band, directors, and singers to draw up a schedule. You do not want singers to sit around wasting their time while waiting for their songs to be rehearsed. However, when you rehearse a song, it can be a waste of time if the right singers are not present. That includes the chorus ensemble. During this time, take special care to balance the volume between the instruments and the singers.
• Dress rehearsals. The last week before a show is usually set aside for dress rehearsals. This time, the whole show is rehearsed from top to finish, in the order that the show runs. This is like running the show without an audience. The first dress rehearsal may be stopped and started as needed. The director would want to have at least two dress rehearsals running all the way through without interruptions, before the show opens. As musical coordinator, you must leave proceedings in the hands of the director. Do not interfere, comment, or interrupt. Make sure that no interruptions are caused by the band. If needed, make notes and discuss with the band after the rehearsal. The sound engineer must be present at dress rehearsals to make sure that sound levels are appropriate.
• Opening night. Calculate your schedule by starting with this date. This is the date you can not miss. Determine how much time is needed for each task and work backwards from here to calculate a start and end time for each step listed above.

7. Coordinating between band, musical director and choreographer

It is your job to make sure everybody has a copy of all the music. Make up a folder for each musician in the band, choreographer, musical director and rehearsal pianist. The 'flip files' work best for this (a file book containing 30 or 50 see-through plastic pockets). Inside each musician's file, place a copy of the chord tabs of each song. Keep the songs in the order in which they will be done in the show. Do not print songs double sided. If a song spills over to a second page, place it such that the song starts on the left side and continue on the right. This will avoid musicians having to turn pages during a song.

Pianists do not like chord tabs. Print out complete scores for the pianists. Again, print on single sided paper. Pianists like to tape the score together to enable them to open it out on one long stream to place it on the piano music shelf. Brass and wind players also need a score printed, but for them you need their dynamic parts, i.e. the music notes containing only the parts they play, with no piano or vocal parts. Take heed of special tuning requirements for brass players.

Each file must also contain a CD of all the songs. This CD must be replaced every week. In the beginning each CD will have only original artist recordings. Replace these recordings with the singers and rehearsal pianist recordings.

8. Other music consumables and needs

You may need to check that all musicians have all they need. Each band member needs a music stand and music lights. Guitarists must put on fresh strings before the show. Pianos may need tuning. Everybody will however have to bring their own toilet paper.

This list is by no means complete. There may be many other tasks added here. Feel free to add anything you feel belongs here in the comments below.

 

More on saving money on the concept album on a budget

I started off by scaring you with the astronomical baseline budget for the concept album. Then I had to scare you even more telling you about having to do some things yourself. It is a fact that you can save an amazing amount of money if you can do more things yourself. Unfortunately, not everybody has all the skills to do everything. Today I want to talk about another possibility.

With computer technology developing at an blinding pace, computers can now do many of the tasks previously done by expensive humans. I want to tell you a bit about those amazing programs out there. I have no affiliation with any of the companies I will mention, and get no kickbacks on any sales. I am just a normal user of these programs and wish to share my ideas with whoever wish to take note.

To replace that expensive guitar player, there is a nifty little program available, called, RealBand. It comes bundled with a program called Band in a Box.

If you are looking for just strumming guitars, this is perfect. On the fly, however you get much, much more. RealBand is capable of doing acoustic guitars, fingerpicking guitars, electric guitars, drums, bass, piano, and a whole stack of solo instruments, like saxophones. And it does all of this in hundreds of different styles.

The program comes in many flavors, but if you are planning to use it to record an album, you may want to go for the 'Audiophile' version. This version contains recordings in CD quality. The cheaper versions comes with the instruments recorded in windows compressed format. For many purposes this is just fine and most people would not know the difference. My preference is however the CD quality recordings that comes with the audiophile version.

If you are a first time buyer, the audiophile version would cost you $669, but it is totally worth it. This program will be able to replace many of your session musicians, which over an album of 20 songs, would save you far in excess of $30,000 compared to the cost of session musicians.

The program is not completely a save-all for everything and might be limited if compared to what you can do yourself, but it does give you so many possibilities and options that you will almost certainly be able to find a use for it.

RealBand comes with a reasonable good drum track as well, but for the purpose of recording a concept album, I used some alternatives. The drum track is pretty good, but the main problem with RealBand is that it gives you a simple stereo file for the drums. For a serious recording in CD quality however, you can not do much with a stereo file. Very soon you will find your drums either overbearing the vocals, or disappearing somewhere into the mix. Professional studios will almost always record drums on a number of separate tracks, i.e. kick drum on one track, snare on another, hi hats on a third, toms on one or more extra tracks and cymbals on a separate track. This way, you have much more freedom with how you mix the sound of the final song. The other problem with the RealBand drum tracks is that you are stuck with their drum kit. Even though it is a fairly good drum kit they use, not all music wants to have a standard small rock kit playing. Sometimes you need that monster snare sound, or the power kick of Nickelback. We will talk a lot more about producng drum tracks in another article.

Lastly, I just want to end this post with congratulations to Protea Stage Productions for filling the house last night with their excellent production of the farce, Botoms up.

 

More on budgeting - The DIY concept - Doing a concept album under a budget

Did my last post about budgeting for a concept album give you a scare? Well, good for you. That was the idea.

The good news is that you can do it much cheaper. There are many ways that you can save cost by doing some things yourself. The bad news is that some of these things you can do may compromise on quality if you do not know what you are doing. However, if you are vigilant you may get away with a very reasonable quality product.

For example, we have seen how a session musician may want to charge you a two session price for strumming a guitar on a single song. If that sounds excessive, that is exactly what it is. That is what the going rate is. That is what unions do. Unions are there to ensure unemployment for their members. Keeping prices unaffordable for the small entrepreneur like you and me. If you can play a reasonable guitar, you can strum that guitar yourself. It may however not sound as good as the session musician, recorded by a professional engineer. You may not have the same quality gear or the same skills - and this is where the vigilant part comes in.

Start thinking like a business man here. We have 20 songs, each track will cost you 2 sessions for a musician, plus one hour studio cost; i.e. a total of $400 per song. Multiply this with 20 songs to give you $8000, just for strumming guitars on your 20 songs!

What can you do with $8000? For one, you can buy a reasonably good quality guitar for less than $500, but if you really go for the top of the range, splash out around $1000 and you are assured to have a sound as good as that professional. You also will need a very good microphone. For about $100 you can get a cheap mic, but, I would recommend that you go for the $500 range to get the best quality. You will also need a reasonably good set of headphones, which would cost around $200. Let's assume you already have a good computer with a good recording program. All you would need is a quiet place where you can record you guitar and you are set to go. For about $2000 and lots (yes lots) of time, you can have your guitars recorded and save yourself $6000!

The only variable we have now is your own skills. Look at it this way. If I'd pay you $6000 cash to practice, how much would you be prepared to sit down and practice? 5 days? 10 day? I'd think more. So all that is left for you is to sit down and practice. There are thousands of internet sites giving advice on how to practice. Remember, we are just talking about strumming your guitar here. We have not even looked at the fingerpicking and guitar solos yet. Adding the possibility to do the finger picking parts, electric guitar parts, and the guitar solos, you may be able to save yourself a whopping $20,000 to $30,000, just by doing all the guitar parts yourself. That is not bad hey!

Remember, this is a concept album recording. You do not need to have Eric Clapton playing the guitars.

Off course, you will have to also learn a few other things in addition to playing the guitar. That studio owner and recording engineer was not sitting around doing nothing. You will have to learn how to best record a guitar. Trust me, you don't simply switch on a microphone and start recording. Google is you best friend here and you may want to spend many (yes, many) hours reading books and trying different ways. You will have to be prepared to re-record a song many times until you have the best take. Does 10 times recording the same song scare you? Wake up then, cause you might have to do it 20 times for each song.

Going this route has many other advantages. You are not limited to only one strumming part per song anymore. You may choose to record your guitars in stereo by recording different parts for left and right. You may even get creative by overdubbing certain parts and add fills and thrills. All for free. A song like Hotel California has at least 10 guitar parts double tracked.

This gives you an idea on how to save costs - lots of it - when doing a concept album. The same idea may apply to all your other instruments. Ever wanted to start playing the drums? What about piano? Bass guitar? Violin, cello, saxophone, trumpet, etc. We can get really creative......but......

Fact is, not everybody is able to play musical instruments, especially not that many different ones. Even if you were able to learn to play all those instruments, it may take you many years to become reasonably skilled in all of them.

Next time we will look at other ways of doing it. Help is out there. We just have to find it. You do not really have to play the drums and trumpets yourself, and still get away without it costing you anything.

 

Budgets for a concept album

Since we started to chat about the concept of a concept album, we touched on a few ideas. We talked about what a concept album is, and why we want to record a concept album. I also talked about the broad process of making such concept album.

Tonight I want to talk about how we start to plan the concept album. Let's assume for now we have written our play and we have written the songs. So now we have between 20 and 30 songs, totalling about 2 to 2 and a half hours of music. Now we must decide which song we will include on the concept album.

Before I go on, let me say that there is no rule here. The best I can do is give you an idea of what my thought process was when I did the concept album for The exile.

Ideally, we would want to record all the songs, but let's think about it for a moment. At this stage, you greatest considderation is the cost. If money is no problem, I'd say go for it and record every song. Unfortunately, in my case, money was not free flowing and I had to set myself a budget.

When you set your budget, start by listing all the songs. For each song, record the number of instruments needed. Split this by the number of instruments you can do yourself and the number of instruments for which you will have to hire session musicians. If you are lucky, you will get enough friends together who will do it for you for free. In my case, I did not get enough friends together, mainly because I do not have friends. Count each vocalists line as an instrument. If a vocalist is needed for only 2 seconds, you will still have to count him or her as one instrument. This is where the big chorus songs can become expensive. If you need a chorus with 16 voices, count each one separate, i.e. 16 instruments. Even if you plan to get one person to record 2 or 3 lines in harmony, it would still take 2 or 3 separate recordings, therefore you must count them as separate tracks. Some session musicians would charge you full price for the first line and then half price for each extra line, but more about that much later.

Depending on the complexity of your music, time needed to record a song may differ significantly, but let's work on more or less averages. Most song would need two (2) sessions per instrument, i.e. a session for the musician to get to know your song, and one session to record the instrument. Union negotiated rules differ per country, but usually provide for 3 hours per session. Current rates are about $150 per session, or R1,500 in South Africa.

Just a brief note here. Most union rules limit a song to 5 minutes maximum. You do not get discounted rates for less than 5 minutes, but there is a very complicated formula for calculating costs for each minute in excess of 5 minutes. For now, let's keep all our songs below 5 minutes.

A few simple calculations may now give you a rough baseline budget; for each song you must have the number of tracks to be recorded (T), and the cost per session (C). Here is the formula:

The total budget for a track = T x C x 2

Let's take an example: I have a song that needs an acoustic guitar strumming, doubled by an acoustic guitar finger picking, an electric guitar playing rhythm, a solo electric guitar, a bass guitar and drums. For vocals I need one male and one female singer. Each singer needs to harmonize for the chorus. This all gives me 6 instruments plus 4 vocals, i.e. total 10 tracks. The budget for this song is therefore 10 x $150 x 2 = $3,000.

Calculate the cost for each song in this way and add up all the costs. Let's for simplicity assume all songs need the same number of tracks and we have 20 songs in total. A very quick calculation gives us the total cost of musicians for the recording at $60,000. Add to this your studio time of about 6 hours per song at $100 per hour and the producer at about $300 per song. The studio time usually includes one recording engineer, but specialists like drum recording engineers are usually extra. This gives us an extra $18,000. To this you will have to add the cost of a mixing engineer, a mastering engineer and then the cost of making the CDs. In all the cost for your album will probably exceed $100,000 by now.

Good news?

For most of us, this sum would frighten us and we would give this up as a bad idea.

But....

Do not not give up this easy.

Next I will show you how we can bring this cost down to about one tenth of that cost by being clever.

 

News from Broadway - Evita fails to show a profit

The Lost Angeles Times ran a story this week about Andrew Lloyd-Webber's hit show, Evita, closing its doors. This is interesting news for all of us and there are much we can learn from it, even if we are not playing in the same league. This revival of Evita has it all. Ricky Martin and Elena Roger as the stars, Lloyd-Webber's music, a movie to remember, and an advertising budget like never before. Yes, if any show had potential, that must be it.

In contrast, Lloyd-Webber's Phantom of the opera celebrated its 25th year in London last year and this same week, the 25th year on Broadway. Hope you have seen the show when it came to a theater near you. I was in second heaven when I saw it at the Teatro last year. If you do not have the celebration concert DVD, shame on you - you must get it.

What we can take out from this is important. Big budgets does not make a success - at least not always. The $11 million made sure that the show would be of greatest quality. Just remember, if you want to spend big budgets, you have to earn even more to pay it back.

Big names does not always make for big profits. The times reports in the story quoted above that shows staring Ricky Martin showed better ticket sales. What it does not say, but can be assumed, is that the bigger names also insist on bigger salaries. If you want to splash out on big stars, you will have to make sure that they can bring in more than what you spend on them. That is a most basic budget principle.

The story above also reports that the show ran for 46 weeks on Broadway, but it needed 63 weeks to recoup the costs. We can safely assume that the budgeting team did not make such simple mistake. What most likely went wrong is that the attendance was lower than expected. Mmmm. Looking at the gross figures as reported on The Broadway League for the previous week, this show ran to a crowd of close to 80% capacity. Mmmmm. Make me wonder. If the budget team made the assumption that they needed to contract their stars for 46 weeks only, and 80% attendance was not enough to make it, then what on earth did the budget team assume for attendance? A lesson to be learned, which I have learned in grade one of finance 101, is that you never budget  to sell at 100% capacity. Always make sure that you have some margin. I read on the internet and in learned books that a 60% attendance on Broadway is about average. In budgeting basics you learn that, when you draw up your budget, starts with a likely scenario (say 60%), contract your expenses to make sure you break even at a pessimistic scenario (say 50%), and then make sure your product quality and appeal aims for an optimistic scenario (say 80%). With this simple budgeting model you make sure that you will make big profits when your show hits it big. Yeah I know I am selling cars by daylight and musical theater on Broadway is something very different, but we are talking basic business principles here.

So much for complicated budgeting stuff for now. Until next time, and oh yes, I wish Ken Davenport all the best with his production of Macbeth on Broadway. There is one producer who will not make any such mistakes when drawing up a budget.