If there were only one way (as if!) to raise an orchestral musician’s hackles virtually instantly, it would have to be the issue of the use of space on stage.\u00a0 This can take many forms.\u00a0 How far you are from your stand partner (if you have one).\u00a0 How far you are from the stand (given differing levels of eyesight), how far you are from the nearest instrument capable of deafening you (most often percussion, piccolo, and brass – take your pick), and even which model of chair you are given (if your orchestra made the mistake of allowing multiple type of chairs to be used).<\/p>\n
I’ve seen members of my orchestra hold up a rehearsal with a guest conductor for 15 minutes over an issue of personal space, and we’ve had one non-string player protest loudly over their lack of “sonic space” due to their placement on stage.\u00a0 It’s made more tricky by a couple of factors.\u00a0 In the US we have a more different conception of how much personal space we need than in other places.\u00a0 If you look at videos of the average European orchestra, they’re packed together like sardines, but yet they seem to be doing ok, and make more pronounced physical movements than many US ensembles despite this fact.<\/p>\n
A major factor is also the size of the stage and any constrictions that are made upon that space.\u00a0 In our hall, a renovated vaudeville house, we have the proscenium arch to contend with – it cannot be altered for reasons both historical and structural, and you cannot place any instruments behind it unless you simply want them to play into a solid concrete wall and be invisible to the audience.\u00a0 In turn, this affects where you can place the acoustical shell, which in turn affects the placement of the winds and brass instruments, which then makes life miserable for most of the string players.<\/p>\n
One paradox of our set-up is that, with the winds on risers and pushed forward for better projection, the smaller orchestra we use, the less space there is for strings.\u00a0 And with piano concertos, the piano ends up being sandwiched between the first violin section and violas, instead of having the downstage area to itself and with the strings beginning in a straight line behind the piano on each side of the podium.\u00a0 This causes lots of ensemble issues due to the fact that many times the principal violist cannot see the conductor (due to the piano lid), we cannot see or hear the second violins (with whom we share a lot of inner voice action), and many times it’s hard to hear or see the concertmaster from the section areas of both cello and viola.<\/p>\n
In our concerts this weekend, I have the interesting experience of sitting both in my usual “normal” place on stage for half the program, but for the Dutilleaux 2nd Symphony I find myself sitting behind the timpani (which are located with the rest of the small ensemble at the front of the stage, audience right) at the very back of stage left.\u00a0 It pretty much feels like I’m playing via internet connection (dial-up, not broadband), just trying to keep the tempo and straining my ears and eyes to the utmost to make sure that I’m with what I need to be in the large ensemble (despite the fact that I cannot see or hear the violins or cellos of the large ensemble).\u00a0 It’s interesting, I’ll give you that!<\/p>\n
I’ll try to give an instrumentalist’s eye view of the set up tonight, and post it Sunday morning so you can see what I’m talking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If there were only one way (as if!) to raise an orchestral musician’s hackles virtually instantly, it would have to be the issue of the use of space on stage.\u00a0 This can take many forms.\u00a0 How far you are from your stand partner (if you have one).\u00a0 How far you are from the stand (given […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1029,2],"tags":[3668],"class_list":["post-3385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acoustics-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-oregon-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-SB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13150,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2014\/01\/14\/whats-on-my-stand\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":0},"title":"what’s on my stand?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Yes, it's that time of the year again when my stand is groaning with all of the music that is starting to accumulate for concerts taking place in the coming month of so. I thought it might be of interest for those who might be tempted to think that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"11939600715_343ddf3524_z","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/11939600715_343ddf3524_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/11939600715_343ddf3524_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/11939600715_343ddf3524_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3294,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/26\/a-new-way-to-look-at-the-oregon-symphony\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":1},"title":"a new way to look at the oregon symphony","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"After our last classical series concert, the orchestra stayed for an extra 30 minutes to get an important job done: it was orchestra photo night.\u00a0 Every few years, a new portrait of the orchestra and its music director is taken.\u00a0 In virtually every other year, the photo is a standard,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"RCO001_VanBoxteljpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/RCO001_VanBoxteljpg-400x322.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":641,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/05\/favorite-intermissions\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":2},"title":"favorite intermissions","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is just fascinating, and I'm ashamed that I've only just discovered this! \"This\" is a CD of composer and \"sound artist\" Christopher DeLaurenti which consists of surreptitiously recorded audio tracks from intermissions of orchestral concerts around the U.S. What DeLaurenti captures is a mix of audience conversations, stage crews\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "contemporary"","block_context":{"text":"contemporary","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/contemporary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.delaurenti.net\/images\/front05.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":471,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/07\/responses-to-tragedy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":3},"title":"responses to tragedy","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I was reading this article in today's Sunday New York Times, about the New York Philharmonic's music director designate Alan Gilbert, when I was struck by the first paragraph, which describes how an orchestra he was guest conducting responded to the death of a colleague: ALAN GILBERT stood before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3389,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/11\/22\/the-view-from-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":4},"title":"the view from here","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised (but a bit late) here are the photos that show how different my positions on stage are during this weekend's concerts.\u00a0 Here is where I normally am (and where I spend the first half of the concert) [click photo to enlarge] You can see our stand on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_3269","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/IMG_3269-400x533.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6423,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/14\/an-error-of-attribution\/","url_meta":{"origin":3385,"position":5},"title":"an error of attribution?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Many people, both within the Oregon Symphony 'family' and in the public at large have commented both publicly and privately that they were mystified by a paragraph in the otherwise glowing review of the Oregon Symphony's Carnegie Hall debut in today's New York Times. Music critic Allan Kozinn wrote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}