Fans, friends, countrymen. My apologies once again. I have been staying in West lake with friends of friends. The West lake story is forthcoming in a fortnight or two at this rate.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Saturday
- 4/22/06
10:12 am
Los Angeles, CA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sit down awhile;
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story
What we have too, knightsbridge seen.
Fans, friends, countrymen, I would have to say that I had an interesting experience at the Knightsbridge theatre production. As you may recall it was a party celebrating Shakespeare's upcoming 400 and somethingth birthday. I'm sure the event was also inspired to draw people to the theatre, which it did. They came in multitudes to Silver Lake throughout the evening.
Initially it was planned for the VSO to be out on the sidewalk in front of the theatre as a street performer. There were other street performers outside, a talented pianist/songwriter, henna tattoo artist, and painter were all located in front of the theatre in renaissance festival fashion.
They even had a kissing booth
The more I thought about this scenario in the days prior to the gig, I was convinced that street performing wasn't the optimal place for the VSO for this show. Sure I would have drawn people in, and no doubt caused numerous accidents on the busy street outside, but it definitely wasn't the best application of the VSO for this event. Being there outside among the other artists I would have no doubt gotten a lot of kisses from just a renaissance girl, but would have upstaged the other performers with my 1500 watt Mackie speaker onslaught. The two young women who were in charge as much as anyone could be throughout the undisputed chaos were very accommodating in letting me resituate the VSO to inside the theatre, where stage time was scant among the many acts due to perform. I convinced them I could provide incidental background music for the many stage productions going on throughout the evening, and blend into the show instead of having a segment in the spotlight. They agreed to let me try my hand at it, although they had never heard me play. I guess they figured if I had that much equipment I couldn't be that awful. Not only did they let me set up in the theatre, they positioned me gloriously on a balcony above the stage for all to see.
The VSO ended up about 10 feet above, and directly behind the stage.
This positioning was admittedly a pain in the butt to set up, but it was an optimal viewpoint for providing incidental music and sound effects for the production. There were plenty of hands around to help me lift my ominously weighty rack boxes. Once on the ledge it was a little more precarious than usual, and just fit onto the 6 foot overhang. I carefully set it all up in about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half because of numerous dainty damsel distractions, witch were quite welcome. I've misspelled nothing, and the VSO was up and running in a decent amount of time. I had to make a couple minor repairs to my plexiglas VSO insignia lighting system, but other than that it went smooth. The footpedal glowed in anticipation of the new musical endeavor.
After setting up I helped out doing minor tasks to get ready for the evening ahead. I ran a power strip for a couple performers outside and helped as best I could moving tables and other menial tasks in preparation. They had initially asked if I could show up around 4pm but I got there around 11am. I was also the last one to leave, besides the skilled sound and lighting technician they had, who was staying until 10am the following morning to redo the lighting for another production. One day I hope to have the same enthusiasm and work a full 24 hours straight, but they had to settle for a mere 15 hours I provided at no cost or obligation.
Despite my diligent attendance at rehearsal, the VSO's role in the musical portion of the show was totally unrehearsed. Now you have to understand what I mean by unrehearsed. Aside from a lone cell phone sound I conjured up during rehearsal, they gave me no direction of any kind, save trying to avoid falling off the ledge onto the performers below. During the rehearsal at 4:30 I sat patiently and waited for musical direction which never came. I sat on my perch like a hungry Pterodactyl while they quickly ran through the acts, busying themselves with stage direction and the order of acts and sketches in the short time provided. The routines were mostly comedy, inspired by Shakespeare, but containing modern themes. For example one act by a comedy trio was Romeo and Juliet meeting on eharmony. As I mentioned, during one scene, an actor was to receive a phone call during the sketch. I listened as they explained that someone would call the cell phone from offstage on cue. I quickly dialed in one of the many telephone sounds within the vast arsenal of sounds in the VSO, and triggered the sound with the C3 note on my footpedal. Everyone looked around in wonder as to where the ringing was coming from. Soon enough they realized it was not in their heads, but more at my feet.
There was only one musical disappointment during the evening in my opinion. A young lady wanted to play a recording on a small tape recorder. The theatre didn't have a tape deck, and they didn't have the inputs to run it through the house P.A. I had the necessary cords to adapt the mono earphone jack into my VSO mixer in my magic cord bag and was able to play the recording for a dance number she had rehearsed with two other young women. The reason this was disappointing is that the quality of the tape wasn't that good to begin with, and it was running mono into my system. I was able to run the recording dual-mono into both left and right channels, but it still didn't sound very good. There was a ground loop buzz coming from the tape deck as well. I tried briefly to convince her that I could play the piece instead of using the poor quality tape, but she was worried I wouldn't be able to reproduce it. The tune was no more than two minuets long, and was a very easy piece. I still recall it was an Elizabethan type dance number which started in D# major, with a simple melody that moved to G# major and back (or the tape was out of pitch which I imagine was the case)(Actually I'll stake my reputation that it was supposed to be D and G as the recording was slightly detuned compared to the perfect pitch emulated by the synths, which is always an indication) Nonetheless I learned the tune briefly after rehearsal. I should have just played it but I didn't want to go against her wishes.
After the rehearsal I went to check out some of the other acts that were gathering in the theatre. There was a woman playing a medieval type harp who was quite good.
Just before show time I ran into the opening act.
A mime who used a theramin.
(more info at www.markwenzel.com)
Courtesy of www.theraminworld.com
The theremin was invented in 1919 by a Russian physicist named Lev Termen (his name was later changed to Leon Theremin). Today, this marvelous instrument is once again in the musical spotlight. Besides looking like no other instrument, the theremin is unique in that it is played without being touched. Two antennas protrude from the theremin - one controlling pitch, and the other controlling volume. As a hand approaches the vertical antenna, the pitch gets higher. Approaching the horizontal antenna makes the volume softer. Because there is no physical contact with the instrument, playing the theremin requires precise skill and perfect pitch.
He was quite a fellow.
He excitedly explained the optical theramin he was using for the show.
From atop my perch I had a birds eye view
of his performance which lasted a solid 2 minutes.
He was quite good with the instrument, using the lights in
his
hands to conjure up eerie sounds from the optical theramin.
He climaxed the show with a gradual rise in pitch while using a fog machine for effect. My fog machine provided additional fog effects to his onstage fogging from above the balcony. I had my #1 fan set up to blow the fog up or turn it off to let it waiver at my feet, or in this case flow off the balcony. I also had my bubble machine but I was told that the last time they used the bubble machine onstage in Lawrencewelkian fashion, that the actors were slipping around due to the bubble leavings, or soapy runoff onstage. Of course after hearing this I was more tempted than ever to turn on the bubble machine, but I refrained.
After rehearsal I talked to this darling dueling duo outside in the lobby
They were dueling a comedic mocking swordfight sketch. They were very good swordsmen and fine actors as well. They were very prominent on the stage and quite funny. They were going back and forth ranting and using the audience at times to enhance the performance. I asked them if there was any music they'd like to accompany their 2 sketches planned for the evening. One of them hurriedly replied "I'd love to have the music from Star Trek when captain Kirk fights Spock." Right away I knew what he was talking about. This theme has been used in the cinema repeatedly for mock swordfights. I'm sure many of you fellow geeks know of it. I went around asking as many of the performers as I could what music, if any they would like behind their scenes. Some opted for no music during more dramatic scenes.
Overall I played about 2/3 of the time during the performance, complimenting the scenes with improvised orchestral music varying in intensity and style. There were two fellows who were acting as MC's besides the main character of Shakespeare, who was played by a talented actor named Winn. He is the half brother of the Wynn who owns a couple large casinos in Las Vegas including the Mirage. Although they spelled their names differently, I assured him that when they were together it was a Winn Wynn situation. You probably saw that coming so I'll get back to our story. The two fellows who were in between the acts seemed quite jovial and I opted for a light harpsichord sound to accompany their antics.
This worked out perfectly. Every time they entered the stage the signature harpsichord would fire up, except for the scene pictured above, during which the entire orchestra was off using the restroom. I hurried back to my perch and improvised harpsichord melodies fitting to their jesting nature. Using mainly varying major scale root/4th progressions in a lively march.
Back to the sword fighters.
This was probably the best part of the show music-wise. They seemed open to letting me do whatever I wanted. I did learn the Star Trek fight theme a few minutes before show time and was able to reproduce it better than I expected. During their sketch they were quite boisterous and had many abrupt moves which they had choreographed. I was able to add realistic orchestra stabs and hits while they stomped back and forth on the stage below. The real-time application of the VSO really stood out. As they got more intensely into the fight, I brought the music up with strings and horns into sudden triumphant battle themes. There were many breaks in the action as they continued their comedic routine. I was able to keep up with them perfectly as they frolicked about, stopping and starting as I anticipated their moves. This would never have been possible by traditional means besides using an orchestra and paying for rehearsal time to practice all the musical hits and stabs* to the many leaps and bounds which I was able to accentuate on the fly.
*good pun, no?
During intermission I was able to play some improvised orchestra pieces in lieu of music played over the house P.A. I performed for about 10 minutes, using the varying orchestra feels and chord family variations. I remember it being quite good but as usual I didn't record it or any of my performance as I didn't have the wires req-wired for recording with me. The two big lessons I learned from this gig cord-wise were: always bring a headphone 1/4" to 1/8" adapter, and bring two recording devices just in case. This gig apparently being "the case".
At one point toward the end of the stage show they did a couple musical numbers, during which there were about 10 players onstage singing, playing guitars, lute's and hand drums. For this segment I played an improvised solo piccolo melody using my guitar in between the vocal parts, and had a jazz drum kit on the footpedals. I mainly used the kick drum to accentuate their performance and to provide a back beat, but not upstage them. It's easy to be upstaged by the VSO. The VSO often has a tendency to even upstage itself from time to time. For the duration of the performance I held back quite a bit and tried to compliment the stage performances and let the actors be the main focus. This worked out well as my musical presence wasn't overpowering but added tremendously to the performances.
After the stage show, what turned out to be a pretty decent band was due to play at 11pm. As the band was setting up the fair maiden running the production told me I could perform a song if I wanted to in between the band setting up and their sound check. I wholeheartedly agreed and went into a screeching VerSiOn of Radiohead's "Creep". This really turned some heads after seeing my tapping out of harpsichord and orchestra music all night. The version I did wasn't even that great. Although I was inspired, and belting it out, I hadn't used my microphones the entire evening, and they were way out of kilter. I had to lean back greatly while I tried to balance myself standing up precariously on the balcony. I was hunched back and barely able to hang onto the balance/rhythm factor. The vocal processor was also erroneously set on a 4 part harmony instead of a male vocal shift, and overall it sounded ok at best. This is another valuable lesson which I already knew, but re-learned:
"Always assume you are going to use every bell and
whistle and set it up correctly for the love of God."
\/
(a true Renaissance man)
(men)
Donations welcome
(coming soon)
(I hope)