Back to the Start

Well my New Year's resolution of blogging every day hasn't got off to a good start but let's see if I can cram in a quick one now before dinner!

This weekend I made major progress is getting my music rig all set up. Gigastudio is working well and working well with Sibelius now that I have a dual boot Windows XP 32 bit and Windows 7 64 bit operating systems working side by side. All of this meddling actually only gets me back to where I was, approximately 3 years ago but now I have to move forward to get my other VST instruments to work. Either way, it was a powerful reminder of just how good that software is and how it is good enough for what I need it to do right now which is write the score of my new show and the score of a panto for one of my clients and potentially orchestrate a musical for another.

I hope that it doesn't throw all of its toys out of its pram before my epic writing fortnight scheduled for the end of March.

These Things Do 'Appen

And until you stoppa these things 'appening, this thing does not 'appen.

Thus says Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera and I wonder if the cast of Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark have considered having a similar strop. (And if the reporting on Natalie Mendoza is correct - they just might!)

Not a days goes by where there is not some commentary on the new Broadway Spiderman musical in the media or wider theatre industry and it is very true that there is more than an element of schadenfreude in reading event unfolding. There's plenty to get excited and vocal about; massive investment, extended previews, high ticket prices, opening night delays and, most notably, the accidents.

I have been intrigued by the reactions to the cast injuries which have included a demand for the show to be closed. There may be many reasons why a show should be closed, but a few accidents is not one of them. I am not saying that a cast, or anyone who works on a show, shouldn't work in safety or be protected. Nor am I saying that it isn't terrible that these accidents happened.

But....

Theatre should push boundaries and should try new things. That involves risk and sometimes the risk includes physical risk to performers.

Theatre has never been safe. Risk cannot be eradicated, it just needs to be assessed, calculated and taken with good knowledge. If the Spiderman team have failed in some aspect, it might be here. It might not. Either way, you cannot work in theatre without resigning yourself to the fact that sooner or later you might get hurt. If you are stunt double for a performer, those stunts involve risk.

Lots of shows have some element of danger and have had accidents. Other bloggers have mentioned Idina Menzel's fall through a trap-door, Shoshana Bean's stumble into the orchestra pit (twice) and the Lord of the Rings accident. I will wager that Starlight Express had it's fair share of bumps and bruises. These shows didn't close and neither should this one.

Haven't people ever heard of the expression "break a leg"? No business like show business.

Tinker, Tailor, Sailor, Spy

I was recently looking at the advertising for Apple's Logic and a major part of their pitch is that with Logic you can get back to doing what you do best - being a musician, and this weekend I realised this is a very good sales point.

I have talked in the past about the issues of using the formerly leading software Gigastudio when it was discontinued by its maker, Tascam, shortly after they released a version which was compatible with 64 bit operating systems. As a result, it became very difficult to buy a copy of the programme which spelled disaster for people like me who had built machines that would take advantage of more larger amount of RAM for loading instrument samples.

Initially I tried competitor products but none of them worked as well as Gigastudio. Now I am faced with the prospect of creating a dual boot system running Windows 7 (64 bit) and Windows XP (32 bit) and reinstalling the previous version of Gigastudio. And sure, I will be regressing to a software and a set up which is legacy, discontinued and has no future, but right now I don't want to move on!

What does any of this have to do with my work as a composer or orchestrator? Nothing - but after having spent an entire weekend working through this problem, it serves as a perfect example of how today's creative have to not only know their craft, investing significant amounts of time and energy, but you also have to be a PC surgeon, amateur programmer and researcher as you wade through a mire of computer problems when you'd rather be working on your scores!

And even if I ever get back to where I started, I am still faced with the reality that I will have to adopt a completely new system in the future. But not today!

A Blog A Day

I am well aware I was totally rubbish at blogging in 2010 and I came to a realisation that it was because I liked to write massive blogs that were in-depth about a topic. The most successful, current and up-to-date blogs are those which are spontaneous and short. So a major resolution for 2011 is to blog every day, even if it is just a few sentences to capture what's going on with my creative work, theatre industry, music and life.

That's a tall order. But let's see how we get on!

Oh, look - first day done. Just another 364 blogs to go.