Life in the Pit: Recent Episodes
David Lane
This podcast is devoted to the lives and experiences of instrumental musicians who play for musical theatre. Listeners can hear the stories of what goes on in "the pit" and aspiring musicians can learn what it takes to become a pit musician.
Back in 2021, we chatted with Joe LaRocca while he was playing on the 50th anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar. Since then he has found the niche of actor/musician and talks about how that has changed his perspective before we get into our main topic: his observations for the current state of hiring practices for pit orchestras and what he thinks needs to change.
Joe's SubStack page can be found here: https://joejoethefluteboy.substack.com/
His previous interview with Life in the Pit can be heard here: https://www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast/episode/45fd912c/61-touring-with-the-jcs-50-joe-larocca-reeds
Follow the podcast on Instagram or Facebook @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
In 2021, John Eldridge and I had a 2-part episode series on keyboard programming in musical theatre, and I felt it was time to check in for a 2025 update. Software like MainStage and Q-Lab are becoming more and more expected at even a community theatre and high school level. A mid-end keyboard, even with a ton of sounds, just won't cut it for an average modern musical. If you're a music director and/or a keyboardist, use this episode to make sure you're up to date.
Previous episodes with John Eldridge
Programming Keyboards for Theatre Part 1
Programming Keyboards for Theatre Part 2
After spending hours preparing his keyboard for an upcoming show, John Eldridge got the idea to save and rent his work to save future keyboardists the huge opportunity cost that is spent here. He created the company Stage Sounds, a company that specializes in over 200 shows of downloadable preprogrammed keyboard files for MainStage software, with more titles each month, and additional services for other instrumentalists.
Follow the podcast on Instagram or Facebook @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
CORRECTED: Original post was missing the interview, and has been updated.
Sachio Nang chatted with Life in the Pit in 2021 talking about his recent high school experience and getting started with theatre music directing. Since then, he has done professional work including 3 national tours! He played keyboard 2 and was associate music director for Elf and Shrek, and is currently playing bass on the Ain't Too Proud national tour. We talk about his young professional career, his adventures in social media, his hobbies as an arranger, and some of the things he's done to develop his skills to be this marketable at a young age!
Follow the podcast on Instagram or Facebook @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Sachio Nang was recently a high school graduate in the Chicago area in 2021, and has since been part of 3 national tours since we originally spoke! Before we soon reconnect to talk about his very young career as a Broadway touring musician, here is an encore presentation of our interview from April 2021.
Follow the podcast on Instagram or Facebook @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Life in the Pit had reached its end as a podcast a few months ago, but I resisted making it official. This episode was recorded and released simply because YOU the listener deserved a proper farewell, and I wanted to share just a little of why I'm not continuing here. As I mentioned in this episode, I'm very proud of the work accomplished in the episodes, and I'm determined to keep the entire history of this podcast available and archived for as long as possible. Thank you for listening, and for taking an interest in pit musicians, the unsung heroes of a theatre production!
You can visit http://www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast to find all episodes of Life in the Pit as well find a contact form if you wish to get in touch.
"& Juliet" is a musical reimagining of Romeo and Juliet with a different fate for Juliet, all told with music from the legendary song writer Max Martin, whose songs have made the charts when sung by Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Bon Jovi, The Backstreet Boys, and more. Dominic Fallacaro is the music director and also the co-orchestrator (along with Bill Sherman) who was responsible for coming up with the arrangements for the 9-piece pit orchestra to give this Tony-nominated show (and orchestrations) a unified sound! We talk about how this project originated, the development, and how actual samples of the songs are used by the keyboards in combination with the flexibility of live musicians.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
This is a brief follow-up to Episode 77 with Jason Loffredo, where we talked about the conflict of the new show, Here Lies Love, wanting to open with only pre-recorded tracks in a union theatre that required 19 live musicians. An agreement was reached earlier today. This is a reading of the news followed by a few brief thoughts on what it means.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
After a longer than intended hiatus, Life in the Pit is back for a couple of episodes this month. This was an impromptu meant to address an ongoing conflict between the Local 802 AFM (the union for Broadway musicians) and the pending opening of Here Lies Love in a Broadway house. The production has announced that it will be employing NO live musicians and have only pre-recorded tracks, while the theatre has a contract with the Local 802 AFM that stipulates that no production can be held in that theatre with any fewer than 19 union musicians unless a special exception is granted. It's a situation that is angering many NYC musicians and fans of Broadway theatre. To help us learn more about it, we welcome our guest, Jason Loffredo, a NYC-based music director and keyboardist who has been in more than 2 dozen shows including Xanadu and Kinky Boots.
You can sign the petition to oppose this production being allowed to open on Broadway without following theatre live musician guidelines right here: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/here-lies-love?source=direct_link&
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
LIFE IN THE PIT listeners, here is the trailer for David Lane's new podcast. If you'd like to add this to your podcasts, you can find all available apps at https://musiciantoolkit.podbean.com/
For Apple Podcasts, click here.
For Spotify, click here.
Please follow the show!
Is it your goal to become a great musician? Are you already a working musician, but want to strengthen your craft? Are you a music student with strengths and weaknesses, and not always sure how to address that which needs improvement?
Do you need to learn how to be a better sight-reader? Do you need help playing by ear, transposing, or memorizing music? Do you sometimes struggle to know how much to practice a piece of music or skill, or what approach to take? Are you wanting to get better at improvisation, composing, music theory, learning 2nd and 3rd instruments?
If so, it sounds like you need to check out... The Musician Toolkit!
Life in the Pit is still temporarily on hiatus, but David Lane wanted to come on to thank all of you for listening, talk a little about the state of the podcast, and what's going on for 2023.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Whether you're in the pit or any kind of musician who has to perform to an expected standard, you may often or even occasionally struggle with stage fright or performance anxiety. Elisa Di Napoli specializes in ways of treating this to allow you to become a confident performer. She is the author of "Dare To Be Seen", which you can get for free for at least a limited time at https://elisadinapoli.com/pit and also has a podcast with the same name. Check out a free masterclass with her at https://elisadinapoli.com/stage-fright-3/ and her online course at https://elisadinapoli.com/how-to-overcome-stage-fright/. Her music can be found at http://www.elyssavulpes.com/
At approximately the 53 minute mark, listeners can here the first ever information about David Lane's new podcast coming in January.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Marci Shegogue is a music director and keyboardist who has been active for decades in the Maryland/DC area. In 2018, she started the Free Theatre in Silver Spring, MD (https://www.instagram.com/thefreetheatre/) and talks about the admin side of running a theatre and how that crosses over with her life as a music director.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Life in the Pit is going to go on a hiatus, hopefully a short one. For more details, listen to this episode as David Lane talks about what's going on with the podcast and why. Also, we do a deeper dive into the 3 keys to making it big that was touched on in the previous episode.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Dennis J. Arcano has played for several dozen shows including the national tour of Tick, Tick,...Boom! as drummer and assistant music director. He is also frequently a sub on drums and percussion for Broadway productions such as Follies, Jagged Little Pill, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. We talk about all of that, the high quality work he's doing as the house drummer and contractor for A Contemporary Theatre of Connecticut, and the wealth of fun and helpful videos he's been creating at his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/dennisjarcano
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Episode 71 begins with David Lane reporting on his very fun first-time experience at NAMM 2022 in Anaheim. Then he brings up a topic that might be uncomfortable but one that is important and widespread: non-union musicians for community theatre are, for the most part, still being paid the same amount they were receiving at the beginning of the century. David reads comments from musicians all over the nation who have chimed in on this to paint the current picture, and offer some suggestions as to how things might improve. There's also the debate of whether or not they should improve. Are community theatre musicians right to quibble over pay when the actors are often volunteers? Many thoughts are shared. Please feel free to message us through http://lifeinthepitpod.com to share your thoughts and suggestions. This is likely a part 1 of a continued future discussion.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
This is a follow up to Episode 70 with Angela McCuiston, where we chatted about strength and injury prevention for musicians, but we never actually talked about her pit experience. This is a funny story of her "big break", and not in the way that phrase is normally used.
Follow Angela and discover her resources at http://musicstrong.com.
his episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
We might not be discussing performance on Episode 70, but don't skip this week, because a reported 90% of musicians will go through some kind of performance-related injury in their career. Angela McCuiston is determined to see that number go down because of her services as a personal trainer for musicians through her company, Music Strong. Angela is not only a trainer, but she plays flute, alto flute, and piccolo and is an experienced pit musician who lives in Nashville. In this episode, we discuss the common physical problems of various musicians and some of the things that can be done.
Angela's book: The Musician's Essential Exercises: Basic Strength Training for Injury Prevention can be found here.
She has a ton of helpful videos on her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/MusicStrongFitnessTraining
Finally, she is the co-host of the podcast: Tuned And Strong.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
If you're a musician in any field, your network is paramount! If you're a music director who works a local market and are responsible for filling chairs in the pit for your production, are you taking shortcuts and possibly saving time while sacrificing the opportunity to build relationships? This is a mild rant from host David Lane about a trend he's been noticing. Do you agree or disagree? Please message through our website or social media pages.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Jeff Saver took over music directing sometime around 1988 during the original Broadway run of Into The Woods. He talks about his experiences with that production, his friendship with the late great Stephen Sondheim, and his understanding of collaboration.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
A lot of talented musicians sit around waiting for work, or struggle with plateauing. Whether you're just getting started or you've been a professional freelance musician for a while and just needing to take an honest assessment and maybe course-correct, David Lane offers 14 habits compiled from himself, past guests, and former listeners that can help make sure that you are doing everything you can control to make the best possible living as a freelance musician.
Do you agree or disagree with this list? Or is there something important that got omitted? Send your feedback through our website or message us on Instagram or Facebook.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Arnold "Arnie" Gross began his professional career as a pianist, and that included working on shows such as Company and Cabaret. For over 5 years, he was the music director for the original Broadway production of Annie. He was also the dance music arranger as well as the on-screen pianist in the 1979 film All That Jazz, starring Roy Scheider and directed by the legendary Bob Fosse. Arnie is long retired from the theatre, but has plenty of stories from this golden age of Broadway and cinema.
The video (mentioned in the episode) of Arnie Gross conducting Sarah Jessica Parker as Annie on The Bob Hope Special can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPJ4T1ysrbQ
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
This is the first listener-generated episode, where David Lane answers two questions:
The first question is asking about the pros and cons of accepting a theatre gig that doesn't pay much beyond travel expenses.
The second question is asking about tips for managing a day job, family, and even meal times with evening gig life.
This was produced as a video episode, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/8r113bDw6DA . Be sure to subscribe to our channel for more upcoming videos.
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Rob Rokicki is a composer, lyricist, and orchestrator - including the musical adaptation of The Lightning Thief which had a short Broadway run but is currently very popular in local theaters around the nation! He chats about the musical itself and gets into some song-by-song musical elements. And, of course...we talk about his pit musicians!
Find out more about Rob and his work at https://www.robertrokicki.com/
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Many musicians are their own employers, to a small extent if not entirely, making a significant of their portion from freelance gigs. While the vast majority of them are great at their instruments, making good decisions with finances isn't a strength for everyone. Samantha Absher of WTF is a Budget (and past cameo guest on an early episode about Terms for Theatre Musicians) is here to discuss some good easy-to-follow advice on savings, budgeting, debt reduction, renting vs buying a home, and more. Life In the Pit listeners can get 30% off her online Financial Success Basics course by visiting https://www.wtfisabudget.com and using the coupon code: lifeinthepit .
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Feel free to subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
This is a brief follow-up to Episode 64 with Jose Simbulan where we talked about being an audition accompanist. Host David Lane has been doing a lot of audition accompanying this week for two community theaters, and shares some of his observations of dos and don'ts based on recent experiences. You can watch this video at https://youtu.be/dAC33G5mSYs
Please subscribe and follow to our YouTube channel while you're there.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Jose Simbulan has had a long successful career as a pianist, keyboardist, and music director, including a stint on Broadway. He has also accompanied no fewer than 35,000 actor auditions, many of them the high pressure 60-90 second variety such as those for professional divisions at the annual Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) where he is preparing for his 27th year of work on March 9-13 in Memphis, and the United Professional Theatre Auditions (UPTA).
This episode looks into the skills of being an audition accompanist, and also includes many tips for actors of all levels in working with their accompanist. What we don't dissect here can be found in Jose's blog at https://josespiano.wordpress.com/
This episode is sponsored by Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, academic tutoring, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Very very few pit musicians can make the pit their only source of income. A significant number rely at least a little if not a lot on teaching their instrument, and many of them do it privately rather than in a school system. Private teachers often neglect or get overwhelmed at the business side of things and, as we discuss, often undervalue themselves. Today's conversation is an essential one for all teachers.
Our guest, Eric Branner, lives in Seattle, and is the CEO and co-founder of Fons, an online platform that helps private teachers of all types (music, yoga, martial arts, coaches, etc) with smooth, automated assistance such as securing timely automatic payments and scheduling. We talk about attitude, networking, and "perceived value" when it comes to setting up or modifying your studio. Click here for more information or to begin your free trial.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Donations are also gratefully accepted. Please leave a rating and a review on your podcast app. Thank you for listening.
Making connections, moving to a new community, studying music in a doctoral program, continuing to play for theatre productions: All of these things are difficult enough separately, but when you combine them and then add in a pandemic, you have Tanner Harrod's life. He smiles his way through all of it as we chat about his life in grad school; playing theatre in Texas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska; keeping your musical tools sharp through variety; and the importance of just "being around" events.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Happy New Year, everyone! Life In the Pit isn't going anywhere in 2022, but the format is changing to add different perspectives that branch outside of theatrical productions. We're not changing what we've done, only growing to include more. In this short episode, David Lane gives you a preview of what's to come!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Like so many theatre musicians, Joe LaRocca's path to his first Equity national tour, the currently-traveling 50th anniversary tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, was far from linear. At times, he had to change directions and even gamble on himself before he could even back it up by even owning the instrument he needed for the gig. We talk about tour life for an active tour (a first for this podcast), and the steps he did to make sure he was prepared for such a high-level gig even with very little prior theatre experience!
This episode is sponsored by The Ultimate Music Business Summit, an annual event going on its 2nd year on January 6-8. This is a must-attend event for any professional musician wanting to improve their business skills! Check out https://www.musicsummit.biz for more information.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.lifeinthepitpod.com for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
LIFE IN THE PIT is full of success stories from musicians around the world! Today's episode, however, is a story of failure. It's a personal story from host David Lane who recently was let go from a high-profile gig. He talks about what happened and, more importantly, the 5 lessons he learned for decreasing the odds of it happening again. If you're an aspiring musician with ambition, setbacks and disappointments are part of the process. How you respond will determine how successful you ultimately become. Today's episode will hopefully give you strategies to improve how you prepare for a show.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Paul Baron has had a career in both theatre and in commercial recordings, including the first national tours of Evita, Cats, The Full Monty, In the Heights, Spamalot, and currently Frozen. He is also the author of multiple books including The Broadway Trumpeter and the upcoming follow-up of Volume 2 (coming later this Fall). This series is a comprehensive collection of actual trumpet book excerpts from the most famous shows ever, along with Paul's thoughts on preparation. If you are a trumpeter, this book and our discussion is invaluable, but many of our talking points apply to all pit instrumentalists. You can find out more about Paul at http://www.paulbaron.net/ .
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
This is an improvised, random mini-episode with David Lane giving some thoughts on the 20th anniversary 9/11 and some personal thoughts based on recent experiences with COVID. If you're only here for the music talk, skip to 12:25 to hear David talk about practice preparation specifics for an upcoming show.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Just as Broadway productions and Broadway tours represent a small percentage of American theatre productions, the same is true for pit musicians. Pit musicians and theaters are in every metro area, including Bakersfield, CA. Jeff Ingle is a middle school history teacher by day, and a gigging percussionist with a passion for theatre by night. He coordinates musicians from his area for local productions, and we talk about the community theatre scene, ensuring pay for musicians regardless of production status or size, and more!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
This is a short, sparsely edited episode that offers a sneak peek into community theatre tech week. Winston-Salem Theatre Alliance has been a special part of host David Lane's musical theatre experience, and on Friday, it officially reveals its brand new venue on 650 W. Sixth St with the local premiere of "Something Rotten". David chats with the director and 2 cast members in the midst of the hustle and bustle. Shows run August 20-22 and 27-29. For tickets, visit https://www.theatrealliance.ws/box_office/
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Tish Diaz has had a full career, more than you might think for someone still young and full of energy, one that includes theatre work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Los Vegas, and Branson MO. We talk about playing with artists like Andy Williams, being a keyboardist for the Vegas Jersey Boys show along with other acts, and even programming keyboards before the digital era. She is currently keyboardist and associate conductor for the Pretty Woman national tour. Find out more about Tish at http://www.tishdiazmusic.com/
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Alex Tirrell is a music director and keyboardist in Rhode Island. He also is one of the sound designers at https://stage-sounds.com/ , the founder who is John Eldridge from Episodes 38 and 39. This conversation focuses on some of the things music directors have to do on a limited budget such as creating reduced orchestrations. You can find out more about Alex at www.alextirrell.com
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Laura Sherman is currently a lecturer for the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Prior to that, she lived in NYC and played on Broadway shows, most prominently as the harpist for Wicked. She also is the harpist on the Original Broadway Cast Recording for Hamilton: The Musical, which is notable in that there is not a harp book for the show. We talk about why that is, along with her experiences for both shows as well as more deep-diving into the uniqueness of harp in general! We discuss an article she wrote about Broadway harpists for Harp Column Magazine, and you can find that here: https://harpcolumn.com/blog/give-my-regards-to-broadway/
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Host David Lane celebrates 1 year of LIFE IN THE PIT as he reflects on the experience of creating the podcast, and describes some of the changes that will take place moving forward. Don't worry; the podcast isn't going anywhere, but there are a few changes. Finally, David shares 10 takeaways that he has learned from the composite of the past year's worth of guests that any musician can use to become the best pit musician he or she can be! Thank you so much for supporting this podcast for one year!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Paul Perfetti was the principal trumpet for the 1st and 3rd national tours of Les Misérables between 1987 and 2006. He also played trumpet for the 42nd Street national tour. Before and since then, he has played for several dozen productions in various theaters as well as operas. He is a Grammy nominated contributor to early music recordings as an expert in historical trumpets and cornetti. He is a resident of Boston, and frequently is a guest lecturer at places like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the New England Conservatory of Music. In this episode, we discuss the lessons he's learned that distinguishes the professional pit musicians with long careers from those with short ones. This is a long episode, but one packed with wisdom from many thousands of shows!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Jennifer Wharton loves playing low brass (her website tag is indeed, "I play low notes"), and has enjoyed doing so on Broadway in shows such as Beloved: The Carole King Musical, 9 to 5, Curtains, Porgy and Bess, King Kong, and most recently West Side Story. She's played with a ton of jazz ensembles and artists, and is a founder of the group Bonegasm, an ensemble of 4 trombones plus rhythm section! She talks about her shows and more! You can find out more about her at https://jenniferwharton.com/
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Matthew Croft has either music directed or played keyboard, or both, for theaters all over Michigan, Ohio, and New York. He has also played for The Illusionists: Turn of the Century on Broadway. He has also toured nationally with 5 Broadway productions: Guys and Dolls, The Producers, Motown: The Musical, Something Rotten, and most recently Jesus Christ Superstar - the 50th anniversary production! Matthew talks about tour life, handling keyboard and music directing for some demanding shows, and tips for getting such work including demo reels. You can find out more about Matthew at www.matthewcroftmusic.com .
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
For the 2nd time, LIFE IN THE PIT goes outside North America to explore theatre from musician's perspectives in other parts of the world. Andrew Clayton is a young guitarist and teacher who lives in Dublin and chats to me about his experiences in the pit and of the Irish theatre scene in general. You can follow Andrew at instagram.com/claytona95 and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4kB2-r-np0agWbqp33eDoQ
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
5 years ago, the host of this podcast, David Lane, was invited to be the arranger and later the musical director for The Collins Boy. Working with the writers Brad Bass and Cari Joy, working with actors like Lisa Howard, Tony Galde, and Russell Fisher, and playing for audiences in NYC and Atlanta have been one of the best experiences! Brad is no stranger to Broadway. He was on-stage for a decade with Wicked, Memphis, and Jersey Boys. Eventually, he left NYC to focus on teaching and becoming a writer. His long-time writing partner, Cari Joy, is a songwriter, pianist, and teacher. This is a musical that is still being developed, but set a crowd record at the 2019 Atlanta Musical Theatre Festival. We talk about that show from where it started to where it's gone to where it's going!
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LIFE IN THE PIT does its first episode on a book. The book is "Strategies for Success in Musical Theatre: A Guide for Music Directors in School, College, and Community Theatre" by Herbert D. Marshall, published with Oxford Press and available as an e-book through Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and other major outlets. Dr. Herbert (AKA Butch) Marshall is a professor of music at Kent State University, and has written this book, which is a wonderful resource for any novice music directors, or anyone who would like to polish their craft and explore new ideas!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Rochelle Collins lives in Las Vegas, NV where she has been a performer for Cirque Du Soleil for 19 years, first for the show MYSTERE, and currently for KA. Her work as a vocalist puts her onstage (and over stage) in the spotlight, but she also performs as accompaniment to the action (in other words, as a pit musician). She talks about what it's like to rehearse and perform a show for Cirque, and we also briefly discuss her other theatre career with shows such as Oklahoma, Into the Woods, Fiddler on the Roof, and other shows and operas. You can hear a sample of Rochelle's work with Cirque du Soleil at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEXkBZtJCg
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Steven Zumbrun has been everywhere because of theatre, and has so many stories to tell! He's played for shows based in the Springer Opera House in Columbus (GA), the Nebraska Theatre Caravan, the Totem Pole Playhouse in Pennsylvania. In addition to playing keyboards and music directing, he also is a performer onstage with acting, singing, and tap dancing! His stories include creepy high school theatres, a flood, a bus crash, and more. Steven has truly had an interesting life in the pit, and has an eloquent way of sharing! Check out his fun experiences!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Trevor Landreth is a percussionist and educator in the Greater Wichita area. In addition to playing in the pit, he teaches high schoolers and college students in not only percussion, but also drum line, something we haven't given a lot of attention here before. In his spare time, he also co-hosts a podcast about movies called The Couch Critics.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Mary Ann McSweeney has played enough shows on Broadway to be really close to having played in every physical theatre on Broadway. She's the original bassist for Avenue Q, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, Far From Heaven, and Silence. But she has subbed for periods on dozens of other shows including The Book of Mormon, Sister Act, Next to Normal, Miss Saigon, Billy Elliot, Newsies, and many more! We talk about her phenomenal career as a Broadway bassist, her side projects, how she gets around NYC with such a big instrument, and what new work she's picked up during the pandemic. As a bonus: we have listener questions starting at 42:44!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Brady Aldrich lives in Wenatchee, Washington, and has music directed and played shows on keyboard, trumpet, drum set, and percussion. He has also done technical theatre particularly from the aspect of the sound, and we talk about what goes into sound reinforcement for the pit. Our main focus is going down the list of what music directors and keyboardists need as far as technology to get started and have a good chance for success. Before you shop at your music store, consult this episode.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Sachio Nang played in the pit for all of his musicals in his Chicago area high school, including Rent, Les Misérables School Version, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Little Mermaid, and Little Shop of Horrors. On the latter, he asked for the experience of leading the pit orchestra as a keyboardist conductor for the show, and this was a group of hired professionals...being led by a 17-year old student! We chat about that experience, along with his general high school music experience and the early stages of what comes next in his career. Sachio is currently a freshman at Oakton Community College. He also coordinated an international video project in 2020 called A Song of Hope, a video that went viral on YouTube and received media attention, and is working on a similar project for this year called "You'll See".
You can find that and many other videos on Sachio's YouTube Channel
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Shelagh Abate is a Broadway veteran who plays the French horn. She has opened the productions for Disney's Frozen, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Honeymoon in Vegas, Anastasia, Evita, Fiddler on the Roof, South Pacific, and other shows as a principal and a sub. We talk about "snow calls". Shelagh talks about the need for a well-stocked tool kit for a pit musician, and how even in Broadway the pit musicians are "smashed in the pit like contortionists!" Also, for the first time ever(!), we answer listener questions that were posted in advance (around the 40:45 mark). Check out more about Shelagh at https://shelaghabate.com/
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Regular listeners of this podcast first heard Andy Mock's voice on the bonus episode on CTG's Wizard of Oz that followed Episode 26. Andy has worked with a number of theatres and schools in the Greensboro area, and we have a fun conversation talking about some of the things that distinguishes a great accompanist aside from piano technique and music reading.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
It's our first full Broadway episode, and the guest is trombonist Andrea Neumann. For much of two decades, she has been a very active musician in the NYC area, playing for the Brooklyn Orchestra, Empire Band, Westchester Symphonic Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra, and so much more. She has also played the trombone book in the Broadway productions of Aladdin, The King and I, Amelie, and Fiddler on the Roof (both the traditional version and a special production in Yiddish). Andrea talks about success and failure on the road to becoming a regular in the pit!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Modern keyboardists in theatre can't just turn on their instrument and play the book. There are often several hours needed for preparing the keyboard for the sequence of sounds and effects needed for a show. Those effects have gotten more and more elaborate John Eldridge is the owner of Stage Sounds, a company that specializes in over 100 shows of downloadable preprogrammed keyboard files for MainStage software, with more titles each month, and additional services being developed. He returns to follow up on a great conversation begun on Episode 38. This episode gets more into the modern keyboardist's world, WHY shows have gotten so complicated, and how theater companies and music directors need to adjust their mindset to how one should plan a show. And again, John's company might be the answered prayer to all the opportunity cost you'll be investing.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
If you've never played a keyboard for a modern musical, you may be wondering what the big deal is with programming. If you HAVE played keyboard for a modern musical, then you know! John Eldridge of Boston, MA definitely knows. After spending hours preparing his keyboard for an upcoming show, he got the idea to save and rent his work to save future keyboardists the huge opportunity cost that is spent here. He created the company Stage Sounds, a company that specializes in over 100 shows of downloadable preprogrammed keyboard files for MainStage software, with more titles each month, and additional services being developed.
John talks about this mysterious but fascinating aspect of a theatrical keyboardist's life that has gone from non-existent to a MAJOR part of the job in a few short decades, including his experience as a staff keyboard programmer for the NYC off-broadway production of Ride the Cyclone. Thanks to such a great conversation, this is presented in 2 parts, with part 2 coming next Friday!
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. You can also donate through the website. This podcast is currently ad-free, so all donations are gratefully appreciated. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Ingrid Keller is the executive director of the Western Piedmont Symphony Orchestra. Prior to this, she grew up acting in theatre, playing roles such as Eponine in Les Misérables, Vivienne in Legally Blonde, and Snoopy in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. She studied in London, and has lived in Seoul. Her theatrical background and diverse experience with culture has influenced her programming for the WPSO, including audience-immersion events inspired by recent Broadway plays such as The Legacy Gala and the Downton Abbey Experience. She also represents many performing arts group in talking about how the orchestra has remained functional through the pandemic. Although she is not an active pit player, she has pit experience at probably the youngest age of any previous guest.
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Playing on national tours for 25 years in shows such as White Christmas, Bombay Dreams, High School Musical, Miss Saigon, and more including a Japanese tour of Rent should all be enough to discuss in one episode. That's a full career as a touring percussionist with some major shows.
However, he's also worked extensively as an actor/singer, a choreographer (or "moveography" as he calls it) and director, an AEA certified Stage Manager. But since all of that was on hiatus, he started his own podcast network and is the creator and host of two sports podcasts: Loyal Littles Podcast and The Upset Special. He's an NFL fan, and I questioned him in advance about who he had picked for the Super Bowl. We now know that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs. How did Louis do on his picks?
Why does he do so much? It's because of his 3-word life statement, "Just keep working." That he does!
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Mike Lasley is an instructor at NC A&T University, and is educated as a percussionist. In theatre, he most often serves as a music director and/or a keyboardist. He has also been on stage as a lead actor. Finally, he has gained experience as a member of the board of directors for High Point Community Theatre, and offers insight into the what a board does and how that shapes his perspective as a music director.
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Christina Lowder is a percussionist near Greensboro, NC who plays a lot of shows for the renowned theatre program at Elon University in addition to other venues. She talks about being a woman on an instrument historically stereotyped for guys, shares a story about being sick and not sure if she'll make it to the end of a show (a story that will get reprised from a different perspective in Episode 35), and playing a show while pregnant.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Eric Eakes plays the viola, and is a doctoral student at the University of Miami. In addition to playing for shows and other performances, he also is the personnel manager for the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra. We talk about that job and being a theatre musician in South Florida.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
The fourth and final (at least for now) installment of Ask The Music Director, where we answered questions you asked of music directors. We have music directors representing schools, community theatre, touring shows, and Broadway productions in this series, representing NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, Cleveland, Kansas City, Greensboro, and Tennessee.
The questions answered in this part are:
“What do you actually listen for at mass auditions when there are so many shows that need cast?”
“How do you decide tempos?”
“What are the most important skills a pit drummer must have for an Music Director?”
If you have a question to ask, or happen to be a music director who would like to participate in future questions, please contact me through the contact page at www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast
Thank you for your support in 2020! You can follow on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please share and offer us a rating and review
John de Haas has worked at Walt Disney World as a musician for 20 years and counting. He talks about about what it's like to work there, and how one might go about getting a job there or elsewhere in the company. He also has played keyboards on the Mamma Mia national tour, worked with kids in Orlando area schools, music directed regional theatre in central Florida, and composed and premiered multiple musicals such as Halloween: The Musical, Theme Park Diva, Tappin' and Yappin', Just This Once, and more.
You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JBdMusic. Most of his musicals are available to stream or download.
Follow the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Life in the Pit gets way outside the pit itself this week, but this still is potentially of great value to either established pit musicians or especially music students. Kini Slaughter plays the flute and understands the world of the performing musician, but a few years ago she turned to making a career on the administrative side of the arts. This is one of the longer episodes, but one where a lot is discussed. The first half of the episode talks about Kini's journey as a musician and we get into practice techniques and philosophy. Around the 35 minute mark, we talk about working in arts administration, what goes into event planning, touching up your Linked-In page, polishing your resume, using the concept of "industry interview" to get into the field of your choice, and how to generally be organized in your goals.
Whether you want to incorporate the mindset skills into the pit itself, or want to find a day job in the arts while you work part-time in the pit, or just want to have some good skills that can translate to any aspect of your life you want to improve, this is a great first full episode to start the new year!
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We continue to answer the questions that several of you asked for music directors, and I got several across the country to answer. We have music directors representing schools, community theatre, touring shows, and Broadway productions in this series, representing NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, Cleveland, Kansas City, Greensboro, and Tennessee.
The questions answered in this part are:
“What are some sacrifices you've made or have to continually make, and what discipline do they come from (pit, scene change, vocals, cues, etc)?“
“How much negotiating power and pull does an MD have in a production to affect the course of the show? How about with the board of the organization(s)?”
“When listening to auditions for actors, do you prefer hearing music close to the character and/or style of the show being auditioned for... or music that can show a range and different techniques?”
If you have a question to ask, or happen to be a music director who would like to participate in future questions, please contact me through the contact page at www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast
Thank you for your support in 2020! You can follow on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please share and offer us a rating and review.
Several of you asked questions for music directors, and I got several across the country to answer. We have music directors representing schools, community theatre, touring shows, and Broadway productions in this series, representing NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, Cleveland, Kansas City, Greensboro, and Tennessee.
The questions answered in this part are:
“I see the music director as a mediator, keeping checks on the musicians, the cast, the stage hands, and production team. How do you go about making everyone happy?”
“What do you prioritize and what kinds of skills have you gained to make each show that had totally different groups and dynamics, as successful as possible?”
“What kinds of crazy or unique things have you done to get your cast members to really SING or break out of their shell?”
“How do you unwind and de-stress during the long process of music directing a show?”
If you have a question to ask, or happen to be a music director who would like to participate in future questions, please contact me through the contact page at www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast
Thank you for your support in 2020! You can follow on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please share and offer us a rating and review.
Several of you asked questions for music directors, and I got several across the country to answer. We have music directors representing schools, community theatre, touring shows, and Broadway productions in this series, representing NYC, Chicago, Boston, DC, Cleveland, Kansas City, Greensboro, and Tennessee.
The questions answered in this part are:
“Why do music directors often replace the indication of a VAMP with a fixed number of repeats for the pit musicians?”
“As someone who plays in a band, I find it almost impossible to keep four musicians in a group on the same page. How do you manage groups of people that are three, four and five times as large?”
“What is more important: Chops or character?”
From a drummer, but could be any pit musician: “What can I do to make your job easier?”
If you have a question to ask, or happen to be a music director who would like to participate in future questions, please contact me through the contact page at davidlanemusic.com/podcast
Thank you for your support in 2020! You can follow on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please share and offer us a rating and review.
Taiki Azuma is in the midst of pursuing his DMA in saxophone performance. He plays all the reeds but, like many things he does, it's because it aligns with his goal of becoming a professor. We talk about some of his academic activities and goals, but of course...we also talk about his experiences in the pit!
You can follow the podcast at Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please leave a rating and review on your podcast app.
Brass players tend to focus on a section. They might play French horn. They might play trombone, and possibly be fluent on tenor and bass versions, in addition to euphonium. They might play trumpet, and be comfortable with flugelhorn, cornet, piccolo trumpet, and other similar instruments. Then there's tuba which might pair with trombone or euphonium. But Harlan Feinstein plays all of them. He is a brass generalist. We talk about the pros and cons of such an approach, with one of the big advantages being the wide array of choices he has a performer. With as many as 11 shows in a week and 21 productions in a year, it has been a good choice! We also talk about the theatre gigs that are available in the DC, Boston, and Seattle areas - all places Harlan has lived. Check out the world of the brass!
Follow the podcast on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast for more info or to send feedback regarding the podcast. Please leave a rating and a review. Thank you for listening.
Valerie Maze has an extensive amount of experience with regional theatre houses, opera companies, and in the academic world. Not long ago, she was the staff theatre music director for Elon University. Much of her work has been in her current residence of Chicago. We talk about the opportunities within the arts scene of the Windy City, along with the world of theatre and opera, the benefits of a collaborative piano degree, and her experiences in succeeding as a woman conductor.
You can follow the podcast on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please share this episode if you enjoyed it, and please leave a rating and review. Thank you for listening.
Doug Rowe is a young percussionist, drummer, and a passionate educator. We talk about his experience with music, teaching, and his personal health journey.
Doug is an active performer in many professional groups. He has served as a percussion section member of the Union Symphony Orchestra for the past 8 years. He serves as a substitute percussionist with the Salisbury Symphony, Hendersonville Symphony and North Carolina Brass Band. Doug has also been featured several times in a professional steel drum band called Panjive. In addition, he is a founding member of his jazz combo Real Deal Jazz.
Doug currently resides in Monroe, NC where he is teaching music at Union and Marshville Elementary School. He was recently appointed Professor of Percussion at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC. In addition, Doug is the Instructor of Percussion at East Lincoln High School. He is a proud artist of Salyers Percussion sticks and mallets and member of the Black Swamp Percussion Educator Network.
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This is a follow-up to Episode 26, where I talked to Al Stephens about his work on the enormous annual production of The Wizard of Oz, as presented by The Community Theatre of Greensboro in NC. This episode features reflections from other players in keeping the machine going. Jennifer Blevins has been the stage manager for many years, keeping a cast of 100 in the right place at the right time. Andy Mock has played several productions as the rehearsal accompanist and keyboard 1 player. Kira Arrington is a young professional actress who played Dorothy as a teenager in the 20th annual production in addition to helping backstage with other productions. Mitchel Sommers is the former Executive Director who has been the Artistic Director for every single production in addition to sometimes playing the Wizard himself. Please enjoy this behind-the-scenes look of this huge production!
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The Community Theatre of Greensboro has, prior to this year, presented a huge production with a cast of 100 of The Wizard of Oz every year since 1995. Just under half of those productions have been music directed by Al Stephens, owner of Moore Music in Greensboro and an established regional conductor. We talk about his life, but also what it's like to deal with a production that is way larger than your average production, as well as doing the same show every year with a different cast.
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Virginia Masius is a versatile bassist who plays with the Greensboro and Salisbury Symphony orchestras, loves to play jazz, and plays funky blues with The Ladies Auxillary, and it is her love of versatility that makes the Pit her happy place!
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You can follow the podcast at Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod and reach out through the contact form at www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast .
Aaron Gandy is my first NYC resident as a guest. He has had a fun career that included a national bus tour playing for My Fair Lady. He spent 9 years as an assistant music director for The Lion King on Broadway, and he has several interesting stories about what it was like on that production, including the very high standards required for the actors! He worked with Glenn Close on Busker Alley. He conducted a concert series with the New York Tenors. He has written several shows, including a one-man show for the acclaimed Jim Dale called Just Jim Dale! Oh yeah, and before all of this, we each played in the same high school marching band for one season together in a very rural small town in Florida. This episode would be a great one even if it wasn't so fun personally to reconnect after more than 30 years!
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What can you do if you're wanting performing arts in a fairly isolated community of 4,000 people? You can either go somewhere else that has it, or create it yourself. The town of Elkin, NC renovated its Reeves Theater in 2017, and asked Tommy Jackson if he would create a house band to be featured performers with their own shows as well as provide backing for guest artists. What does this have to do with the pit? Well, aside from the crossover of skills, it was Tommy's theatre experience that gave him a major piece of the blueprint for how to do this as well as his direct connections for getting this gig in the first place. We talk a lot about the house band, but also his theatre experience that ranges from music directing and playing keyboards for productions of shows like Chess, Chicago, and Aida, playing Jerry Lee Lewis for The Million Dollar Quartet, or his own humble beginnings as a child dancer in The Nutcracker.
Tommy is also a songwriter. You can check out his music at https://jacksoncleary.wixsite.com/tommyjackson and the Reeves House Band at https://www.facebook.com/thereeveshouseband/, and the Reeves Theatre itself at http://www.reevestheater.com.
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If you're a piano student, be sure to listen to this episode! Being a professional soloist is a moon shot, but learning how to be a great accompanist will give you a great chance to be paid for what you do! Haidee is a staff accompanist primarily working with the theatre department at Elon University, one of the premiere musical theatre programs in the United States. We have a fun conversation about what it's like to be a theatre accompanist and then transition to the Piano 1/Keyboard 1 spot of the pit.
As a reminder, you can follow the show on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Reach out with a message through www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast .
Most national tours of Broadway shows travel with a small core group of musicians along with the music director, but require the services of local contractors to fill out the personnel needed in the pit for each area they visit. In the Raleigh-Durham area, that person is most likely Wayne Leechford. He has contracted musicians for many groups, but especially for the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), a regular stop for the biggest Broadway tours including Wicked, Hamilton, Billy Eliot, The Color Purple, Legally Blonde, Mean Girls and so many more! In addition to what it's like getting musicians for those shows, working with the different music directors, and performing in the shows (Wayne also professionally plays saxophone and clarinet), we talk about what musicians can do to get on the radar of someone like Wayne and get to play for these prestigious shows and what those expectations are if you are hired.
You can find out more about Wayne, including his amazing bio, at www.wayneleechford.com . Follow the podcast on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Visit www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast to find out more about the show or to leave the host a message. Please share with your friends, and leave a rating and review.
This is the third and concluding episode of the woodwind trilogy. In Episode 18, we talked about flutes. Episode 19 was about clarinets and saxophones. This week's episode features Matthew Covington, as we talk about double-reeds (such as oboe and English horn) as well as Matthew's unorthodox path to choosing his instrument and becoming a professional musician.
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This is the 2nd episode in a trilogy of conversations with musicians who play a specific family of woodwinds.
Kania Mills is plays clarinets for multiple symphony orchestras and concert bands, and teaches at two colleges. We talk a lot about the difference of a clarinetist's role in band and orchestra. We, of course, talk a lot about playing for theatre. We also have an important conversation about race. Kania is an African American woman, and shares her perspective on the challenges that brings and the possibly subconscious but apparent biases that she often receives. In spite of the serious subject included, it is a fun conversation with a lot of laughter!
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Episodes 18, 19, and 20 form a trilogy where I will be talking to a musician who focuses on one specific family of the woodwinds. This episode features Dr. Tika Douthit, an assistant professor at Winston-Salem State University, adjunct professor at Forsyth Tech Community College, and principal flutist for the Piedmont Wind Symphony. He talks about the flute family and his experiences in the pit, about the importance of an emotional connection with the music, and being our own inspiration.
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A little seriousness and a short necessary rant at the beginning. The fun part of this episode begins at 6:07.
Guy Kelpin is an everyman in music. He has played in orchestras and horn lines for bands such as Bantum Rooster. He's been a composer. He's been a band director and private instructor. He's been a church choir director. He's been a properties manager and house manager, the latter an interim position he holds at University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He has 2 different musical Master's Degrees. Oh yeah... he has played a ton of shows in the pit as both a trombonist and bassist (including the bass/tuba book for Chicago!)
Guy talks about his winding musical journey, and his thoughts on musicianship in general including the very unique analogy in the title of this episode that he explains.
You can follow the show on Twitter or Instagram @LifeInThePitPod and find links to all major podcast apps plus all episodes at http://www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast.
The harp is one of the most visually stunning instruments to see performed live. It is also one of the most complicated instruments, enough that usually only harpists or experienced harp composers actually understand it. For that reason, this episode features a lot more "101" on the instrument than normal.
Our guest is Grace Ludtke, and she talks about what it's like to play the harp in addition to the demands of playing the instrument for musical theatre. She also reveals that her origin in theatre was as an actor and even running the light board, and we talk about how other theatre experience makes you a better a pit musician. Grace also has thoughts about how the harp is actually a character, and the various roles it plays in productions from Hamilton to The Nutcracker, to an opera by Francis Poulenc.
We talk about an ensemble that Grace helped create called the North Carolina Harp Ensemble. You can follow them at www.ncharpensemble.org. You can follow Grace at www.graceludtke.com and follow her on Facebook or Instagram @harpist.grace
You can comment or find out more about this podcast at www.davidlanemusic.com/podcast or follow on IG/Twitter @LifeInThePitPod.
Dr. Ronnal Ford plays two entire families of orchestral instruments, but when asked about his primary instrument he says, "My primary instrument is what I'm getting paid to play at the moment."
Ron has played all of these instruments and more for theatre and other venues. He is an educator and very active as a performer. Among his projects is The Ron Ford Orchestra.
He also describes how major illness nearly derailed his life, career, and quest for a doctorate, and overcoming that. And as you'll hear every few minutes, he is not only not afraid of a challenge, but is invigorated by it.
You can follow Dr. Ford and all of his projects at https://www.ronfordmusic.com/ at https://www.youtube.com/user/fordronnal and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @RonFordMusic.
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Like all of our previous guests, Laura Watkins has pit experience. Unlike our previous guests, it is solely because she created the need. Even though she is accomplished pianist, Laura's experience with theatre before composing and staging new musicals was through acting. She took up music directing and organizing a pit with musicals such as Comic-Con:The Musical and Glass Ceilings, the latter which is an important story about forgotten women of history, and was about to enter its 2nd week at the Rockwell Table & Stage in Los Angeles.
Laura shares her theatre story and talks about the creative process and development necessary to creating and staging a new musical. You can find out more about Laura at https://www.laurawatkinscomposer.com/
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Would you like to know more about playing an instrument as a career on cruise lines? There are some strong crossover with pit musician skills, and that is our main discussion in this episode.
James Hodson lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has had a varied career that began playing trumpet and touring China with the Australian Concert Orchestra. During this time, he began a popular YouTube channel called The Stringdom. He then began a 5-year career as a musician for several cruise lines, and has been to all 7 continents. He now is a headline entertainer for cruises. And, of course, he has experience and a fondness for the traditional theatre pit! Finally, we both contributed original music to Lock-In: a socially distanced film produced by Spring Theatre from Winston-Salem, NC. You can find links to my full original score at www.davidlanemusic.com/music.
Apologies in advance as we geek out over the symphonies of Sibelius at the end! Follow James at https://www.jimhodson.net/
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Deena Rizkalla currently lives in Nashville and plays the violin for local theatre productions, including national tours of Phantom of the Opera and Hello, Dolly! as they have come through the area. She describes how that process works and what the expectations are. She has also toured the country as an on-stage violinist (and singer, dancer, etc) for a theatrical-style group called Barrage 8. Most recently, she has formed a band called The Winterbirds.
You can follow Deena on Instagram @darizkal. You can follow her band The Winterbirds on Instagram @winterbirds_band or Facebook at www.facebook.com/Winterbirdsband, and the podcast itself on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod.
Maggie Gallagher has been influencing multiple generations as a school teacher, voice teacher, actress, and a music director. At the age of 73, she may be retired but she still enjoys the challenge of the theatre, and shares the stories of her time on stage as well as her time in the pit.
As a reminder, you can follow this podcast on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod. Please rate and review, and share with your friends!
Dr. Tony Steve is a professor of Contemporary Music, Percussion, and World Music at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, FL. He has a lot of experience in the pit as a percussionist in New York, Europe, and in Florida where he is often contracted to play for national tours as they visit the area, including Wicked which he has played multiple times! (Instrument demos included!) Tony also composes new music for silent movies, and talks about how pit musician skills come in handy for that endeavor. Tony also talks about why he is such a big advocate of having union stagehands on a gig. You can follow Tony's career at https://www.facebook.com/tonystevepercussionist/. You can follow the podcast on Instagram or Twitter @LifeInThePitPod.
Randy Mintz is recently retired after being a band director for 43 years. He has also spent most of his adult life playing for musicals, mostly on bass. Aside from keyboardists and maybe drummers, no instrumentalist is in higher demand for a show than a bassist. Randy is a friend and has been a regular in my pits since my very first show, but his career has included military bases, Puerto Rico, and perfecting the band program he created. Because he taught at a school with a strong theatre program that encouraged student involvement, you can hear how Randy has introduced multiple generations of high school students to their first pit experiences. Be sure to follow the podcast @LifeInThePitPod on Twitter or Instagram. You can comment on podbean or through the website, davidlanemusic.com/podcast.
Kate Hopper plays French horn, and has all the qualifications to play in any ensemble of her choice, but prefers the world of musical theatre! She also does part-time orchestra contracting for shows, and balances her work life with having a non-music day job, being a caretaker, and struggling with a chronic illness. Listen to hear the ways that Kate overcomes her daily struggles, and why playing for theatre is such an important part of that! Be sure to follow the podcast @LifeInThePitPod on Twitter or Instagram. You can comment on lifeinthepit.podbean.com or through the website, davidlanemusic.com/podcast.
Brian is our second reeds player (multiple woodwinds) to be a guest on the show, but this is the first time we've taken here to dig into what that's like. He also was a member of national bus touring groups for several years, and has some great stories! Brian is also an enthusiastic collector of the ocarina which, as he mentions, although it is not a common instrument in theatre, it does make an appearance in a show or two. Soon after this episode airs, you can see pictures of his collection on Instagram @LifeInThePitPod. You can check out some of his videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/bkblauch/videos. Please rate and review if you are enjoying this podcast, and subscribe/share.
Alex Johnston is a cellist, regularly employed with multiple professional symphonic orchestras. It's not as common as you might think for symphonic personnel to not only play musical theatre regularly, but also love it. Alex, however, is one of those people. She talks about why theatre music is so appealing, and also talks about the importance of marking your part clearly if you are going to have a substitute at any point during the run of the show. Finally, we talk about how the cello is not limited to opportunities on just the classic and full orchestra shows. It is practically a staple in modern musicals, and there are many opportunities for a good cellist who loves playing in the pit!
Daniel Bukin is a graduate student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is a composer and keyboardist, although his main focus the past few years has been as a conductor. He has conducted symphony orchestras, ballets, operas, and of course...musical theatre, which Daniel can tell you why he thinks it's the biggest challenge for a conductor. Daniel has many stories to share about each of his types of experience in musical theatre. You can follow Daniel at danielbukinmusic.com, on Twitter @Daniel_Bukin, on Instagram and Facebook at @danielbukinmusic.
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Overture, vamp, cut, tacet...There are a lot of terms found in musical theatre that need to be known by pit musicians. Some, but by no means all of them, cross over into band and orchestra lingo. Here are 31 terms you should know as defined by a cast of 25 voices. If there are important terms I forgot, please let me know for a possible future sequel episode down the road. You can connect with me by commenting on lifeinthepit.podbean.com, visiting davidlanemusic.com/podcast and selecting the comment button. Please also follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter at @LifeInThePitPod.
Theatre is for everyone! Whether it's full-time or part-time, professional or volunteer, theatre is an enriching endeavor!
Beth Cox is a full-time educator, a middle school band director. However, she has spent most of her life in theatre in such a way that it has given her a rare perception of theatre itself! She has played pit in several shows, acted as a lead, acted in the ensemble, designed lights and sound, and served on the running crew. For anyone who knows PART of what goes on in the theatre, Beth can help you understand what's going on elsewhere. She also elaborates the pros (and cons) of being an educator in regards to her performance. She also can testify that where you live can affect the types of opportunities available to you.
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What is a drummer vs a percussionist? You can be a specialist or a generalist. James Brandt went the route of the generalist, and it has served him well over a career with wide variety, one that includes over 20 productions per year! How can you become a jack of all trades in what is not just an instrument, but a whole FAMILY of instruments?! Jim has great advice and some great stories, including a nightmare story during a performance of Wicked!
What's a modern musical without a guitarist? What does it take to be a successful guitarist in a musical theatre pit? Allan Beck walks us through all the different skills that it takes compared to almost any other style of music
Welcome to the Pit - where instrumentalists gather together to play for musical theatre productions across the world, for everything from amateur and school productions to the houses of Broadway. This is the introduction to this podcast about the lives of those who play for musical theatre, featuring your host David Lane - a music director, keyboardist, composer, and arranger.