Introduction
On the 27th February I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to sit in with the pit Matilda pit band who were currently performing at the Alhambra in Bradford. I arrived at the side door at 1.30pm and met one of the Musical Directors and pianists called Michael Steel, who took me to the pit for the first performance of the day, the matinee performance.
Matinee Performance
For the matinee performance I was sat next to Mike who was playing the first piano part. I was therefore able to see the score for piano as well as understand the set up and required duties of a pianist playing at Mike’s level.
Mike’s space in the pit was to the left of and directly next to the musical director (MD) who was raised on a platform above the rest of the pit. The raised platform meant that the MD was able to see the stage and therefore had the role of communicating what was happening on the stage to the rest of the band. The MD’s main responsibility therefore, was to queue the songs correctly as well as keep the band in time. To my surprise he also played quite a lot of piano, which I thought was extremely impressive multitasking.
Mike’s equipment included a yamaha keyboard, a computer which was hooked up with logic and a pedal which allowed him to change between different piano voices with his foot, a mixer and headphones so that he could hear the rest of the band and a television screen in which he could see a live feed of the musical director.
I was extremely impressed with the level of music that the band was playing as well as the huge detail in which they played. I believe that Bradford was quite far into their UK tour, so they must have been playing the same pieces for a few months. When I asked Mike about this and how they kept focused on the music, he said that they often did full band rehearsals in which they found new ways to approach or freshen up the music.
The pit band consisted of eleven musicians, which included two woodwind players, three brass players, two pianists, a bassist , a guitarist, a cellist and a percussionist. Many of the musicians in the pit band played two or more instruments within the performance. Some being very similar, for example the bassist played both electric and double bass including a bowed approach to the double bass. Whereas the two musicians in the woodwind section, played a mixture of saxophones, clarinets and the flute. It was amazing to see these musicians play to such a high standard on one instrument, so to see two or three involved was slightly crazy.
An interesting part of the pit band was the fact that not all the musicians could see each other when performing. This meant that the whole process was completely reliant on the musicians ability to stay in time with the musical director and perform the music completely accurately. As these musicians were well seasoned and practiced this was no issue but it was very interesting to see the overall process.
Another interesting part of the performance how the musicians dealt with the mixture of constant playing in some areas of the show compared to other areas that contained no music. I saw a couple of musicians reading in between different parts, which was slightly crazy to see, but I was impressed to see the focus and the knowledge of where to come in.
As I was performing in the Chicago pit band, this was all great hands on research of how I should perform and act in a pit band setting as well as the professional standard that I should aim to work towards.
Evening Warmups
Mike told me that he had many other responsibilities on the show alongside performing in the pit band. A few examples of this included helping actors create audition tapes, playing piano in auditions and doing warmups and rehearsals with the actors.
Mike invited me to an evening warmup which started at 6.30pm and which consisted of the child actors from the evening performance doing a range of exercises and running scenes from the play. This meant that Mike had to be on hand to play any bits of music from the score that he was required to. This showed me that he knew the score inside out and incredibly accurately and that this was a requirement of this level of work.
Evening Performance
For the evening performance, I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see the performance from the second tier. It was an incredible show, and although the musical experience wasn’t as intense as it was in the pit, the music still created a pivotal role in creating an incredible atmosphere and introducing different themes of the show.
The incredible choreography and the way that it worked with the music made me wonder what the process would be like to it write the score for a production like that and whether it would be feasible for me to attempt writing music for a play in the future. Prior to this experience, I had briefly though about it , however this reignited my interest in the idea.
Being Invited Back
After the evening performance, I went back stage to thank Mike and Andrew(the other MD) for a great day at the Alhambra. They told me that they were going to the pub in town for a drink and invited me to come, I enthusiastically agreed and joined them. This unprecedented situation allowed me to meet quite a few members from the band as well as have a really interesting conversation with Mike about life as a touring pit band musician, which I will talk about below. I ended the evening with Mikes contact details as well as an invitation to come back and sit in the pit again. This is an offer that I took up and I went back to sit in the pit on Wednesday 20th March. This was a very similar situation to the first pit band experience, although I was sat on the other side of the pit with a mixer, meaning that I could solo tracks in my headphones and adjust the levels of each instrument. This allowed me to understand how the individual instruments came together and how the different parts played off one another.
Life As A Touring Pit Band Musician
Before starting work on the Matilda tour, Mike told me that he had been on tour in Asia with Mamma Mia. As I am not a major musical theatre fan, I had never really thought about the scene outside the UK and I found the idea that you could tour across entire continents whilst working on a show fascinating. He said that the usual format for a show on tour is to stay somewhere for around four weeks, before moving on to the next location. After the four week run at the Alhambra finished, Mike said that he had a week off, presumably due to the time that it would take to move all of the equipment and set up the show at the next venue.
Although the idea of touring around the country sounds very exciting, Mike told me that he was often extremely busy with work and rehearsals and didn’t get out too much to see the city. On the Matilda tour, they were doing eight shows a week, which is very full on as a show would last over two hours.
When I asked Mike about how he could booked or asked to play on different shows, he said that he had gotten very lucky and met someone when he was at University who had helped him make lots of contacts in the business. He said that for musical theatre, although actors had agents who represented them, musical posts weren’t well advertised and getting jobs relied on people recommending you or giving you the work that they were too busy to do, until you became established in the business.
He said that between getting back from the Mamma Mia tour and moving onto Matilda, that he had to wait a long while before he could start which was quite stressful as a whole.
When I asked him about the best way to get into playing as a professional pit band musician, he advised me to join the drama society when I went to University as well as getting involved with local drama projects.
Summary
Overall, the whole experience of being able to sit in with the pit band at Matilda was surreal and incredible and I learnt so much about how to play in a pit band as well as the music industry surrounding it.
The life of a touring musician certainly sounds like an adventure, however I’m not sure if I could cope with playing the same show twice a day for over a year, although if the music was very interesting then it could be very exciting.
It does sound incredibly hard to break your way into the industry and that the musicians who are in it are fully focused on musical for their musical careers, which is not something that I think I could fully commit to, but I guess we’ll see what happens in the future. There is always the opportunity to get hired to fill in on different shows when the pianists from the pit band takes time off or is off sick.