Conrad Askland, from Mount Vernon, WA USA, is currently living in Macau (SAR) China while working with the Cirque Du Soleil ZAIA show at the Venetian Macao. In Asia he has also performed in Shanghai, South Korea and Japan.

October 1, 2009 – 中国加油，中国万岁

Happy Sixty Year Anniversary to the People’s Republic of China!

It’s a four day holiday for the locals here in China. When locals have holidays it usually means that I work more; doing entertainment shows to accommodate the tourists.

China’s last 60 years has been bittersweet with a unified people exposed to both hard living and the largest economic boom in modern history. At the end of my blog post there’s a link to a great CNN article by Jaime FlorCruz that gives an overview of China’s 60 years as The People’s Republic of China.

I have posters of Mao Zhe Dong (Mao Tse Tong) in my Macau apartment. They are reproductions from the originals that call for united workers. I picked these up on a vacation to Beijing that included the typical tourist activities of climbing the Great Wall and visiting Tiananmen Square. Local Chinese and Macau residents that see the posters smile and are suprised I have them. I myself was surprised no one chastised me saying “Why do you have photos of Mao?”.

Mao Zhe Dong is loved and revered overall in China by my experience. I have asked many mainland Chinese what they think of Mao and the most common response is “50-50” or “both good and bad”. My perception is they recognize many problems but also recognize it is part of their history and the country is headed in a new direction. I have never heard a mainland Chinese person speak poorly or critically of Mao in private conversation.

While vacationing in Beijing I met a Chinese college student and she had asked me which locations I was visiting for my vacation. I mentioned Tiananmen Square and she said, “Why would anyone want to go there? It’s SO boring!”. I replied, “Well, you know, because of what happened there?”. She answered, “What happened there?”. She didn’t have any knowledge of the Tiananmen events of June 4, 1989. (You can read about those events here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989)

I was surprised by her response that she knew nothing of it and I chose to let the subject go. I’m here in China as a guest to work and in the process want to learn about their culture. I’m not here to project my culture onto theirs.

Recently I received an email from a Canadian friend that said, “China’s great to visit, but I think the US is a whole lot safer, and has a lot more opportunity.” I don’t know if that’s true.

Living in Macau (SAR) China and the strong influence of neighboring Hong Kong; I have the unique experience of being able to visit mainland China and have mainland Chinese friends while also having the progressive thinking and relative autonomy of Macau and Hong Kong residents. Macau and Hong Kong are now “Special Administrative Regions” as part of China. They will officially be integrated totally under China in 2050, but until that time retain local government and infrastructure. So in a way it’s like “China light”. I get to experience Chinese culture from a base that is very Western and comfortable for someone from the US.

What do locals think of the US? To my face people give a thumbs up when they learn I am from the USA. And the first question after that is usually “Do you like Obama?”. When I say “Yes!”, they smile and give a thumbs up.

Although in a Hong Kong taxi I was wearing an Aussie shirt and told him I was Australian when asked my home country. He was from VietNam. Told me about his escape from the country and the evil acts of Mao Zhe Dong’s brother. Then told me that the USA only wants war. “They only know war. It’s all they do.”

Many of the younger generation in China are dreaming of new opportunities and possibilities. Many ask me about how to navigate jobs and how to be an entrepeneur. Many ways of thinking in the West seem to be new to them. Or maybe it’s because of a great change in thinking between the generations. The older generation went through many great difficulties and were very used to fitting in and doing their part as part of a whole. The new generation has only known the great propulsion of the China economy and has heard first hand accounts of many friends who have had success during this opening to business in the West.

These are exciting times for China. Happy 60th Birthday to the People’s Republic of China, and many sincere thanks for letting me learn about your culture and to see first hand the development of your new era.

Read the CNN article “China 60 Years On: From Mao to Today” here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/09/30/china.60years.preview/index.html

I was sent these photos of tulip season in Skagit County, Washington (USA). I don’t know if it was the sender’s intention, but the photos sure make me homesick for the Pacific Northwest of the US. This is a normal spring view in Mount Vernon, WA. A view that even locals know better than to take for granted. Photos by Gary Brown, a great supporter of the arts in Skagit County.

I wanted to do something with my newfound free time; so decided to do something crazy that I had always wanted to do: To write a complete orchestral and choral work in one week like JS Bach used to do for his weekly church services. My last service for the church was Christmas Eve 2007 so I decided to write a Gloria for presentation at the evening Christmas Eve service.

I am not good at writing unless I have to – so I habitually put myself in positions where I can’t back out. I told the church staff and choir of my intention and they all thought it sounded like fun and they put ads in the local paper for people to join our choir for the service. The great part about his (and I don’t think they knew this) is that the ads went out but I hadn’t written a note of the music yet. But it put me in a great corner where I had to write the piece now.

Wanting to complete the piece in one week like JS Bach used to do, I started composing one week before the first choir rehearsal. I am usually unimpressed when people tell me how quickly they wrote a piece (“Look, I wrote this song in only one hour!”) because it’s usually just an excuse for how crappy the music is. But I cut myself slack in this instance, because part of the magic of the journey was the time constraint involved. I cannot be JS Bach (Boy, I wish I could!), but I could at least enjoy a little taste of his historical work style.

I write this because I received an email reminding me the one year anniversary of the “Christmas Gloria” was coming up and there were questions about how to access it.

Here is a live recording of the piece:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria.mp3

The score is located here:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria-Askland-conductor.pdf

FYI, I had set up several professional microphones for a great recording but did so at the last minute and my ADAT tapes wouldn’t format that evening correctly. So all I could do was put a little CD recorder on top of the organ that recorded this performance with it’s very crappy internal microphones. But at least we have something of that night.

Yes, you may download it and copy it for a performance if you like. This was a wonderful experience for me. Thank you to the many talented vocalists and musicians in Mount Vernon, and the congregation and staff of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church for supporting this work.

If you want to follow the original progression of the work on the piece begun December 12, 2007 – you can go here:
http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2007/12/the-gloria-challenge/

The words of the Gloria are from the original Latin text of the Gloria from the Catholic Mass. I think I rearranged the order of the sentences, can’t quite remember now. I DID add in the words “Soli Deo Gloria” at the beginning and end (for a proper Protestant musical bookmark), “Only for the Glory of God” – also a reference to “Sola Scriptura” from Martin Luther and the Reformation.

The middle section is a trio on Et In Terra Pax or “Let There Be Peace On Earth”. That is my favorite section – the gentle and intimate relief from the larger choral sections. It makes me cry because Et In Terra Pax (the words) are so beautiful, yet seems so impossible to realize. Like the girl in Les Miserable singing “Castle on a Cloud” – it’s more of a hopeful wish than something I know can be true. It is pathos – just my personal take. To others it might very well just be some song.

My other favorite part of the recording is not actually the music at all, it is the applause. It’s not applause necessarily for the piece, but the piece was my way of saying farewell to the congregation; and to me the applause was them wishing me well on my journey.

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been producing for about 8 years now and now i’m ready to take that serious step I stay in Lincoln Ne, and it’s hard for a producer out here, so I was wondering how do I just really start I make hiphop,r&b,dirtysouth,soul and blues beats and i’m still not getting paid like I want to I know i’m damn good at what I do but just need to get with the right person, how do I reach or find that person, where do I look it’s hard for me here and at the same time I have family here and I want to do what I like, to make money that way I know i’ll stick with it

Thanks…………….Dennis

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Reply:

If you’re working on music for Seussical the Musical, you already know it’s a LOT of music. The longest wait between songs is about 30 seconds. The Conductor/Piano 1 score runs over 400 pages – most musicals I’ve worked on run under 200 pages. You’ve got your work cut out for you. The music is not extremely difficult, but it has a lot of textures needed to pull off the orchestration. I think the orchestration is very good, and the charts are very clean. As conductor you will notice many errors between the conductor’s score and musician scores. Double check all your numbered repeats, fermatas and pauses – they are marked erratically from score to score. I thought I had caught most of them, but in rehearsals realized I had only caught about half the errors. There are also a small number of note errors, listen carefully to your musicians to catch them. (I should have kept better notes so I could post a listing of the errors to fix).

Here are the major problems I identified with producing the music for Seussical, and notes on how I worked around them.

1) How do you fill out the orchestra for a local production?
2) Will the show work with 5 or 6 musicians?
3) How do you find woodwind players that can each double on 4-5 instruments?
4) How do you get a professional stringe ensemble sound – without using cheezy keyboard patches or investing in a full string section?
5) How do you teach four part harmonies to grade school children, and have them remember the enormous amount of music in this show?
6) If using kids, how do you get the Wickershams to sound hip – the score is written for males who’s voice has already changed.
7) What’s more important for the Cat In The Hat – vocal ability or acting ability?
8) What to look for vocally in the different groups of Bird Girls, Who’s, Wickershams, Jungle Animals and lead characters of Mayzie, Gertrude, Sour Kangaroo, Horton the Elephant, JoJo and the General.
9) Assming you are using a majority of children in your cast, how can they project over the orchestra?

Answers to questions:

1) How do you fill out the orchestra for a local production?
I really think you need to pony up and fill out the orchestration as much as possible. Seussical is all about imagination and the different textures you orchestra brings to the show is part of pulling off that environment. I want to hear Disney, I want to hear Fantasia – that’s not going to happen with a five piece group. It will sound ok, but not inspiring. For me, I’d rather not do it unless it’s going to be ultra cool. If you’re using five or six players, then these notes won’t help you – this is about producing Seussical in a semi-pro environment (which can also mean community theater that works really, really hard!)

2) Will the show work with 5 or 6 musicians?
“Work”, yes – something I’d want to work on? No. Get donors, beg borrow and plead, get that orchestra filled out. I was fortunate to get a single donor to underwrite the entire orchestra. They were given prominent mention in the program.

3) How do you find woodwind players that can each double on 4-5 instruments?
You can’t – assuming you do not have a budget to hire session players (which really, only session or union players are going to be able to pull off all those doubles professionally) and are not near a major city with access to players like this. So split your woodwinds into as many parts as you need to cover the three parts. I found that you can skip the following parts, which are VERY small parts once the others are covered: You can cut bassoon, Flute II, clarinet II. I had players for these parts, but the parts were so small they declined to play. If you can get people for those parts great, but you probably won’t miss them.

Here is the instrumentation that Seussical the Musical calls for:

Bass Electric Bass
Cello
Drums Kit, Woodblock, Piccolo Snare, Cowbell, Timbale, Shaker, Bell Tree, Flexitone, Mark Tree, Triangle
Guitar 1 Acoustic Guitar and Electric Guitar
Guitar 2 Acoutic Guitar, Banjo, Electric Guitar
Keyboard 1 (Breathy-bell Synth, Pno+Perc.E.P., Cowbell + Calliope, Pno/Rhodes, Pop Piano, Piano, Elec. Pno, Calliope, Kazoo, Cheap-sounding Piano, metal Clav, MetalClav + Calliope, Poly Synth, Stackoid, Tack Piano, Glittery Synth, Buzzy Xylo, Mysterious E.P., Sweet E.P., XyloGlock, Voices, Theremin, Shimmery Stuff, Many Flutes, Rock Piano, Clarinet)

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Keyboard 2 (Breathy Pad, Bell Synth, Harpsichord, B-3, Cricket Synth, Elephant, Orch Hit, “Doing”, Psycho Strings, Tinkly Voices, Door Slam, Kalimba, Mallet Synth, Bell/Harpsi Synth, Pedal, Log Synth, Percussive B-3, Rok B-3, Calliope, Reedy Synth, Hank-y Synth, Nose Flute, Kazoo, Birdie Whistle, Tiny Synth Voice, Horn, Pig Synth, Animal Brss, Many Tubas, Bird Honk, Bird Fart, Hard Bottle Blow, AirRaid Siren, Spooky E.P., Warm E.P., Warm Voices, Celesta, Ethereal Choir, Spooky Voices, Dark Choir, Glittery Bell Synth, D-50 Stack, 80s Pad, Breathy Bell, Toy Piano, Cathedral Organ, Squishy Bass, Small Pipe Organ, Marimba, D-50 Heaven, Mello Organ, Rock Synth, Metal Clav, Hooty Synth, Clock Sound, Icy-cold Synth, Accordian, Ravenborg, Roller Rink Organ, Kazoo Brass, Cimbalum, Funky Horn, Pizzicato Strings, Sitar, Many Trombones & Horns, Buzz Brass)

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Percussion (Crotales, Chimes, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Congas, Tympani, Djembe, Siren Whistle, Shaker, Vibraslap, Tambourine, Bell Tree, Triangle, Finger Cymbals, Piatti, Sleigh Bells, Vibraphone, Suspended Cymbal, Mark Tree, Cork Pop, Temple Blocks, Samba Whistle, Ratchet, Bongos, Cowbell, Scraper, Rainstick, Marimba)

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Reed 1 Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, Piccolo
Reed 2 Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, Oboe, Tenor Saxphone
Reed 3 Baritone Saxophone, Bassoon, Clarinet, Flute
Trombone
Trumpet 1
Trumpet 2
Viola
Violin 1
Violin 2

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Here’s how I covered that orchestration:

(1) Electric Bass
(1) Cello
(1) Drums Kit, Woodblock, Piccolo Snare, Cowbell, Timbale, Shaker, Bell Tree, Flexitone, Mark Tree, Triangle (Your drummer will need a cowbell)

(1) Guitar 1 Acoustic Guitar and Electric Guitar
Guitar 2 – CUT
(1) Keyboard 1 – Piano and Hammond B3 (covered by conductor, you could also have a “piano player” cover Key I)

(1) Keyboard 2 – Reduced patches to: Electric Piano (one aggressive, one mellow) , B3 rock, B3 mellow, Heaven Pad, Bell Synth, Calliope, Reed Synth (oboe-ish sound), Theremin (whistle with portamento), CyberBorg (dance synth patch), Spooky Voices, Tick Tock (from drumset sound bank),

(1) Percussion – Keyboard 3 covers these mallet percussion parts from the percussion score: Chimes, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Tympani, Vibraphone, Marimaba)
(1) Percussion – Live percussion player covering conga, djembe and latin percussion parts.
(1) Reed 1 – Flute, Piccolo
(1) Reed 2 – Bass Clarinet, Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone
(1) Reed 3 – Baritone Saxophone, Oboe (Oboe from Reed 2 part, BariSax has priority in uptempo songs, oboe has priority in ballads)
(1) Reed 4 – Alto Saxophone (From Reed 2 score)
CUT WOODWINDS if not available: Soprano Saxophone, Bassoon, Clarinet II, Flute II

(1) Trombone
(1) Trumpet 1
(1) Trumpet 2
Viola – CUT if not available.
(2) Violin 1 – Combine real violin player with Keyboard 4 (Keyboard player playing Violin I part, will need to select patches that blend with live players and Violin II part)
(2) Violin 2 – Combine real violin player with Keyboard 5 (Keyboard player playing Violine II part)

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4) How do you get a professional stringe ensemble sound – without using cheezy keyboard patches or investing in a full string section?

By combing quality keyboard string samples with live players. The live players will provide the attack and bend that you need in the sound, the keyboard covers the fullness of the sound. I have seen Seussical performed live with a full string section (three players per part) but it still did not have the nice full sound of symphony strings. My experience has been it is very difficult to pull that sound off within budget and the pool of players available.

5) How do you teach four part harmonies to grade school children, and have them remember the enormous amount of music in this show?

When we had auditions, we were very careful to check for singers that could sing harmonies, and grouped them accordingly to different character types. I have the more advanced singers cover the harmony parts, and the younger singers cover the melodies. In some sections where harmonies only come in on a couple notes, I simplified into two part harmonies and eliminated some harmonies. This was dictated by our particular casting, but I would guess this to be a similiar situation for most all-kid productions.

To learn all the music parts we broke into groups at rehearsals, many times having four different rehearsals running simultaneously. Singers were often brought in before rehearsals to work on particular ensemble parts and to reaffirm harmonies.

Once harmonies were in place, I would omit the lead line and play harmony parts to make them more solid for singers.

6) If using kids, how do you get the Wickershams to sound hip – the score is written for males who’s voice has already changed.

I changed the octaves of some parts, and had Wickershams speak some of the low parts. They are just too low for young unchanged voices. We did with attitude, and the final result was very hip.
7) What’s more important for the Cat In The Hat – vocal ability or acting ability?

I think acting ability is more important. Many of the Cat in the Hat vocal lines can be performed as speech-sing.

8) What to look for vocally in the different groups of Bird Girls, Who’s, Wickershams, Jungle Animals and lead characters of Mayzie, Gertrude, Sour Kangaroo, Horton the Elephant, JoJo and the General.

I put trained vocals in the Who section, they need a very pure sound with strong harmonies. Also worked with Who’s a lot on over-enunciation to make their parts more animated. Bird Girls – need to have 3part harmonies, we used 6 bird girls so each voice doubled. Without the harmonies, the Bird Girl part doesn’t come across, needs a “Supremes” type sound. General can also be speech-sing style. Need a strong vocalist for both Mayzie and Sour Kangaroo – I don’t really see a way around this, especially the Kangaroo. Horton’s part covers such a wide range, I think you’ll find speaking some lines instead of singing will work better for this character too (for a younger voice). I have Horton under-sing a lot, seems more in character.

9) Assming you are using a majority of children in your cast, how can they project over the orchestra?
Picking our sound crew was our first priority. Field mics for different vocal ensembles and dedicated wireless mics for leads and supporting characters. We also put the orchestra behind the cast so the sound crew would have more control over the final volumes – the particular hall we were in has a very live orchestra pit that is hard to control. Also, because I use several keyboardists to cover parts, it’s important to have a sound crew with a good ear so they can mix the textures properly.

Hope that helps, if you have any questions on the show or see a way something could have been improved, please post it.