Just a little overview

While commenting on Facebook this morning, I thought that it would be interesting to list the number of different skills that have been employed since I began to work on the musical, Grimhilda!   It hasn't been quite a matter of everything and the kitchen sink, (as in Sienna Sinks stainless steel sinks) but it's felt close to that at times.


Of course, the first skill was writing the thing, in collaboration with my friend, Cherianne Parks (she contributed many of the crazier ideas, and is very strong on structure and plotting).

Then the was the writing of the music, first in a piano/vocal score, and then gradually this was orchestrated.   None of these skills, so far, were new to me.

Next, and these aren't in any particular order, I had to discover how to apply for funding and how to fill in applications forms to funders.  I was greatly helped in this by Sally-Anne Howes, who's done it before and made editorial comments and did the budgetting side of it.  As a result we got some $6000 of funding!

Then there was my involvement in the auditions.  I didn't make the final decisions on casting, but was involved in the process with the director and music director.   When we didn't have a complete cast as a result, in collaboration with the D and MD, I began the search through every means I could think of to find the additional actors we needed.  So you might say I acquired some casting skills...

Then there was advertising.  Initially I was doing this in a kind of ad hoc way, and then somehow it became my job altogether.   It's been interesting, and I've met some great and friendly and helpful people.   And been overwhelmed, as always, by the willingness of people to get involved.

I also recorded two selections of music and put these on SoundCloud, along with some of the instrumental music - courtesy of the Sibelius program.   And last weekend, I went through and checked (and corrected) the instrumental parts, and printed them out, and, with my wife's assistance, taped all the individual pages together into a concertina format, so the musicians don't have pages flying everywhere during the performances.  That was a much bigger job than I anticipated.   And then we'd no sooner done that than we had to add in a number of bars because the Director wanted a bit of dancing in one place.  Such is his prerogative, but it's surprising how much extra work that was.  It's much easier to cut stuff than add stuff!

And then there's what you might call my 'producing' role: finding things, and people to do stuff, and making decisions that something is far too expensive to go with and trying to find a better and more economic option.   Surprisingly the economic options are often because other groups in town, or people, are willing to be generous to a degree that continues to amaze me.  This week has shown me just how generous people can be - we were even offered a keyboard for the celesta part in the score after I advertised on Twitter.  Someone retweeted the original tweet, and within five minutes, I was on the phone to a resident saying he not only had a keyboard he was willing to lend (to a complete stranger!) but was willing to drop it off to the theatre.   Wow!

I've just been having coffee and liaising with the MD and the man who's going to look after the mics for us.  He's even willing to go chasing up additional items we need to get this part of the show to work properly.  Again, Wow!   (And he's been willing to come to rehearsals and see how things run and what needs to be done.)

My list of helpful people is growing - and I'll keep it for future reference!

Meanwhile, Cherianne has also played multiple roles: props person (collecting them and organising for them to be built where necessary); overseeing the making of the costumes and liaising with the scenic designer; ongoing script consultant and much more which she could tell you about better than I can.  And of course, she'll be Stage Manager during the show's run.

I'm sure there are other jobs I've been involved with (such as putting together the promo at the Library yesterday) but they're all beginning to merge...maybe I'll update this as the other jobs come to mind!

SoundCloud stats

As I've remarked before I'm one of those people who's always interested in the how the stats show up.  In this particular instance, I'm thinking of the stats relating to SoundCloud, which I've just read is one of the top startups in Europe at the moment.

I just had a look at them to see what was being played and who was playing it.   This month 51% of people listening to music I've put up have been from New Zealand, 12% from the United States, 7% from the UK, and, such being the nature of the Internet, 5% were each from Thailand and Belgium.

If I look only at this week, however, the stats reverse: Belgium and Thailand go up to 33% each, the UK and US vanish, Spain comes in for 16% along with NZ.  Which presumably means there have been a lot fewer listenings this week than over the whole month.

And what have they been listening to?   Over the whole month it's been the Grimhilda! instrumental selections scenes 1 and 2.  This has had 8 plays.   Scenes 5 & 6 have had 5 plays.  The first piano selection has had 3 plays along with the scene 7 instrumental selections.   And The Cowboy leans the Tarantella, a piano piece, has had just 2 plays.

During all the time I've had music on SoundCloud, however, the scene 1 and 2 Grimhilda! instrumental have had 32 plays all up, but The Cowboy comes in second at 21 plays.   This is interesting: there are several piano pieces on SoundCloud, but none of these come within a cooee of that many plays.   One of my favourite pieces, Ladies Preparing Silk, (it's also the one my kids like), has had only two plays since it was uploaded.  (And they were probably both me checking that the upload worked....)

Another go

Trying out this audio clip business again, after having had moderate success earlier today with putting an audio file on this blog...

Suite for Cor Anglais and strings second movement by mike-crowl

Audio on the blog

Out of the blue a person named Mike from Dunedin in Florida emailed and asked if I knew how to put an audio file on a blog. I didn't, but after looking around a bit I'm now trying out a way to play audio through this blog...

Suite for Cor Anglais and Strings third movement by mike-crowl

I've just tested this out and it works. Takes a bit of time to download, but it gets there. I'd remembered that SoundCloud has a 'share' section on each music/audio file you upload to them, and guessed there might be a way of embedding a file. There is. And here it is...

I'll have to do some more...!

Marketing Grimhilda...

Making good progress on the musical I've been writing: finished orchestrating the eighth scene today (eighth out of ten). There'll still be tidying up to do, and no doubt some changes, but a lot of those first eight scenes are pretty much as they'll appear in performance.

Just had a look again at the last scene's music - after a few weeks of ignoring it, I can see its faults more clearly. So there'll be some work to do there...! Still, that's the nature of the beast.

Just noticed, apropos of nothing that's gone before, that on the latest Firefox the indications about where your browser is searching for a particular site have shifted from the left side to the right. Why? you might be inclined to ask.

Meanwhile, back to Grimhilda! a title that has different effects on different people. Some pick up Wagnerian associations, some (well, one) think it old-fashioned, some just like it. (There aren't any Wagnerian associations, by the way, although I suspect the character of Grimhilda would be quite at home in a Wagnerian opera - in terms of personality, if not in terms of vocal range or power.)

Among the many things on my mind relating to the musical is the marketing of it. That's already begun, in a sense, with mentions of it on the blog, which feeds through to Facebook, where it's been discussed occasionally, and where it's known about amongst a smallish group of people.

I've got other plans: spent some of this week putting together a kind of collation of some of the music from the show. It's an 8-9 minute medley, which I'm hoping to play on any occasion that arises. (A friend of mine is planning several concerts for his singers this year, and when I'm accompanying, I should also be able to squeeze in some Grimhilda! music).

I'd like to record the medley and make it available on SoundCloud, or You Tube or one of the other openings on the Net. Because Grimhilda! is a complete unknown to most people, she'll need all the help she can get to put bums on seats...

I might even be able to persuade some of my singing friends to learn a few short sections and record those as well.

My collaborator and I have discussed the possibility of inviting people especially for the first night. Don't know that we'll print invitations but you never know! I'd also thought of having a night when people who couldn't otherwise go because of the ticket price could come. I feel it would be good to give people who can't otherwise afford to go an opportunity. Two of the shows I've been in over the last few years have been put on with a charity in mind - Habitat for Humanity - so that some of the profit goes to them. The concert person I mentioned above used to put on concerts partly to raise money for people with intellectual disabilities.

Keep an eye out for more news in this area...