Use of Microphones on Broadway- Page 2

[candydog2]

Posted: 7/8/11 at 5:49pm

Yes I have to say, I'm all for microphones. Yes an un-miked performance is a lot more "authentic" and it is quite a novelty to be in the first few rows of a musical and be able to hear the actual singing on stage, but is it really practical? Sure they didn't use them back in Merman's day, but that was only because they didn't HAVE them. You can talk as haughtily as you like about the great actors of way back when who never used a mic but how many of them would have actually used them had they been available? Plenty I'm sure.

I also read the interview with Boyd Gaines and have to say I actually disagree somewhat. Yes you have to lean forward and concentrate to hear what's going on in un-miked plays, but are you concentrating on what's goinging on or just straining to hear? I'd rather the play was amplified so I could sit in comfort and enjoy the plot and performances rather than constantly be trying to make out what a character is saying.

[MariusPontmercy]

Posted: 7/8/11 at 6:51pm

Yes you have to lean forward and concentrate to hear what's going on in un-miked plays, but are you concentrating on what's goinging on or just straining to hear?

The former, actually. Is it really that difficult to hear? The only times I've struggled to hear actors in a play is when the performer themselves has a weak voice, and that's just as bad from anywhere in the auditorium. The vast majority of plays I've seen have been unmiked, and audibility problems are - in my experience, at least - very rare. Provided the audience is reasonably quiet, good actors don't need to shout to be heard, and I've heard many actors speaking at what sounds like a normal conversational level but is perfectly audible throughout the theatre. I don't think of it as a matter of snobbery or purism or whatever... it just sounds nicer, and more natural.

Musicals are an entirely different matter, and I agree that miking is usually a huge help there.

Posted: 7/8/11 at 7:45pm

As others have said, most modern musicals are orchestrated and even written in such a way that you can't do them un-miked. Even some plays (ones with a lot of underscore, lots of effects,etc) are like this. Still, there is something thrilling to see a show un-miked and done well.

I'm not a huge Phantom fan but the use of SOME pre-recorded bits doesn't bug me, I see it as part of Hal Prince's special effects in general--remember he first did this in Follies. That said, I don't approve of the use of auto-tune on stage (or in concerts actually).

I had a fight with someone on here who complained about the Chorus Line revival using mikes--he bragged that whenever he had performed it (which turned out to be in small intimate local theatre productions) he had never needed a mike. He didn't seem to realize that, while I don't believe body mikes existed yet, Michael Bennett was a huge fan of using mikes and carefully had ones pointed at key parts of the stage (as well as of course using the "cut" dancers to sing along to many of the songs in a booth off stage). For many directors, especially earlier on, miking allowed them to do even more incredible staging than they would have been able to before (which includes things like not always having a singer sing straight out to the audience, etc). But of course it's often a crutch too.

There's also the point that, unlike most Broadway houses, many touring spots operate out of massive, cavernous, theatres. I'm not sure even Merman coulda belted to the top of the second balcony in those.

I did a semi pro production of Forum as Miles about ten years back and it was in a small venue and up until basically dress rehearsal I was unmiked--and whatever anyone says about my vocals, one thing I can do is project. For some reason the rest of the cast and the director wanted to use mikes, something I didn't think they were gonna bother with, so of course I had to be miked too to even out the sound mix. It was damn hard to adjust to not singing Bring Me My Bride or the Funeral Song with full projection... (I'm sure if we had a more experienced sound board operator we could have gotten around this, but...)

I do feel that for MOST plays--again ones that aren't too effects heavy or reliant on incidental music, miking does sound particularly artifical and can take a long time to adjust to--I saw a production of Virginia Woolf where I was continuously conscious of the voices coming from the speakers.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 7/9/11 at 5:03am

I can attest to the fact that Ethel Merman can indeed sing to the top of the balcony in a cavernous theatre on tour. After GYPSY closed at the IMPERIAL in 1961, the show toured with Merman for 6 months (what big star would do that today?). The first stop was at the Auditorium Theatre in Rochester, NY. It held 4500 seats. I went to college in Rochester and jumped at the chance to usher there, so I was in the balcony when, before the audience filed in, Jack Klugman came out on stage, took one look and announced, "Boy, what a barn!" My area to seat people was in the balcony and people had no trouble hearing Merman, believe me.

In another experience in Rochester, I played Harry McAfee ( the Paul Lynde role) in a rather good production of BYE BYE, BIRDIE. The day of the final performance I woke up with a hoarse sore throat--my voice was very weak. That production used stage apron mikes and the sound man boosted the mikes whenever I was on stage, particularly for my three songs. That was one time that I was grateful for microphones.

Posted: 7/9/11 at 6:11am

That's a brilliant story@

But... would she have been able to sell the lyrics of, Not Getting Married Today to those rafters? I just meant that songwriting AND performers were changed by then.

Posted: 7/9/11 at 6:12am

That's a brilliant story@

But... would she have been able to sell the lyrics of, Not Getting Married Today to those rafters? I just meant that songwriting AND performers were changed by then.

[stagewright]

Posted: 7/9/11 at 7:13pm

Mics in musicals are here to stay. Even in intimate houses.

1- Performers aren't trained like they used to be. Today's Mermans are few and far between.

2- Orchestrators have always written contemporary music. The advent of the electric guitar, digitized drum samples and synthesizers have forced the volume up.

3- Audiences are listening to music at home on their hi-fi, digital, sup'd up, 5.1 surround home theatre systems and quite frankly, expect a different product than audiences did 40 years ago.

Some related reading:
http://www.performing-musician.com/pm/jan08/articles/broadwaysound.htm

[ReggieonBway]

Posted: 7/9/11 at 7:59pm

Beyond that - even at eighteen, I sometimes have trouble hearing non-miked performances in musicals. Nothing to do with the performer or with my hearing - I'll just miss a word here and there, and it ends up taking away from the performance. Many of the best performers can strive past an orchestra, but speaking from experience (having played both Roger in RENT and Lt. Cable within the last four months), it's much harder to project pop/rock scores than it is to project legitimate golden age theatre scores. The quieter, rougher singing that rock inspires isn't easy to make loud - unless you're belting.

[raker]

Posted: 7/9/11 at 8:12pm

I'm used to shows being miked, but I hate seeing visible headset microphones on the actors. Horrible.

[morosco]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 12:08am

I wonder what performer has worn the most wireless microphones at one time? Could be the actresses playing Peggy Sawyer in the 42nd Street revival. She had at least 4 mics. Two on her head (one was a backup) and one on each of her tap shoes. At least that's what it looked like from the front row.

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 1:11am

The chances of mics going away is virtually zero. Mostly because it's a cost thing. It's cheaper have synthesizers and a few sound guys than to hire a lot more people on the orchestra.

However, I do think that upcoming performers shouldn't neglect technique in their training. They should learn how to project and be able to do it 8 times a week.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 2:26am

^Precisely. They should still play to the entire house. Makes a world of a difference.

[Gypsy9]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 4:30am

An above poster states that it is cheaper to have synthesizers and the like than to hire more musicians for the orchestra pit. But that is not how things actually work. Each Broadway theatre has, per the Local 802 Musicians' Union, a specified number of musicians who must be hired for that theatre. Larger theatres require more musicians. Local 802 is an extremely powerful union in NYC, not just for Broadway but for other venues like Carnegie Hall also.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 5:22am

Yes, but what are those minimums? They are the lowest number the management has been able to push the unions to. And we keep seeing shows which had glorious full, rich orchestras now being revived with half as many players. The old shows sound like crap when they get revived because they have tiny bands, not orchestras and singer/dancers, not vocal choruses. Somehow, at one-hundred-dollars -plus per ticket, shouldn't live musical theater SOUND as good as it looks?

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 5:28am

"Genrally speaking microphones should be used in musicals due to the orchestra"

Umm...what about opera?

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 11:34am

Typically they need to at least mic the strings if they are in an open pit. If they are in an enclosed pit they will mic everything.

The orchestrations in shows like "Carousel" and "Gypsy" and "My Fair Lady" ARE written to be done without mics--meaning that the sung portions of the show feature more strings and light reeds as opposed to lots of brass. Of course, there are always exceptions, but the good orchestrations from this era were written to enhance the vocals, not overpower them.

[ReggieonBway]

Posted: 7/10/11 at 11:45pm

"Ummm... what about opera?"

Again, it's a technical thing. Opera singers are trained to project to a house - it's much easier to project when you're singing with technique. A show like next to normal or RENT wouldn't work without mics.

[fingerlakessinger]

Posted: 7/11/11 at 12:40am

It really is about what kind of music you are singing in my opinion.
When I played Archibald in "Secret Garden" last year, they virtually kept my mic off during the "bigger" parts in the music because my voice carries over the orchestra (training really does help) but during the speaking bits and the quieter parts in music they turned it on cuz our auditorium is big and it does add dynamics to be able to sing quieter in some areas and make it more gentle.
However, during "Little Shop of Horrors" when I played Seymour, the use of mic's were much more needed. Granted, during the huge belt in "Git It" (The "I dont know" part) I was able to just project my voice so my mic was turned down, but for the majority of the show which is very rock heavy, mic's helped alot.
Point is, I find more classical music is easier to project your voice while the rockier songs need some assistance.

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 7/11/11 at 12:57am

As for the rock musicals, I do think any rock concerts have been done acoustically.

[pinoyidol2006]

Posted: 7/11/11 at 12:58am

As for the rock musicals, I do think any rock concerts have been done acoustically.

[Oldschool]

Posted: 7/18/11 at 10:34am

Sound is the bastard child of the theatre -- when it works, no one complains, but when it doesn't look out. No one complains when a moving light is out or a follow spot pickup doesn't happen...but I digress.

There seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to sound design. There are the designs that are very natural, well anchored to the stage, transparent, and virtually disappear. There are other designs that are meant to be a rock and roll show and don't hide the fact that they're being amplified. Some of what is brought to the design comes from the director who can be a help and a hindrance to the sound design. Some is the designer.

There were a couple of comments about Wicked previously. Wicked was designed by Tony Meola and his assistant, Kai Harada. I know there are parts of that design are BIG, but generally speaking, it is a fairly transparent design as modern shows go, with intelligibility at a premium. Harada recently did the sound for Follies at the Kennedy Center, and the system just disappeared - absolutely clean.

On the other hand the recent production of Hair had some of the worst sound I've heard in a theatre. Yes, it's rock and roll, but if you can't hear the lyrics what's the point? Phantom originally had a more natural sound design until it went to Vegas and it was retroactively changed on Broadway to a louder, less subtle design.

Directors can scuttle things -- Arthur Laurent's screwed the sound team by allowing the cast to improvise throughout the show requiring mics to be open on actors who otherwise would not be speaking, but might, so there was more noise and consequently less room for the engineer to get the cast above the orchestra.

Unfortunately, most American actors -- unlike their counterparts on the other side of the pond -- can't project, can't hit the back of the house. Mics and sound systems are for RE - enforcement. If the actor doesn't give anything to the mic, the engineer can't do anything to rectify it.

So sound can only be as good as the underlying choices made during the course of production -- how good the cast is in terms of their vocal abilities, what kind of sonic experience the director wants, as someone pointed out the noise from automated lighting instruments and scrollers, noise from automation, costumes -- hats are a terrible problem, and finally how the designer wants to implement the design and their choices.

The sound on a show may suck, but it may not necessarily be the fault of the sound designer and the sound team. Sometimes its the sum of the choices made by the director.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 7/18/11 at 7:01pm

I was at Threepenny Opera at Studio 54 the night the sound board died, and they used a rehearsal piano for the rest of the show, and everyone sang without amplification. Thankfully I was first or second row mezzanine, so was able to hear most everyone fine, but I'm sure it was tough in the back who stayed. It was fun and exciting to actually hear the actors bare. And thankfully a lot of them could sing out!

My issue is with the school productions that are heavily mic'ed. How are these future actors supposed to learn how to project when they're sporting the Rent mics at 13?

Posted: 7/19/11 at 12:07am

The opera argument makes zero sense. It's a completely different technique, sound, and deals with music that was (largely) written way before mikes. I do hate when you see those awful "popera" Il Divo type acts with their microphones... UGH

I think everyone has brough valid points. And it's true that if a Broadway score wants to sound remotely contemporary, it has to use mikes--pop and rock music is almost all made to be performed with a microphone, and it would make no sense to have a similar sounding musical score sung unmiked. You couldn't get the same sound.

I do agree that school productions are often over miked, but if you do Rent with any sort of pit similar to the original, you need mikes...

Oldschool that's a fascinating post, and a great read! Thanks!

[Edward Ryan]

Posted: 3/23/20 at 11:03pm

While I agree it used to be more canny and distorted, sound design has come a long way.  I do think that the type of music has changed too.  The range for men has gotten so much higher, and with a mic it can be sung more in a head voice and still be heard.  This Merman belting and sliding up to every note is just not acceptable these days.  People I think are more technically trained today.  To use different resonating spaces and their bodies more than just abs to reach notes and project.  I do not have a preference.  Just like the sound to be consistent.  

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/24/20 at 2:01am

As someone with a MERMAN size voice, It's difficult. They tell me "why are you shouting," and I'm like "I'm not."