TromboneChat

WGWTR180 wrote: Mon Jun 09, 2025 8:12 am Congratulations! I played the original National Tour in '97 when it hired locals. Fun show. Hoping they kept all off the great bass trombone parts!

Jhereg wrote: Mon Jun 09, 2025 2:55 pm

WGWTR180 wrote: Mon Jun 09, 2025 8:12 am Congratulations! I played the original National Tour in '97 when it hired locals. Fun show. Hoping they kept all off the great bass trombone parts!

Thanks!

This is a new show with new costumes, choreo, and orchestration, so the parts are somewhat different. It is no longer a bass trombone/tuba book, but tenor/bass trombone, if that tells you anything.

Hope they left some of the good bass parts in the show. I'm assuming the tenor will take care of some missing french horn parts. Have a great time! Looks like you're coming to Hartford, CT next year? I live in W. Hartford and am the local music contractor for the theater you'll be in.

Jhereg wrote: Wed Jun 18, 2025 7:57 pm

Hope they left some of the good bass parts in the show. I'm assuming the tenor will take care of some missing french horn parts. Have a great time! Looks like you're coming to Hartford, CT next year? I live in W. Hartford and am the local music contractor for the theater you'll be in.

Interestingly, I only seem to be a faux French horn a few times. The majority of the book is similar to the 90s version. Differences I've noticed are that they've cut Maison des Lunes, the Wolf Attacks are both completely different (those scenes are now done with a very cool high-tech screen), and the bigger dance numbers (Gaston, Be Our Guest) are significantly differently orchestrated. I think the rest of the part is much the same. I suspect I might be covering more cello and bass stuff. We're also performing with a thing called keycomp, which they also used on Frozen. Some kind of sample bank/instrument simulator and a keyboardist plays it along with us.

Yes, we're doing Hartford, I'll try to remember that or remind me!
As we travel I'm really hoping to do some masterclasses as well, so will post here regarding that at some point. I did a few while on other tours and it was very rewarding. Wish that someone had done a "What's it like" Q&A when I was in school!

Anyway, hope to meet up in Hartford!

bus2 wrote: Thu Jun 19, 2025 9:14 am What is the Back to the Future trombone part like? Fun to play?

Schultz wrote: Thu Jun 19, 2025 2:18 am The keycomp was developed over here in Europe and is amazing for producers as it saves money on live musicians but is the bane of any musician that has to either play it or play with it. It’s no fun to work with in any way. It’s used mainly in Disney musicals. I know it’s currently used for versions of Aladdin, Lion King, Frozen, B&TB and probably more I can’t think of at present. One draw back is if the keyboardist playing it makes a mistake it sounds like half the orchestra did. My advice to you is turn it down in your mix!

Rusty wrote: Fri Jun 27, 2025 7:36 am I’m just finishing up a season of BATB here in Adelaide, Australia. It’s a great book and a super fun show to play. About 50-50 tenor/bass, with some big bass moments especially.

The KeyComp hasn’t been too bad, in this show you kind of need it in your mix because it’s the rest of your section and actually gives a feeling of a bit more support. I played on Frozen as well and where that was 24 piece orchestration, this is I believe a 35 piece, with 3 or 4 more times the KeyComp inputs. From all accounts it sounds like a full orchestra out front, I’ve had many musician friends with good ears who have seen the show and been very impressed. In saying that I’m also nervous of what this means for live musicians long term!

The bone book isn’t necessarily marked with definite ‘tenor’ or ‘bass’ directions all the time, so there are some tunes and transitions where you could play them on either horn, especially if your tenor has a valve, (I’m playing a large bore Yamaha 882 tenor and 822g bass). The book has some pencil markings that suggest someone before me has played the tenor stuff on small bore, it’s possible but would require some seriously fast switches. The tenor stuff has a lot of low-mid range, quasi bass type playing, and doesn’t go higher than a lone high A and a handful of high Eb-Fs, so it really feels like a medium/large bore book to me.

WGWTR180 wrote: Fri Jun 27, 2025 1:19 pm

Rusty wrote: Fri Jun 27, 2025 7:36 am I’m just finishing up a season of BATB here in Adelaide, Australia. It’s a great book and a super fun show to play. About 50-50 tenor/bass, with some big bass moments especially.

The KeyComp hasn’t been too bad, in this show you kind of need it in your mix because it’s the rest of your section and actually gives a feeling of a bit more support. I played on Frozen as well and where that was 24 piece orchestration, this is I believe a 35 piece, with 3 or 4 more times the KeyComp inputs. From all accounts it sounds like a full orchestra out front, I’ve had many musician friends with good ears who have seen the show and been very impressed. In saying that I’m also nervous of what this means for live musicians long term!

The bone book isn’t necessarily marked with definite ‘tenor’ or ‘bass’ directions all the time, so there are some tunes and transitions where you could play them on either horn, especially if your tenor has a valve, (I’m playing a large bore Yamaha 882 tenor and 822g bass). The book has some pencil markings that suggest someone before me has played the tenor stuff on small bore, it’s possible but would require some seriously fast switches. The tenor stuff has a lot of low-mid range, quasi bass type playing, and doesn’t go higher than a lone high A and a handful of high Eb-Fs, so it really feels like a medium/large bore book to me.

I saw the National Tour of Frozen here in the states because a friend and colleague was in the orchestra. The overall sound of the orchestra with the key comp was muddy and the sound engineer was using lots of reverb. It kinda sounded like a bigger orchestra but not really. Obviously no one's fault who was actually in the pit performing. Leave it to Disney to use this technology.

Rusty wrote: Fri Jun 27, 2025 7:36 am I’m just finishing up a season of BATB here in Adelaide, Australia. It’s a great book and a super fun show to play. About 50-50 tenor/bass, with some big bass moments especially.

The KeyComp hasn’t been too bad, in this show you kind of need it in your mix because it’s the rest of your section and actually gives a feeling of a bit more support. I played on Frozen as well and where that was 24 piece orchestration, this is I believe a 35 piece, with 3 or 4 more times the KeyComp inputs. From all accounts it sounds like a full orchestra out front, I’ve had many musician friends with good ears who have seen the show and been very impressed. In saying that I’m also nervous of what this means for live musicians long term!

The bone book isn’t necessarily marked with definite ‘tenor’ or ‘bass’ directions all the time, so there are some tunes and transitions where you could play them on either horn, especially if your tenor has a valve, (I’m playing a large bore Yamaha 882 tenor and 822g bass). The book has some pencil markings that suggest someone before me has played the tenor stuff on small bore, it’s possible but would require some seriously fast switches. The tenor stuff has a lot of low-mid range, quasi bass type playing, and doesn’t go higher than a lone high A and a handful of high Eb-Fs, so it really feels like a medium/large bore book to me.

Rusty wrote: Fri Jun 27, 2025 7:36 am I’m just finishing up a season of BATB here in Adelaide, Australia. It’s a great book and a super fun show to play. About 50-50 tenor/bass, with some big bass moments especially.

The KeyComp hasn’t been too bad, in this show you kind of need it in your mix because it’s the rest of your section and actually gives a feeling of a bit more support. I played on Frozen as well and where that was 24 piece orchestration, this is I believe a 35 piece, with 3 or 4 more times the KeyComp inputs. From all accounts it sounds like a full orchestra out front, I’ve had many musician friends with good ears who have seen the show and been very impressed. In saying that I’m also nervous of what this means for live musicians long term!

The bone book isn’t necessarily marked with definite ‘tenor’ or ‘bass’ directions all the time, so there are some tunes and transitions where you could play them on either horn, especially if your tenor has a valve, (I’m playing a large bore Yamaha 882 tenor and 822g bass). The book has some pencil markings that suggest someone before me has played the tenor stuff on small bore, it’s possible but would require some seriously fast switches. The tenor stuff has a lot of low-mid range, quasi bass type playing, and doesn’t go higher than a lone high A and a handful of high Eb-Fs, so it really feels like a medium/large bore book to me.