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Orchestra 101: Overtime, Young Conductors, and the Temperature Clause

PUBLISHED: November 17, 2009, John Ericson

Another big pet peeve in amateur/school settings are services, especially rehearsals, running long. They run long because conductors have the luxury of not using their time efficiently; there is no financial consequence to the organization if they run long. Any time a rehearsal or concert that exceeds 2 ½ hours not excluded specifically already (such [...]

Orchestra 101: Dress Code

PUBLISHED: November 8, 2009, John Ericson

At the end of the previous article in this series I referred to concert attire. Suffice to say it is specified very clearly in the Master Agreement what to wear for every type of service. The short version for students about to play professional jobs for the first time is to dress well and somewhat [...]

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Orchestra, Orchestra 101

Orchestra 101: Overscale and Doubling

PUBLISHED: November 5, 2009, John Ericson

Today we look at two types of extra payments beyond base pay scale in an orchestra, overscale and doubling. While any player can try to negotiate a special contract, Principal and Assistant Principal players in the Nashville contracts that I have been referencing in this series were guaranteed a minimum overscale; Principal players 25% and [...]

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Doubling, Orchestra, Orchestra 101

Orchestra 101: Lighting

PUBLISHED: November 1, 2009, John Ericson

There must be light! This seems obvious to me, but it seems that this is not always obvious to students and non-professional groups. In the old Nashville Master Agreement I have referenced in this series it states “There shall be proper lighting in the performance area during all services.” This includes requirements for stand lights [...]

Orchestra 101: The Run-Out Concert

PUBLISHED: October 29, 2009, John Ericson

Periodically student ensembles at Arizona State do run-out concerts. In a school situation these can be somewhat loosely organized, but for a professional orchestra there are many travel rules that have been hammered out over years of negotiations in the Master Agreement. The most common type of travel is the run-out concert, which typically requires [...]

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Orchestra, Orchestra 101, Rose French

Orchestra 101: The Sound Check

PUBLISHED: October 27, 2009, John Ericson

One of our goals with Horn Matters is educational, and with the background provided by the first two articles in this series we can move on to some specific situations I get asked about by students and also situations that relate to other pet peeves of orchestral playing. One of those is the sound check [...]

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Orchestra, Orchestra 101

Orchestra 101: The Cast of Characters

PUBLISHED: October 22, 2009, John Ericson

Backing up a step from the first article in this series, in a school situation there are only orchestral musicians and conductors (and an audience). In a professional situation the cast of characters is more complex. In general there is a major division between management and musicians in terms of operations. Management is, well, management. [...]

John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.