I come from a music technology background, and see myself as a music producer and sound engineer.

Now I am on an Musical Direction course, pursuing my MD dream. At the start of this module, we were asked to write about ourselves, who you are, what do you do, etc. When I brought this brief description to the group, someone asked me what my goal is in the future. My goal is to be an MD in the West End which is also my dream job. Because I find that Asian MD is the minority in the West End, let alone Asian female MD. If I could be one of them, first of all, I would be super proud of myself and secondly, I would like to represent Asian women in the industry and help those who have the same aim as me to be in the West End. I would be even more honored to be the guide/light for them.

During my past studying journey, I used a lot of collaboration because as a music producer, I would ask people to record for me. For example, I compose a piece, but I cannot play bass, so I will ask my friend to record the bass line for me. And sometimes we would perform as a band together on stage. I have also been involved in some performing arts productions before, like as a sound operator in a drama play or a keys player in a musical theatre performance. According to Linda Candy’s patterns of creative collaboration, my past experiences were mainly cross complementary collaboration. We were mostly doing our own work, and would not go over to participate others’ work too much. In a show I did last year as an MD, I just did what an MD should do, and was not involved with directing or choreography.

The director also worked like this as he only took care of direction and staging, and he trusted me to do the music. I am familiar with this collaboration pattern, and comfortable with it. People mainly do what their role is, and trust each other can do well, and put the performance together at the end. I find it quite comfortable because I’m in my comfort zone, my specialized area, and I’m not a person who likes to debate with opinions, being mostly likely to choose step back from giving my own ideas/arguing on points. From looking at what Linda Candy points out, I would like to try more integrative collaboration, which allows me to hear more people’s creative perspectives, and have some collision of ideas. Maybe others’ ideas would inspire me, and we will end up with a much better outcome.

In the Micro Workshop practice, I did a rhythm workshop.

There were 10 people in the whole group, and I divided them into 3 small groups of 3, 3 and 4. Each group had a different rhythm. The three rhythm patterns I brought to them were triplets, crotchet, and dotted rhythm. They would clap their hands to represent these rhythms under the same time signature. I asked them to clap along with me at the same time as I showed the rhythm. I designed this workshop because as an MD, sometimes I need to play while conducting on the keys, but sometimes only conducting, which I need to know and not be distracted by other rhythms. When they got into practice, I found that they were easily distracted by other rhythms, especially the group doing triplets. Triplets is a slightly more difficult rhythm pattern compared to the other two. Some people in the group were not familiar with these patterns, so they were easily influenced by others. I explained to them this was part of the MD job that we couldn’t be affected by complex rhythms, especially when there was a big band. We are the ones to lead the whole group, so if we were confused and not sure of the music, it will definitely lead to a mess in rehearsals.

After the session I had a review of my workshop. Not everyone is experienced in musical rhythms, so I should have introduced those three rhythmic patterns to them first, which let them be familiar with those patterns, and have a feeling of what they will be doing later, and then asked them to do the clapping afterwards. It would be even better if I could ask a person to be in the middle of the big circle to act as a metronome (the person will do clapping), so that the three small groups could follow the standard tempo.

I learned from this workshop, and applied to a nursery song workshop on a Thursday Musicianship module session.

I taught my group a Chinese nursery song. I explained the content of the song, and sang to them first. Then I asked them to repeat after me line by line. Within just 10 minutes, I was surprised they could already sing the whole piece in a completely different language. This exercise utilized what I learned from my micro workshop, and representing it quite well, so I think I will continue this process in the future when I work again with casts.

We tried several different workshops people prepared. I found one a girl did that inspired me a lot. Her workshop was about body movement, observation and response to others.

She asked us to use all of the possible space we could, and did whatever we would like to, like jogging, sitting down, walking, etc. Then each step afterwards was built up on this. Also, she would ask someone to step out and observe people in the circle. The last step was we would respond to what the other people were doing. For example, if a person next to me was walking, I could do walking as well to follow her, or jogging to chase her, or even lying down to wait for her. She explained that this body movement was like acting, heroes and villains, and reacted back to what you received. I find this quite inspiring to me because this body movement can let us get familiar with the new environment quickly, and get to know people in a quick, friendly and active manner, especially if it’s the first time the group meets. I reckon this is a little workshop that I can adjust it to more music related and bring to my rehearsal room next time. I’m thinking during the first few rehearsals of each production, I might ask casts to do this activity which can be considered as a more interesting physical warm up, and move in their characters, and also do the vocal warm up at the same time. Since physical movement and vocal warm up both require intense breathing, it’s a good exercise for improving breathe control as well, which also benefits for the rest of rehearsal, killing two birds with one stone.

When we were trying Working Methods of A Practical Guide to Ensemble Devising, our group chose “Yes, and …” and “Debate and vote” which are methods to try make a five-minute piece with the title Vacations.

We created a vacation holiday storyline: We were on a holiday in America, and it was our last day. On the way to the airport, we found out one of the girl’s passport was missing which might have been forgotten in the hotel. The options were: shall we go back to hotel together to get the passport or shall the rest of people leave her and go straight to the airport? There was not enough time to go back. Firstly, we used “Yes, and …”, saying yes to everything – we decided to let her go back by herself. The ideas that came out of this exercise were all applied to the storyline, which created a dramatic ending, the plot had ups and downs. Later we tried the “Debate and vote” method, the majority wins. I found that this method was more practical and applicable.

These working methods and Critical Response Process (CRP) were both leaning towards creatives to me. As an MD, we are not often working on adjusting the scripts and changing the storyline. Normally, we are responsible for delivering the emotions to the audience through the songs, and connecting the whole band with casts. As Joseph Church (2015) said: “A music director is responsible for all aspects of preparing and performing the music for a musical production. He or she is the nominal head of any music department that might exist within a production organization. Among the duties are accompanying, conducting, rehearsing, arranging, composing, giving notes, coordinating with technicians and designers, hiring and firing, and many others.” This means even though CRP comes from studio and creative process, put boundaries to engage with people, though it depends on people and situation.Through each step, questions and critical thoughts were brought out non-aggressively, and easily acceptable. To some point, this process also saves time. For example, there is a complex project. Someone wants to offer some advice to part of my work, but the point they wanna add on is slightly sensitive or it’s something I’m unlikely to change, then I can say no, which will save 10 minutes listening to them talking with no reason as your mind is set, or avoid an argument due to opinions clash. In terms of Critical Response Process, an example during the session made me impressed. Eilon asked us to practice CRP using the cake picture on slides.

At the step of asking neutral or non-biased questions, someone was asking if he has any ideas about non-diary cakes, but then realized it was a biased question, because she assumed this cake was diary one, which reminded me of another example in Orchestration and Arrangement lecture. The professor said talking more artistic to a sound designer, because they are the one specialize in that area. Do not ask a sound designer if they can have more reverb on your vocal when you think it needs more reverb. The way to ask should be “I would like my vocal sounds more roomy and wide”. This represents a neutral question. From my observation, I think in the future CRP can be applied to an MD role in a certain moment. For instance, during a band call, I would like to have a build up in bar 15 for a better transition to bar 16 chorus part, but my drums knowledge is very basic. I can ask the drummer if he can have a rocky fill in in bar 15, rather than telling him to roll the toms and cymbals. Because there are many ways of fill in, they can play a proper one based on the song style and emotions they receive. If at that point the building up still doesn’t work, I can try to give some advice to him like “What about having a cymbals roll here?”. This will make the suggestions more easier to be heard, and less aggressive, and also create a humble, safe rehearsal environment. However, if the rehearsal time is limited and quite tight, the CRP will not work, because within that limited rehearsal duration, the project needs to be done rather than spending time on gently asking questions and giving advice. What an MD needs to do in this situation is pointing out problems straightaway, optimizing the time as much as possible. If I’m going to write my own musicals in the future, I will definitely be using CRP a lot at the early creative process.

This can also link to Jo Butterworth Didactic-Democratic Spectrum.

In varying contexts, MD can be different roles when collaborating with a musical theatre company, creative teams, and directors respectively. In the situation mentioned above, MD is as a facilitator, and the band is a creator. As an MD, I provide leadership, lead the rehearsal, and use problem solving throughout. The roles are flexible based on different scenarios. As Jennifer (2013) said: “You have to be a musician, a psychiatrist, a father, a friend, and a dictator.”

From what I discussed and my reflection about both theories I have read and practice I have done, I now understand that collaboration is playing a big part in the creative industry. Different collaborative patterns and strategies can be applied to different groups and situations, but it takes a bit of time and some practical experiences to find out which one will work better.

Bibliography

Butterworth, J. (2009), Contemporary Choreography, Routledge.

Candy, L. (2019), The Creative Reflective Practitioner, Routledge.

Church, J. (2015), Music Direction for the Stage A view from the Podium, Oxford University Press, New York.

Lerman, L. & Borstel, J.(2022), Critique Is Creative The critical response process in theory and action, Wesleyan University Press.

Robinson, D. R. (2015), A practical guide to ensemble devising, Palgrave.

Tepper, J. A & (2013), The Untold Stories of Broadway, Dress Circle Publishing.