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Synthesizers, Virtual Orchestras, and Ableton Live: Digitally Rendered Music on Broadway and Musicians’ Union Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 August 2019

LIAM E. GIBBS
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Abstract

As Broadway musicals embrace contemporary popular music styles, orchestrators must incorporate the digital technologies necessary for producing convincing simulations of genres like hip hop and electronic music. At the same time, as production values soar, producers work to minimize their budgets, often putting downward pressure on the size of the orchestra. Although digital and electronic music technologies can expand the sonic register of the Broadway orchestra, they can also replace traditional acoustic instruments and save money. The Broadway musicians’ union, Local 802, has regularly sought to control the use of digital technologies and ensure that live musicians produce as much music as possible. Thus, Local 802's advocacy for the employment of their members can limit the sounds heard on Broadway.

The following narrative considers three digital technologies—synthesizers, virtual orchestras, and Ableton Live—and examines case studies and controversies surrounding their use in Broadway orchestras and implications for liveness in performance. Informed by interviews with industry professionals, author observation of pit orchestras in rehearsal and performance, archival research, popular and industry media, and previous scholarship, I argue that the union's entrenched interests and antiquated regulations can stifle musical innovation on Broadway by resisting the use of digital music technologies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 273 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2019 

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Footnotes

I am deeply grateful to Dr. Todd Decker for supporting this project from the start and providing invaluable feedback on drafts. Thanks also to Jennifer Ashley Tepper for taking me on at Feinstein's/54 Below, which allowed me to conduct much of this research in New York. I thank the Department of Music at Washington University in St. Louis for its generous financial support of this research. I also thank the Special Collections staff at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, those who spoke with me for my research, and those who helped me gain access to observe Broadway orchestras.

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