"Motown The Musical" 2017-2018 National Tour - Conductor Reel

[@redbirdairways5568]

Some of the best rag time I have ever heard during “Hey, Joe” really fantastic!

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Thanks, man!

[@joepiper2663]

Honestly the most spectacular performance I saw last week, love the whole production and the atmosphere of the music and live band makes its amazing. Great job! Coming again in April haha loved it that much Also side note, credit to the lady jamming in the Audience!

[@brenden5579]

Wow! You are crazy talented.

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Thank you!

[@davidherbert9601]

That’s just so brilliant to watch.

[@isaacmurray5273]

I love your piano playing so much!!!!

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Thanks, Isaac!

[@pedroman211]

I love it, old musicians drummers spent half there time learning time! Now it’s a click track!

[@FirstLastth]

I've seen this show hundreds of times (literally) and it feels completely different from this perspective. Would be nice to see some clips of Reet Petite. Great job man.

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Thanks! Honestly, I just conducted "Reet Petite" - keys 1 didn't play that tune at all.

[@dominikm.255]

Great !!! I love it

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Thank you!

[@RayRayJams]

YOU DEFINITELY NEED TO AUDITION FOR MJ THE MUSICAL!!!

[@reinlittleclaw8151]

the women in the back dancing to i want you back is just so funny am i the only one

[@TimPreee]

The woman in the bagground 😂

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Oh, she was living her BEST life!

[@TimPreee]

@@MatthewCroftMusic i think so too 😝

[@GavinMcCollum]

@@MatthewCroftMusic that's a kind way to put it.

[@RyanonBasss]

THIS IS LIT Edit: omg your poor neck. Edit2: LOL the audience during "Want You Back" Edit3: is that Devin singing "Signed, Sealed, Delivered"?

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

crumikins oh dude the audience here in Boston the day I taped this was LIVING.

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

And no our Stevie on the tour was Cartreze Tucker

[@samarmstrong4160]

Hello Matthew. What keyboard are you using? Is this the typical keyboard used in theatre? I play a bit of keys, but mainly Drums & Bass. Depp'd in for Motown on Drums (in the West End) a while back so have rough idea, but never had a chance to see the MD's area. Thanks a lot, Sam

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Hi Sam - it's a Yamaha S90XS connected to Apple MainStage for the keyboard programming. It's the Broadway standard (or one of them) and is pretty ubiquitous in professional theatre.

[@samarmstrong4160]

@@MatthewCroftMusic Ohh sweet! Something you can definitely rely on then! Thank you so much for getting back to me. Sam

[@dougbenishek5236]

Matthew, just fabulous work. Seems to me you have one of the best jobs in the world. I had a couple questions for you: For "Good Morning Heartache," does the P/C just give you slashes and ask for jazz ballad piano, or is all of that RH stuff written out? Also, I know this question usually elicits a similar answer, but what was your path like to eventually lead you to MD'ing this production? Similarly, did you rely on your regional credits to get on the Guys and Dolls tour (I'm assuming that was your first)? Thanks in advance, and I really appreciate you sharing this video! I try to discern every piece of knowledge I can from these types of videos and they're always very helpful.

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Hey Doug - thanks for your kind words! For "Good Morning Heartache", that was actually all notated out - our orchestrator was very specific with what he wanted to hear on that tune, so he wrote it all out. As for a path, that's a longer story! It's basically all in who you know and the connections you can make - an MD I had worked with on regional theatre stuff knew people at the production company that put out "Guys & Dolls" when they were looking for a keyboard 2 player/AMD. From there it's been a mix of auditioning for things and connections between folks that have gotten me most of my work.

[@dougbenishek5236]

Matthew Croft Thank you very much for your response. That makes a lot of sense, and helps to demystify the whole process of moving up through the pro theatre echelons. Again, brilliant work. Would love to see more videos like this!

[@dannythomasboyle-actormusi5727]

Hi Matthew when you're playing the score has it been learned or is it sight read. I'm an MD too but doubting myself as I'm unable to read scores straight off the bat for people specifically Sondheim

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Hi Danny - We had about 3 weeks of rehearsal in NYC and in tech with the orchestra to get to know the score and be able to play it. After a few weeks of shows it was pretty well memorized, but I kept the score always for reference and for any tricky spots where my brain might have gone blank.

[@dannythomasboyle-actormusi5727]

@@MatthewCroftMusic thanks for your response

[@TheMatthewbostock]

Anyone know where I can get the score for this show from? Thanks!

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Hi Matt - unfortunately the score for the show is not publicly available.

[@ashfieldschoolperformingar7857]

Weird technical question. Was the click a ‘track’ on qlab?

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Yeah - it was part of our QLab set for the show.

[@ashfieldschoolperformingar7857]

@@MatthewCroftMusic Okay, I only wondered as I've heard some people use Ableton to produce a click straight out of the DAW or something I think, but I'm not 100% sure. Did your Qlab click track audio files contain the exactly correct amount of clicks for the songs bar's including time signature and tempo changes or did you loop a single click, something that would click forever without external interference? If you can't tell, I'm a technical student lol!

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

@@ashfieldschoolperformingar7857 our music supervisor built the clicks, so I don't know if they were generated from Pro Tools/Ableton/Logic specifically - but I know that they were built with exactly the correct amount of clicks, and incorporated the time signature and tempo changes - sometimes they'd switch to 8th notes when the piece would rallentando, etc. Our music supervisor was also the orchestrator of the show, so he was intimately familiar with all of the details and so we had it all set up by about 1 week into rehearsal in NYC.

[@TimPreee]

@Matthew Croft which piano are you playing in this musical?

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

The keyboard is a Yamaha S90XS controlling Synthogy’s Ivory piano samples through Apple Mainstage

[@TimPreee]

@@MatthewCroftMusic Thank You

[@Geekkid1176]

What it is your setup for this production

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Are you asking about the entire band or just the conductor podium?

[@johnascroft8697]

@@MatthewCroftMusic What's the technical setup just for you, Matthew? Interested to know how your click track works :-)

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

@@johnascroft8697 keyboard is a Yamaha S90XS running MIDI into Apple Mainstage (computer is down beneath the podium - they programmed it to display the patch numbers on the keyboard display so I didn't need to see the computer monitor), audio out from the Mac into RME Fireface interfaces out to the sound board. Click is programmed into QLab running on a dual-computer redundant system (sitting out of view) - remote on the keyboard is a custom-built MIDI remote that fires go/stop/advance commands plus has a button to switch audio function from the Main to Backup computer. We had click, some instruments that we couldn't travel all coming from the QLab computers (2 mac pros) out through UA Apollo interfaces.

[@bobbyjayjohnson3460]

Who are the guys in the band and how do they get the brass and strings in the background besides the keyboard patches being simulated and all that stuff?

[@ericrogers6099]

What gear do you have set up for the click track?

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Hi Eric - the click tracks were created by our music supervisor, and are being played back by a program called QLab. I'm firing the tracks from the box on the right side of my keyboard which sends a MIDI signal down to the computer below me in the pit.

[@ericrogers6099]

@@MatthewCroftMusic Thank you! What is the box exactly?

[@MatthewCroftMusic]

Eric Rogers the box was a custom build from our sound rental company - sends MIDI signals for go, stop, advance/back, and has a backup switch to switch between our primary and backup computers that are running simultaneously.

[@ericrogers6099]

@@MatthewCroftMusic thank you very much! And great playing as always!