Wicked Part 5 -#15 to #17

Here is part 5 of the percussion book for the Broadway show Wicked.
In this video I play#15 Sentimental Man, #16 Monkey Reveal and #17 Defying Gravity.
The audio I am using is from the advanced book audio CD the last tour sent me. The quality of this recording is not great so please excuse any distortion. It is also stage vocal heavy so you will not hear much drum set but this is very much a rhythm section show and if you listen to the original soundtrack you will hear this.
Here are the time stamps
0:00 Opening discussion
5:19 #15 Sentimental Man
8:12 #16 Monkey Reveal
11:28 #17 Defying Gravity
19:13 Discussion
In this series I play through the entire percussion book from the Broadway show Wicked.
I have performed 4 runs (soon to be 5) of this show and have played it live well over 100 times. This is one of the most popular and long running Broadway shows of all time (almost 20 years as of this writing). The percussion book is difficult but not because of many technical issues. The difficulty lies in the setup and getting from one instrument to another. Therefore this is a good show for demonstration purposes while teaching and one that will surely be around for many years to come.

[@Weetunet]

Rick, thank you so much for recording this series of videos! I've watched the entire thing up to here in one sitting, and will definitely watch the second half tomorrow. I'm a hobbyist percussionist playing in wind orchestras. Wind band arrangements often have lots of separate percussion parts, often for just one instrument. When playing with a drummer and one percussionist, most of those parts are just not played. Lately I have been trying to combine and re-arrange multiple parts for one player, and doing that often ends up making them quite similar to pit percussion work, and so watching these kinds of videos is very helpful. Already I have picked up a number of setup ideas I must try!

[@Nargon46]

The monkey reveal and the release of the monkeys are always my favorite parts of the show, just a perfect confluence of the music, performers, costumes, lighting, everything just goes so hard

[@drumskunk]

This is so good I’m a ‘drummer’ and I play plenty of shows on kit in the UK A lot of shows skip the perc part - but then again I can see why - not many people have the equipment to do so 10/10 mate - amazing

[@HarryJoiner]

I’m fascinated 1/ as a drummer, and 2/ as a businessman. That looks like a ton of overhead. And I wonder … how many players in America could do what you do? Not many. A dozen? To play this material at such a high level - with such a high degree of professionalism - with all of the equipment? Frankly it’s amazing. I also wonder about generating enough deal-flow to cover the overhead. 🤔 If you have a day job, I can’t imagine where you find the time to do it. And if in fact this is all you do for a living, then I’m glad I got out of the business when I did - because there’s no way I could compete with pros like you! Regardless, thank you so much for sharing. You are an inspiration.

[@rickdior]

Hi Harry These setups are pretty normal at this point. The shows have evolved over the past 40 years as the players have gotten better and the writing has gotten better and more involved. As far as overhead the shows rent the equipment from the players for several thousand dollars. As a percussionist you also get up to 4 doubles over normal union scale which ends up being quite a chunk of change. I sometimes make more playing these shows for a few months than I make with the symphony for an entire year so it's worth it....and fun as well. Stay safe

[@HarryJoiner]

@@rickdior great response. thanks so much for putting this out there for any aspiring career percussionist. you're the best!

[@katmariemusic]

I play percussion with a community theatre group and have never really had a mark tree due to space constraints and also my fear of bumping them mid show (because of space constraints... it gets tight on community stages!) and so I play a bell tree instead (which isn't a perfect substitution but does the trick.) I didn't really realize they made mutes for them until I started watching this series. How do you decide when to play the mark tree with the mute on and when to play with it off? Does your music notate such a thing? It's fascinated to see someone at a much higher caliber than myself commenting on the trickiness of where to place mallets and certain percussion instruments in order to be able to pick something up or put it down quickly. I'll certainly be kinder to myself in the future since this is apparently a bit of a stress that every percussionist has!

[@rickdior]

Hi Kat The mute is for stopping the chimes from ringing too long. It is normally not engaged and then you can engage it when the passage is over.