For my second interview you'll hear from one of the exceptional musicians who work in the numerous studios of New York City creating the sound tracks and commercials we see and hear at movie theaters and on television and who perform in virtual anonymity on many records. One of the best and busiest cellists in New York City is Richard Locker. Check it out!

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F R E E - L A N C I N G

Many young cellists may not know what it means to be a free-lance cellist in New York City. What is the focus of your free-lancing and what is your average busy day like?

I doubt if anyone sets out to be a freelancer but I've always preferred this type of employment because it gives me more control and freedom than a steady job. A typical work week might consist of three to five recording sessions, my regular practicing, and an occasional recital or chamber music performance. There are very few typical weeks however and it not unusual to be very busy one week and idle the next. The recording work is divided between film and TV scores, records of all types, and commercials. I also play an occasional orchestra concert, substitute in the Ballet Orchestra, or play in any number of different situations when necessary, or if I need a change of pace.

I've often heard how great the studio scene was in the 70's. I heard one story of a musician who hired a limo to take him from one jingle to the next during a particularly busy day!

I missed the busiest periods in the business myself but there was certainly a lot more work when I started out than there is now. It was common for busy studio musicians to earn twice as much (or more) than members of the Philharmonic, and (unlike today) there were several cellists who made a very healthy living working exclusively in the New York studios. One of the busiest and most versatile woodwind doublers in town told me that he had played 575 sessions in his best year.

When synthesizers became common in the early eighties they had a big, negative effect on the business. For the first time employers thought they could get along without us. Prior to that musicians would routinely arrive late to sessions because of overlaps or cancel out of one session for a more lucrative one. After producers realized the limits of synths the business came back somewhat, but attitudes had changed. These forces and a general antiunion trend, which accelerated during the Reagan years led to the reduction of our earning potential.

The type of writing also changed, influenced by the commercial desire to blend in the synths and other musical trends. There are still many wonderful writers today but they are often called on to write very rudimentary scores which do not require the playing or artistic skills that used to be necessary. As a result much of the work can be done just about anywhere and the current trend is to take music production to nonunion cities such as Seattle, and to England, Canada, and Eastern Europe where musician's salaries are much lower.

Orchestras hold auditions to find new players, how did you actually start getting work on the freelance "circuit" where there doesn't seem to be an organized method for finding new players?

While attending the Manhattan School of Music I was introduced by friends to contractors for the sort of jobs that people do when they are starting out. I was quick and able to fit in anywhere so I was rehired, introduced to more contractors, and offered better jobs.

During this period and afterwards I was practicing hard, entering competitions, and playing solo and chamber music concerts, so I was always in excellent shape. On the job I was able to match pitch and style with a high degree of accuracy and these abilities in particular helped me get a foot in the door of recording work. The established studio players were always looking for musicians who were able to match them and follow exactly.

I was already doing a lot of studio work when I was hired as principal cellist of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra where I served for five years. I had a number of noticeable solo opportunities there and also made my New York recital debut around the same time. The critics responded well and I was doing enough playing that it seemed as if I had more happening than I really did. The freelance business rewarded me for my efforts with a steady stream of jobs and after I left the Mozart Orchestra I was able to make a living almost entirely in the studios.

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B A C K G R O U N D

How did you find yourself playing the cello?

I come from a musical family. My mom was a piano teacher and my three sisters also played. My older brothers played flute and violin/viola. Having violinist, flutist, and pianist children already, my mom suggested that I study the cello. As soon as I started to play I showed a lot of talent so it was fun to perform and show off what I had. I was already greatly attracted to music and playing the cello quickly became my favorite activity and the dominant part of my identity.

Were your parents supportive of music as a career choice?

My father did not want me to be a musician and was never particularly supportive in a practical or emotional way. My mom was thrilled by the idea.

As you made your way through high school and college what were your expectations for your career? Did you have a clear goal in mind?

As a child and even into my twenties I was naively certain that I would have a major career as a soloist because I received exceptionally favorable reactions to my playing and was always one of the top players among my fellow students and colleagues. In those days I did not realize that the classical field was really an area of show business and that talent and musical merit were merely some of the factors that contributed to success. I didn't have a clear concept of or desire for career, rather I imagined that if I focused on playing in a truly distinguished way opportunity would inevitably follow.

What was your early career like?

Needless to say, my early expectation of success as a concert artist was not realized even though I learned to play beautifully and perform with consistency. My solo and chamber concertizing at this time was mostly "non profit" but these concerts were an important part of my education

I played a wide variety of jobs and concerts in my teens and twenties with many of the best musicians in New York. These included well known chamber musicians, members of the Philharmonic and Met Opera, and the top studio musicians. In those days the studio business was much better than it is now while orchestra life was much more difficult, and there was no question in my mind that the finest working musicians were in the studios. That was the reason I aimed for the recording studio when I realized that it would take longer than I expected to achieve my goals.

Were there any crucial or momentous decisions that changed the direction of your professional life?

There was nothing I did or decided that changed my life although I turned down many opportunities in chamber music and as a principal cellist because I was overly independent and had an aversion to organizations. I always kept my focus single-mindedly on trying to do my musical work in my own way when it might have been wiser from a professional point of view to make a greater political effort.

Do you regret not taking any of the chamber music or orchestral positions that were offered you?

I don't think I had a choice given my temperament and goals. I could have a much more stable and reliable existence and now that I have a daughter I occasionally regret that I don't, but I felt that the "safe jobs" were antithetical to my purpose. The only chamber ensemble that I ever seriously considered was the piano trio and I've played in a number of wonderful trio concerts over the years, but the musicians I liked to play with were also too independent to form a permanent group.

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T E A C H E R S | V A L U E S

What experiences helped define your values as a player?

I was very fortunate with my first teacher, Allen G. Sher, who was in the Pittsburgh Symphony at that time. Mr. Sher, a disciple of Pablo Casals, was a truly supportive teacher and idealistic musician who taught me how to practice and introduced me to recordings of the best artists to help develop my sense of taste and style. He used to tell me that "high technical accomplishment was relatively common while truly fine artistry was extremely rare" and as a result I have always tried to use my talents and technical abilities to get at the true meaning of the music.

Besides Pablo Casals who was my primary early influence, other major sources of inspiration were the recorded performances of Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Emanuel Feuerman, Artur Rubenstein, Enrico Caruso, Arturo Toscanini and Sergei Rachmaninof, and many others.

During my childhood and adolescence my father was manager of a company that distributed phonograph records so we received frequent packages containing the latest releases from RCA and several other companies. Heifetz and Rubenstein were recording for RCA at that time and the company had a very active and distinguished classical division. As a result I heard a steady stream of great recordings as well as lesser ones that helped me learn to differentiate between instrumental and artistic skill.

After Allen Sher I studied with David Wells at the Manhattan School of Music. Both he and Mr. Sher had studied with Diran Alexanian so the cellistic-musical principles I worked under remained quite similar. David was a nurturing and sensitive teacher at a time in my development when I needed that. I also studied briefly with the violinist Raphael Bronstein, pianists Artur Balsam and Robert Goldsand, and with Bernard Greenhouse and Harvey Shapiro who each added important concepts to my education.

A highlight of my early teenage years was attending a series of master classes with Pablo Casals. He was in particularly good form (although well up in his eighties) and totally blew away the young hotshots who played for him, musically, technically, and tonally. Also very charming and flirtatious with the young ladies.

How did you learn discipline?

A combination of temperamental tendency, a desire to achieve the highest level of artistic achievement, and having been taught to aim for a nearly impossible standard all contribute to my getting satisfaction from continuous hard work.

I am something of a (neurotic) perfectionist by nature and my family always demanded high standards. In addition I learned by studying great recordings that every detail was important in the creation of truly compelling and profound interpretations. From an early age these great performances moved me emotionally and impressed me more than anything else so I had a great desire to emulate them, or the values that produced them. Furthermore, my teacher had taught me a method of practice for learning to master difficult technical passages by using the metronome at a slow speed and gradually working up to tempo one or two notches at a time. The rule was: "don't move up to the next speed until you can play the passage perfectly ten times in a row". Needless to say this required extreme concentration and discipline and if I did manage to play difficult notes well we raised the bar by demanding greater and greater finesse as part of the definition of perfection.

You mentioned practicing with the metronome, working fast passages up slowly, what other specific approaches or methods did Allen Sher teach you?

Allen Sher taught me to search for artistic truth and to be honest in self-evaluation. He also helped make me aware that the conventional wisdom about music was not always correct and that I should examine it with a healthy measure of skepticism

Do you love to perform or do you prefer to be behind the scenes?

Performance is one of the most stimulating activities in my life. In preparation my mental state is exalted by the music and the work to realize my fantasies about it. Before the performance I feel excited or nervous in a positive way and once on stage there is a focus and mental state that is indescribable. In my work in the recording studio I usually feel totally relaxed unless something about the particular situation is unpleasant but I do feel a bit of extra pressure before a solo concert these days because I don't have the opportunity to be on stage frequently enough to be completely comfortable.

As far as my work in the recording business is concerned, one of the reasons I chose it was because of the relative anononimity of it. I always felt very uncomfortable, even humiliated, to be part of a public concert which was poorly prepared or in which I disagreed with the musical values expressed. When playing music primarily to earn my living and where I do not have any artistic control I much prefer to be behind the scenes.

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R E C O R D I N G

Do you have any special feelings about vinyl? Do you think the way we can record now, using digital tools to create 'perfect' performances, has negatively impacted on quality or musicality?

I tend to react more to the artistic quality of a performance than the recorded sound unless the latter is unacceptable, and I never had an audio system fine enough to make the difference between vinyl and CD glaringly obvious. My favorite records are usually quite old and those recordings, when well remastered, usually sound better on CD than they did on vinyl.

Aside from the fact that the 'golden age' of classical musical performance is behind us in my opinion, our ears have been educated by listening and we can no longer ignore some of the of human flaws that we didn't even notice in the old days. The old technology was much noisier than what we have today so some flaws in earlier records were masked.

As far as impact on musical quality; if you start out with technical perfection or cleanliness as the first focus in your recording the record will sound like that. If you have a strong musical and artistic concept which you try to present in an idealized version the record will exemplify your artistry at its best. Much of the negative musical impact has come from a glut of records by people with neither great technical nor musical abilities who have been enabled by the technology to create 'competent' performances.

A negative feature of the quietness of digital recordings is that it makes perfect silence while playing so essential that noise invalidates many good takes and can result in physical inhibition and stiffness for the performer.

How would you record yourself in an ideal situation, both alone and with piano?

1. Hire the very best, most experienced professionals.
2. Work somewhere that is convenient and comfortable. Unless you have access to a truly superior sounding hall or studio an environment conducive to working well is more important than small differences in acoustics. The ability of the engineer/producer is as important as acoustics or equipment in determining the sound quality.
3. Use more than two tracks and 'spot' mic the cello on a separate track in addition to the stereo setup. The more tracks you use the more you can change the balance and tone quality of individual instruments after the session. I've gotten good tonal results using only two microphones (stereo only) or by using multiple mics for the piano, cello, and room acoustic. On solo recordings a single microphone gives excellent results.
4. My favorite mic is the RCA 44. I also like Neumann M 50's & 49's.
5. Microphone distance is a personal preference but I like a sound related to the early days of recording……close mic'd and 'saturated'. Many engineers like the 'spot' microphone above the cello, or kind of high up, but putting the mic low (around tailpiece level) minimizes finger and bow noise.
6. Be aware of and try to minimize extraneous sounds.
7. Take the 'less is more' approach when adding echo or reverb. You can add it later but you can't remove it once it's on the tape.
8. Use only a first rate piano and have it carefully tuned. Keep the tuner around for the whole session. Every time you take a break it should be checked and re-tuned if necessary.
9. Don't try to record too much music in a short time.
10. Any attempt to save money when recording is a false economy.
11. A good producer can save a lot of time, but you are responsible for the final decisions about what is acceptable.

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P R O J E C T S

The "Nigun" performance is gorgeous. Your approach to everything seems meticulous so I'm interested if you could give us a little step-by-step using this as an example.

I make a point of not listening to great performances in close proximity to a recording or concert because I find them too influential. My concept has already been formed, partially as a result of hearing them, and I like to feel that I can come to my own original interpretation by a mysterious filtering of impressions through my mind, emotions, and the work to discipline my body. Musical concepts and opinions aside I believe that great performances are primarily a function of talent and much of the work I do is for the purpose of attaining enough technical mastery so that I can perform with utter abandon. With that approach I have a chance to use my abilities and gifts to their fullest.

In the session I make sure that I have sufficient takes to fix any errors. Afterwards I edit very carefully, isolating short sections so they can be examined and compared in detail.

How did you research the music for the "Jewish Cello Masterpieces" record? Did you arrange or make your own transcriptions?

I set out to record, 'Kol Nidre', 'Schelomo', 'Nigun', 'Prayer', 'Meditation Hebraique' and Ravel 'Kaddisch'. To fill out the record I played through volumes and volumes of material, both original cello pieces and songs, until I happened on works by Zavel Zilberts and David Meyerowitz that suited me and the instrument. These are my transcriptions but there are very few changes from the originals.

In your "violin recital" CD what kind of arranging work did you do?

The CD includes the Czerny Transcription of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer" Sonata, Caesar Frank Sonata in A, 'Entr'acte from The Sleeping Beauty' by Tchaikovsky, and Mozart Rondo in C, K. 373.

I arranged a piano part for the Tchaikovsky Entr'acte because none was available. Other than that I took the violin part down an octave and made minor changes in two measures because they sounded better on the cello that way.

In the Mozart Rondo I made no changes in the violin part other than taking it down an octave and writing my own brief cadenza where indicated in the score. I did not change the octave of the piano part because the music would have sounded too in that register. Both of these pieces worked well with the change in octave relationship of the parts. In the Beethoven Sonata I restored most of the modifications Czerny made in the slow movement back to Beethoven's original.

You're a recording studio veteran, did you record these CD's in a recording studio or on location.

These CD's were done in two different studios. A third CD (still being edited) of Schubert 'Arpeggione' Sonata, Schumann 'Five Pieces in Folk Style' and Chopin g minor Sonata was done in a hall. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Despite having done thousands of sessions these recordings were learning experiences for me and each time I tried to improve on flaws I noticed in the previous CD.

What are you working on now?

This has been a 'semi-sabbatical' year for me and I did less performing than I have in recent years. I needed to back off and give myself a little break in order to move ahead again. That said I have been trying to decide what to record next and what to play on recitals I am planning for next season. In this past week I have played and/or practiced all of the Bach Suites, Haydn, Lalo and Schumann Concertos, Brahms 'F', Boccherini 'A' and Valentini Sonatas, and the Franz Danzi "Don Giovanni" Variations. I consider that my true job is to practice and study, and that's what keeps me busy most days

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C E L L O S E T U P | D A I L Y R O U T I N E

Could you describe your setup now? The cello, the strings you use.

I play an exceptionally fine cello by Nicolo Gagliano and a great Dominique Peccatte bow. For most of my life I have used silver wound gut strings on the C & G, (Eudoxa or Olive) and either Jargar or Larsen on top. Recently I've been experimenting with Jargar and Helicore C & G strings. The wound gut strings have the most beautiful tone and most subtle control of articulation but they go out of tune frequently. The Steel strings stay in tune better, sound quite good, and are more powerful and more predictable. They also function similarly to steel A & D strings, giving consistency of response across the four strings, and it's easier to play them in the high positions.

What kind of work are you doing each day in terms of practice/study?

My routine is evolving now but for many years I averaged at least 20 hours of practice weekly. During most of that time I regularly practiced scales in thirds and sixths, continually worked on music and etudes that were beyond my technical limits (and thus gradually increased my abilities), played Bach every day, and had at least one concerto and recital program ready to go at all times. I cycled through my repertoire regularly and also learned new works. I tore things apart but I also tried to play something truly beautifully every day.

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A D V I C E

Is teaching something you're interested in?

I love to teach. Unfortunately this is one area where not being affiliated with an organization has worked against me and I have not had a large number of truly gifted students. When I do get good students I feel that I must steer them to teachers or institutions that are more connected to the musical establishment than I am.

What kind of advice do you have for a young cellist?

While you may be attracted to a teacher because of agreement with his principles or some personal chemistry it is also important to work with teachers who are experienced in the areas that interest you. If you want to play string quartets study with a quartet player; principal cellist in an orchestra study with one; soloist, study with someone who has performed that repertoire extensively. There are certain practical matters, which are best learned by experience and having a teacher who really knows is a great time saver.

Get an education about instruments and bows and buy the best you can afford. Our performances are collaboration between the composer, the performer and the instrument maker. Anything you can buy that makes you sound better is worth whatever it costs, but you must also commit yourself to the instrument you have and get the best out of it.
Be honest in self evaluation, don't blame external factors for your failures, and take reasonable credit your successes.

Hypothetical: A young cellist has graduated from college. He wants to come to New York to do freelance work. What kind of preparation would you suggest he do beyond the normal curriculum he has already passed through?

I wouldn't advise anyone to come to New York with the goal of doing freelance work, but if you do it is important to understand that freelance work is just 'playing music'. I would suggest that he or she try to maintain the highest musical standards at all times, arrive with some money and prepare for a lean period, and treat colleagues with courtesy and respect.

OK, another young cellist manages to find herself called for her first record date. She arrives at the recording studio knowing she can play the cello but not sure of the ins and outs of recording. What are a few things she should do and what shouldn't she do?

1. Listen carefully and blend in with the other musicians.
2. Practice at home, not on the date, but if she needs to warm up or to quickly study a difficult passage she should do so as inaudibly as possible.
3. Play with as smooth, sweet, and refined a sound as possible and in particular should not play too loud. (I like to start out playing piano, dolce, sul tasto, flautando, and if possible use that as my basic sound because it usually records the best with close micing).
4. If something sounds wrong or out of tune she should assume that she is at fault and immediately fade into the background so she can listen carefully.
5. Remember that 'discretion is the better part of valor'.
   

Richard's latest CD is now available for purchase at CD_BABY.