3 ms·

Its per hour, and since they know this music so well, we're going to record it live. They play Beethoven symphonies every year at least 1-2 times

hugh3 16y ago
The economics still don't seem to work out. Even with a modest-sized 40-person orchestra (and overlooking the massed choir for Beethoven's Ninth) that's only $275 for what must be at least several days' work. Are "world-reknowned" orchestras really that hard up for cash? Heck, if I can get a full orchestra to play me a symphony for a thousand bucks then I might just do it for fun.
- tjr 16y ago
  I found this web page: http://www.moscow-orchestra.com/rates.html http://www.moscow-orchestra.com/rates.html The parent article here implies they will be recording, e.g., all of Beethoven's symphonies, etc. Off the top of my head, this project sounds like at least a week's work, even assuming the players know the music well. 40 players + 5 miscellaneous (conductor, recording engineer, whatever), say, 45 people for a week at $11,000 comes out to around $6/hour. I'm not saying the guy is lying about it, I'm just amazed at how inexpensive this appears to be. Even double that rate, or triple it... that's some pretty awesome work you can get done for that amount of money.
  - magic5227 16y ago
    Im not sure I follow your math, the rates on that page show the cost. Assume its $20-30 an hour 45 people at $30 an hour is $1350, $5400 for 4. I'm having them play live so they can read through a symphony in half an hour potentially, depending on which one.
    - tjr 16y ago
      Beethoven: 9 symphonies... Brahms: 4 symphonies... Sibelius: 7 symphonies... Tchaikovsky: 6 symphonies. That's 26 altogether. I've never recorded an orchestra; based on session musicians I've worked with, I would expect the recording sessions to last longer than the compositions in question, and I was estimating at an hour per symphony in the first place, giving the figure of about a week's worth of recording time (~40 hours). But as I said, I've never recorded an orchestra before; my guesstimates may well be skewed. Even so, at the numbers you are quoting, that's quite a bit lower than I would have guessed earlier today. :-)
      - hugh3 16y ago
        Maybe you could save money by getting 'em to play the symphonies four times faster than usual, then slow 'em down digitally!

hugh3 16y ago

The economics still don't seem to work out. Even with a modest-sized 40-person orchestra (and overlooking the massed choir for Beethoven's Ninth) that's only $275 for what must be at least several days' work. Are "world-reknowned" orchestras really that hard up for cash? Heck, if I can get a full orchestra to play me a symphony for a thousand bucks then I might just do it for fun.

tjr 16y ago
I found this web page: http://www.moscow-orchestra.com/rates.html http://www.moscow-orchestra.com/rates.html The parent article here implies they will be recording, e.g., all of Beethoven's symphonies, etc. Off the top of my head, this project sounds like at least a week's work, even assuming the players know the music well. 40 players + 5 miscellaneous (conductor, recording engineer, whatever), say, 45 people for a week at $11,000 comes out to around $6/hour. I'm not saying the guy is lying about it, I'm just amazed at how inexpensive this appears to be. Even double that rate, or triple it... that's some pretty awesome work you can get done for that amount of money.
- magic5227 16y ago
  Im not sure I follow your math, the rates on that page show the cost. Assume its $20-30 an hour 45 people at $30 an hour is $1350, $5400 for 4. I'm having them play live so they can read through a symphony in half an hour potentially, depending on which one.
  - tjr 16y ago
    Beethoven: 9 symphonies... Brahms: 4 symphonies... Sibelius: 7 symphonies... Tchaikovsky: 6 symphonies. That's 26 altogether. I've never recorded an orchestra; based on session musicians I've worked with, I would expect the recording sessions to last longer than the compositions in question, and I was estimating at an hour per symphony in the first place, giving the figure of about a week's worth of recording time (~40 hours). But as I said, I've never recorded an orchestra before; my guesstimates may well be skewed. Even so, at the numbers you are quoting, that's quite a bit lower than I would have guessed earlier today. :-)
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Maybe you could save money by getting 'em to play the symphonies four times faster than usual, then slow 'em down digitally!