Lindsey Miller talks about touring with the RSC

I'd love to know what you're up to. So get in touch. You can follow the Music Room on Instagram, or even join our lovely little community on Facebook. It really is lovely. And tell us there. And if you're in that community, hi, I'll be back in a bit. Anyway, if you look in the show notes to this episode, you'll find the links to everything Music Room. Otherwise just head to musicroom. community and you'll find everything there too. Rhino. It's time for some music stories.

City Hall has signed off on a 100, 000 boost for the music industry in Belfast. According to the Belfast Telegraph, elected representatives at Belfast City Council approved the allocation involving three branches of the industry in the city with funds going towards investment in venues, a new digital music and marketing platform, and industry mentoring.

20, 20, 000 was approved for the Pipeline Investment Fund for music venues, 50, 000 for the creation of a digital music support service and marketing channels, and 30, 000 towards the development of the Music Industry Mentoring Programme for 23 24. So if you're in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Maybe investigate further. Next, I asked the music room community on Facebook a blankety blank. We do this every other week. The one thing I wish could be automated in my music process is blank.

Go on, what would you say? Valere Speranza says, Mixing, mastering, producing the 30 seconds, seconds edits. That's a production music library thing, isn't it? Uh, to produce edits. And yes, that would save time. Mike Langley says stems, similar thing. Um, I agree with the edits, quite like mixing though. Uh, feels like part of the process to me. Ross Hemsworth says placement. I'll mentor that brother. Uh, Jamie Salisbury, conforming to new picture edits. Uh, that would be great.

So when you're writing to picture, you line up the music to when scenes change and everything. So if the editors send a new edit, It can take ages to adjust all the fine timings that you already have. So like that, Jamie, if you can organize that, please, that would be great. Lots of other things like automatic transcription. Yeah, great. So with all the talk of AI going around, this is really interesting. Don't take our jobs, AI. Just help us do our jobs more efficiently, please.

I think I speak for the Composer community on that. Lindsay Miller has worked in the theatre industry as an MD and keys player for 13 years. She's also a composer, arranger, orchestrator and keyboard programmer. She's been musical director for the 2023 Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Julius Caesar. The production played the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford upon Avon before embarking on a nine week UK tour. Let's get into it. Lindsay Miller, welcome to the music room.

And what's quite nice about working at the RSC as an MD and as a musician, whether you write music yourself or not, is actually getting to work with composers who come in and create a brand new score for each show. And it's quite amazing, but I think the RSC and the National are one of the only sort of two remaining big houses left that commission new music for all of their production. So, so that.

Part of the, well, actually the major reason why I enjoy working there is getting to work on completely new music and being able to feed into that as an MD is really exciting and is a lot more exciting to me than the sort of other work I've sort of done earlier on, which was a lot more kind of working on pre existing material. I like the devising and creating process. So yeah, it's been great. Yeah,

And the lockdown was called and all the theatres closed and then all, all of us were going, what do we do? Um, and then I, the next day was on a train back home. So, I hadn't been to Newcastle since then, so it felt really odd being back there, in that theatre and going, gosh, the last time I was in here was on that snap goodbye, you know, and can I hug people I've spent the last year and a half of my life with, you know?

But it was great, you know, we got to do the whole week, but I really like the audiences there. They're really up for it and really curious. audiences as well. Um, I'm quite courageous actually with the kind of things that they like to go and see and the discussions they have about shows. Yeah, I think Newcastle is definitely up there.

So in a way that it's so targeted and so close and detailed and And you're active all the time. It's really nice to just kind of step out of that So at the end of a tour or when I can on tour I like I like things that sort of bring me into quiet, you know, I practice yoga. I like reading I just, I like being on my own. Um, I think also with MDing because you, I explain this to a lot of MD students I've worked with, that I think 80% of it is music. Um, actually, sorry, wrong way round.

About 10% of it is music. Um, about 75 is... people management and the rest is emails and, and it, and it really being around managing people, working with people. So having time to yourself, I think is really important. So that's kind of the main thing I really look forward to.

Um, I was talking about Howard Keele and how much I love Catherine Grayson and they were all looking at me like, what, who are these people? Um, and that, that was just what, what I grew up with. I used to watch those films over and over and over again. And my parents would watch them while they were doing the ironing and I just sit under the ironing board just. Watching and take it all in and I used to recreate all the dance routines thing.

But on the other side of that, I mean, my parents are enjoying music and my dad listens to a lot of rock music. So as a sort of alternative to that, um, I always, I always remember ACDC being on Billy Ray Cyrus. Um, ELO, State of Go, um, Beat Purple, you know, bands like that were just. You know, cassettes in the little cassette storage box that I used to kind of go through and play.

So whether that's EDM, or it's, you know, 70s rock, or whether it's, you know, Motown, that stuff, that is what's going to hook me into that piece of music.

I'd seen so many on the television and I used to recreate all the dance routines and I, I could, I still, the, the sound of those scores, I remember every little clarinet, you know, little, little bit and, and every heart flicking, just, I, I, it's just in my muscle memory. And my parents, every year for my birthday, would buy theatre tickets and we would go through to Edinburgh or through to Glasgow and go see something.

So it could, it could have been anything from, like a local amateur group, you know, that were putting on a production of something. Or, um, the touring version, I remember going to see Miss Saigon and that was a big, sort of, turning point for me. But we always went, every year. My birthday's New Year's Eve, so it was, so there was always kind of a lot of shows on at that time.

But yeah, I feel very lucky that they did that and that was where I became quite curious about what else went on in the theatre, not just on the stage, but I would spend a lot of time looking over the pit and, and just oogling, just like all these amazing things, these instruments and people are crawling around and Um, wondering sort of what was down there, and again, so interesting, I have friends who work as theatre musicians who said they used to do the same thing.

Um, so I think it's amazing, even from that young age, you know, when you show an interest in that, it's really important that there's some, some way to access, art, you know, to encourage that curiosity.

With the heli, you know, the helipopter coming down and they've got the fences and there's people singing and crawling up the fences. And I hadn't ever seen anything that was, based on, You know, I, a real situation like that happened, you know, with, that war. And, and there was really something very powerful about that. I'd been to see some, I remember going to see a couple of offers afterwards. But I think it was the first thing I'd seen that had been really sung through the whole play.

And the music just felt. like this enormous character in itself that I really hadn't maybe appreciated as much in other things I'd been to see, where for me the emphasis had been on what I was seeing, whereas that was about how it felt and I could, I remember feeling it in the auditorium, with the subs going and the strings and at that time that was when there was a much bigger touring orchestra as well.

I don't remember how many but it was quite, I remember it was quite sizable, um, so I think that was a lot to do with it.

30 minute scales and arpeggios, 30 minute pieces, and they would find me and watch and like make sure I did it because I would try and talk my way out of it, um, just have a sit and have a chat, and so they were quite good at forcing me to practice and I'm really glad they did, but I think a big element of it wasn't just where because you're building the skills to then you're learning the rules to then take them apart and I wanted to take them apart because I had lots of, I'd seen all these

amazing things and I was like I just want to do that. But it was the community element of it was what was missing and when I, my, I remember my first piano teacher had a little concert for all her students in a little town hall and I played a piece in front of people and it wasn't. A lot of kids, you know, say, oh, it was great at the end, I got to stand up and take a bow and everyone clapped.

For me, it was actually being able to listen to other people and be in a room where other people were doing that thing too. And... I really wanted to play with other people. I didn't want to sit on my own in my house. You know, I wanted to go collaborate. And I didn't know that at the time. I do now. And I can totally see the signs of that now. But that, that really would have motivated me, I think. If I'd maybe been in a little band or something.

And I did, you know, apologies to my brother who I forced to be in a little band with me.

When like aunties and uncles came to the house, we used to make him play guitar and I would put You know, the little automatic tunes you can play on the keyboard, and I would play the recorder, and I'd make a little program and hand it out to people, MDing from an early age, uh, but yeah, I mean, just again, things like that, that, that, it's interesting looking back at that stuff and going, oh yeah, there's, there's signs there of that natural kind of, again, instinct to collaborate and be in a

group, and yeah. boss people around and um, and make, make new music, you know, to

Which I'm incredibly grateful for in a, in a sense, cause I wouldn't probably wouldn't have sought that out. But I suppose on the piano, you had to actually seek out those opportunities to, to play with other people. I hadn't really thought about that before, but it's, um, it's different for pianists.

Well, at least like one or two, three people sitting next to you who are playing the same instrument. You go, this is great! And I just didn't have that on the piano at all. It felt very much like a very isolated little island. And that's, again, the link with theatre, that playing with someone who's singing was, was an option. You know, where... playing a different instrument might not have been such a natural progression collaboratively.

In musical theater didn't just didn't feel accessible to me, very expensive. It was in Glasgow and Edinburgh. I mean, I'm from Glasgow originally, but I've grown up in lots of small towns. It felt very far away, very alien, and I didn't know anyone who did that. Um, and so I kind of thought I'll keep it as a hobby. I'll keep music and theater as a hobby.

And by the time I went to university, that was really ingrained in my way of thinking was this can always be a hobby and something to do, alongside my real job, which I decided would be a teacher. And so I went to university and I studied French and Spanish, and that was with the view of doing my degree. I'd go and train for a year to be a teacher, get my PGCE and then go off and be a secondary teacher and work my way up to head teacher like my dad had done.

Um, When I was at university, I did a year abroad in Spain teaching English in Valencia, and when I was on that year abroad, I just, I was so tired and bored of, of doing these languages. And the reason was because they'd been so, I, I just wanted to learn, I love speaking as you can tell, um, but I, I just really, I really wanted to communicate. I wanted to be able to speak and a lot of the emphasis was on reading and really academic kind of Working and I wasn't really interested in that.

And serendipitously I had been talking to a friend who was in a lot of the acapella world, uh, at, at that university and as Andrew and I'd said, you know, I really met the theater. And just before I'd gone to uni, I'd actually accidentally ended up envying a show because the person dropped out. And I conducted the, the Amateur Dramatic Society in doing a little cabaret show. And I said, look, I really. I really miss doing that.

I really wish I could join like the musical society, but I don't really know how to go about doing that. And she had just sent me an email and had said, I've just met someone. They're putting on a production of a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. They need an MD. You want to do it? And I went, okay. And then when I came back from Valencia, I just kind of went, this is, this is what I love. And I spent the next few years in my degree.

Not doing any work for my degree, but just doing shows. I was writing music for shows, MDing shows. We did Jerry Springer, the opera, um, which was a phenomenal thing to do. I was accompanying loads. I ended up getting a piano accompaniment scholarship and a guy who, Ben Murray, I credit with helping me.

Get to where I am now, who is, um, One of the first people who studied the MD course at Royal Scottish Came, had gone to St Andrews and came back to play on Dowdsbringer And he said to me, you know, have you ever thought about doing this course? That's the, uh, the, at the time the academy used to be RSAMD and I said, no, and he went, well, why don't you come through to Glasgow? You can come meet the staff and just see what you think. And again, it's just seemed like a totally alien world.

I was like, I'm a teacher. I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a head teacher. So, you know, it still was in the back of my head, even though I was doing it all at uni, I was like, Oh, you know, I just never thought that you could. pay a mortgage and like fund a life, you know, with money from the arts. So it just didn't seem feasible to me. But I went through to Glasgow, met the staff and Ben was so kind and let me sit in on a lot of his classes.

And I remember sitting on the steps of RCS and drinking a coffee and just be, I was so emotional. I just went, I, I belong here. Like I need to be here. Um, it just felt so right. And I auditioned. I didn't get in and that year I was like, I don't, what am I going to do? And I was doing Fame at the Fringe and the production company who were doing Fame, I ended up sort of stepping into the MD role.

Because an issue, there was an issue with the MD and then they, because they'd seen my work and said we're taking Blues Brothers to the West End. Do you want to do it? And I went, uh, yeah,

So, so this sort of thing of like keeping it as a hobby, it still feels that way to me because when people ask what I do and I say I'm a musician, I feel like I'm not really, I never describe my job as a job. I never ever say I'm off to work, I'll say I'm off to rehearsals, I'm off to the studio or I'm off, you know, I never ever say I'm off to work. Um, I feel very lucky for that. Um, but yeah, could have, could have all gone the other way. Um, so thank you to Ben Murray for.

Suggesting I come in and sit in because I really don't think I would have ever gone for that opportunity had he not said that.

Um, and it, it is accessible, music is accessible and, and also whether that's playing a recorder, you know, I remember when I was a kid I used to go to a group called Semi Quavers, my mum used to send me to, and that was like, hitting Pringles tubs filled with lentils and, you know, shaking boxes with, broken shells in it and things like that. And that was making music. So I think, I think I would leave my Casio keyboard in there for that reason.

But as you get older, you might have other dreams and you might then want to, you know, work in the fire service, or you might want to be a musician, or you might want to run for prime minister, or you might, you could, you could want a whole host of things and they're not wrong, but just as you, as you grow and you start to live more and more of your life, you're going to start to have different priorities and different focuses.

And I think something that I've kind of really discovered over the last It's especially sort of effect from training at music school is that I felt very much like I had to be a certain thing or do certain something to feel like I was worthy and I'd achieved and I was You know, I was, I was really, really doing my best and actually it's not, those things can, can change over time. What is, you know, musicals were my passion for a long time, but plays are now my passion.

And, I think it should be important to listen to yourself and listen to how your needs, listen to what your needs are and just ask them, what, what are my creative needs and are they being met? And how do I go about doing that for myself? So that's the, as much as it's scary being self employed and, and in the art, it's also, can be really exciting in that way because you are the person who chooses how you nourish yourself. Um, but you have to listen out for what those changes are.