Two Heads Are Better Than One

In case you’ve been missing it this week, a bit of YouTube viral madness has been making the rounds thanks to a video created by New York Philharmonic trombonist David Finlayson, who attached a GoPro camera to the slide of his trombone. The resulting slide POV clip caught made the rounds through network morning programs and even the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC. So what could be better than a video of one trombone slide POV? Well, a duet of course.

Enter National Symphony Orchestra principal trombonist, Craig Mulcahy, who was apparently working on a similar project at the same time as Finlayson. And as it turns out, the etude Finlayson played in his video has a duet part, which Mulcahy recorded and synced alongside Finlayson.

The entire thing is genuinely cool and terribly fun to watch. If nothing else, it leaves me wondering how far you could stretch this out, how about a trombone ensemble POV slide cam made with trombonists from across the country?

At his blog, Mulcahy indicates there are more videos to come so I suppose we’ll all have to stay tuned.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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