Thatch Music: Wedding Music | Studio Production | Musical Director

LOYISO | PLAYING WITH THE PROS

2012-02-24T13:32:00.000+02:00

It’s such a privilege to work with the talent that we have in the South African music industry! Our performance with Loyiso a few weekends back was once again a testament to the caliber and competence of performers and musicians that we get to work with – week in and week out. Playing to an ecstatic crowd in Cape Town, our performance with Loyiso was euphoric and proof that good pre-production and professionalism always pay off when the fans go crazy. As our friends in the Cape would say – it was amazeballs.

LOYISO IN CAPE TOWN
This was our first Loyiso performance with a band that was solidly comprised of Cape Town musicians. Mike Horne (drums), Gorm Helfjord (guitars) and Shaun Johannes (bass) did us proud, and Loyiso had nothing but praise for the talent and delivery of the band. Jaydine was the MD and keyboardist, so he had 48 hours in which to rehearse and oversee all the music with a band that was playing new material (for them) and together for Loyiso for the first time.

The music was sent to the Cape Town trio in MP3 format to assist the musicians in learning their parts - see below for an example of a rehearsal track. Full Circle (listen to Full Circle).

BLOW YOUR MIND - Example of a guide track sent to the musician.
0.00-0.31 Edited and programmed to fit the live arrangement.
0.31-0.57 Original track.
0.57-1.20 Edited and programmed to fit the live arrangement.

20120224 Blow Your Mind - Rehearsal Track by jaydine

Meeting on the Friday afternoon, Jay had set aside his standard four-hour rehearsal (read about our typical rehearsal structures). The band arrived, setup and started with the material. Within an hour, the first run-through was complete! Not only did they know the music but they’d prepared their own charts too. Because they were all so well prepared, the following three hours were highly productive and an effective use of time for all four. Jaydine adjusted his approach, seeing that the guys were so well acquainted with the music, and focused on rehearsing the finer details of each song to bring out the best of the music.

At the second rehearsal, on Saturday, Jay brought in the tracks and they were able to do four full run-throughs of the entire repertoire. Loyiso arrived at the function, ready to perform, and was met by a band that were so tight, it sounded as if they’d been playing these songs for weeks! Singing crowd favourites, including Wrong for you and This World of Mine, Loyiso and band performed a sterling show.

Thanks to Gorm, Shaun and Mike – you guys delivered at a professional standard that does our industry proud.

VOCAL REHEARSALS BEGIN

2012-02-13T12:49:00.000+02:00

A QUICK UPDATE - FROM THE FIELD!

From our new HQ, Delta Park Environmental Centre, we commenced vocal rehearsals, this morning, for the corporate performance at the end of the month. Pebbles, Bongi, Jeremy and Brandon joined us at 10 (ish…) to start working on the harmonies and vocal group parts of each item. James, Jay and Kaz started to set the venue from the early hours of the morning, making sure all charts, technical gear and other extras would be ready and hooked up in time.

James, running the rehearsal, took the singers through their paces, using Logic to select the relevant loops, pulling them in and out of the mix to help the artists familiarise themselves with the music and arrangements.

In between costume fittings, coffee breaks and key changes our singers nailed their songs with the ease and delivery that keeps them in this industry. The orchestra will be joining us later this afternoon for their first rehearsal – BOOM.

WEDDING MUSIC & THE STICKY TRIGGERS

2012-02-03T12:30:00.000+02:00

With a schedule slightly less busy than our normal weekly activities, the Thatch team welcomed the reprieve to focus on the heavy demands of our corporate performance at the end of the month. Our week is not without its exciting endeavours as we will be performing with Loyiso in Cape Town on Saturday and the Sticky Triggers will be performing wedding music down in the quaint seaside town, Standford. BOOM!

Here's a video clip of a LeAnne, one of our performing artists, with Freshly Ground at the 17th SAMA's.

LOYISO
Loyiso Bala will be performing in Cape Town at a school festival in Ravensmead on Saturday. Backing him will be Thatch’s Jaydine Baron along with Mike Horne (drums), Gorm Helfjord (guitar) and Shaun Johannes (bass). As a solo musician, performing live, as often as possible is the best way to boost your profile and promote your original work! Corporate performances, while they do a better job of filling your pockets, don’t count towards expanding your public image.

STICKY TRIGGERS | WEDDING MUSIC
Also on Saturday, the Sticky Triggers will be providing wedding music in Cape Town at the scenic Beloftebos in Standford. Jeremy Olivier, along with Marlon Witbooi, Paul Mayers, Dan Shout and Lana Crowster will entertain the guests in true Sticky Triggers style with a reminiscent repertoire that has become a standard with the Thatch Music wedding band.

CORPORATE FUNCTION UPDATE
As we mentioned last week, we’ll be walking you through our pre-production preparation for a large corporate function that we will be working on at the end of February. Having booked the musicians and signed off on the song selection, James set to work on creating mock-ups (guide tracks) of the music (see our article on this). At the end of the week all of this work was complete and signed off by the show director.

Read more »

WORKING WITH SINGERS | VIVA VOCE!

2012-02-03T02:30:00.000+02:00

Working with singers is a dynamic that every musician should realise is different to working with other musicians. Just the same as working with dancers is different, there are several considerations that we employ when working with singers - and we’d like to voice them with you. Again, this is our approach, we may not have it right, but we’re finding that it works for us.

Here's a snippet from James's very first musical direction job in Johannesburg back in 2005, which required some severe vocal arranging, preparation and rehearsal savvy.

WORKING WITH SINGERS | CORPORATE FUNCTIONS

Firstly, when it comes to preparing for a corporate or function in which singers are booked on a freelance basis (i.e. when the singer is not the client), Thatch Music handles the full repertoire selection with a small amount of secondary input from the singers. There are several practical reasons for this:

we have the relationship with the client, so we know what the client wants to achieve
keeping things central in the planning and pre-production phases keeps the admin to a minimum and streamlines the rehearsals
all the music needs to be arranged specifically, by us, for the gig
we know all the other artists and can choose songs that will fit with the overall theme of the evening

MUSICAL TERMS | IN AN EVERYDAY SENSE

2012-02-01T05:30:00.000+02:00

Most musicians are more well-versed in Italian than they realise... apparently, so are many non-musicians. The terms that we use in our arrangements and orchestrations come as a second tongue to us, but we recently read an article that brought these terms to light in their everyday sense.

Many of our non-muso friends use the same words we do - just in a slightly different context! Take a look at these. There's 50 of them!

1. Ad lib (from ad libitum): an improvisation
2. Baroque: elaborate, extravagant, and/or flamboyant
3. Beat: a brief measure or pause
4. Cadence: a sequence or measure of rhythm
5. Choir: a group of people sharing beliefs or values (“preaching to the choir”)
6. Chord: the target of a stimulus (“strike a chord”)
7. Chorus: a unified response (“a chorus of approval”)
8. Coda: a conclusion
9. Conductor: someone who organizes an enterprise or scheme
10. Crescendo: a high point
11. Cue: a signal to start or do something or cause it to happen
12. Downbeat: pessimistic
13. Duet: an action undertaken by a union of two people
14. Encore: an additional performance or achievement
15. Ensemble: a group in which no one person stands out
16. Falsetto: an unnaturally high voice
17. Fanfare: celebratory attention
18. Finale: a concluding performance or act
19. Gig: a job or assignment
20. Impromptu: spontaneous, improvised
21. Interlude: a planned interruption or intervening period
22. Leitmotif: a recurring overarching idea
23. Maestro: an accomplished person
24. Medley: a series or other collection of ingredients or actions
25. Opera: extended to “soap opera,” the slang term for domestic radio and later television dramas (so called because detergent manufacturers often sponsored these programs aimed at homemakers) and “horse opera,” another name for westerns (plural of opus)

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PRICING YOURSELF

2012-01-30T03:30:00.000+02:00

an approach to pricing in the south african music industry

There are three things that you should never discuss around the dinner table: politics, religion and money. It’s a good thing we’re not sitting around a dinner table…

We have quite a lot to say about pricing yourself in the South African live music industry - these are obviously expressed as a generalisation but we believe that the rules apply whether you are a newbie instrumentalist or a celebrity high-profile artist. If you want to make a career in this industry then your fees are instrumental to the longevity of your stay.

Sit tight, because this is a long read, but we know that you'll benefit from it. Before you read, here's some entertainment from the Glo-CAF Awards that was recorded by one of the guests. The performer is Zeynab.

HOW TO PRICE YOURSELF | LET’S STEP ON SOME TOES

We may not have it right… but we believe our approach is honest and will stand us in good stead for a long future with all of our clients. We have found that there is a huge inconsistency in the music industry when it comes to pricing. This mostly rears it’s green head in the corporate industry, where we see so many people trying for an extra buck.

First things first - and you’re going to hear this a lot:

"We believe that your pricing structure should be consistent with what will keep you extremely busy and regularly booked for the next twenty years."

You want to be in the industry in 2032, right? Then make sure you stick to a pricing approach that you are able to increase incrementally from now until then without losing clients and that is affordable enough to keep you busy.

And yet, the trend is to price high for corporate performances and lower for private functions and wedding music, making for such a confusing booking environment with clients.

Why change your fee depending on the prestige of the gig? Or what you think ‘they can afford’? Is your service more valuable in different settings? Are you trying harder on different gigs?

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MUSIC FOR CORPORATE PERFORMANCES

2012-01-27T05:00:00.000+02:00

Thatch Music received the signed contract to produce and direct the music for a large corporate function next month, so we have a busy four weeks ahead to prepare our contribution to the convention. Due to confidentiality, and surprise of the evening, we need to keep the exact details mum, but we’d like to take you through the process that we’ll be following. But first – check out this video of a corporate function that we were involved with last year.

The first clip is of the original arrangement and the second is of our performance, which will give you a good idea of how our work process is guided. We are privileged to work with such talent!

PLANNING THE MUSIC FOR A CORPORATE FUNCTION | DUE PROCESS

Firstly, all songs have been signed off with the show director and the artists need to be booked. We’ve placed Brandon October, Bongi Mthombeni, Jeremy Olivier and Pebbles (of Newtown fame) on the bill. Our next step is to arrange each song for the function. We believe that each song should have a specific personality that is unique to that event so that the guests will walk away thinking “I loved the way that they played that song tonight!”. These shows are so much about momentum and holding the audience’s attention, so we rarely allow a song’s duration to go longer than three minutes. Shorter is better.

Before we choose our arrangers and orchestrators, we create a mock-up of each track. This is essential to our process as it allows the other producers (and dancers) to rehearse, plan and design their contributions to fit with the music. These mock-ups will have all the creative and performance ideas that the Thatch team recommend, which is then pitched and signed off by client. From here, it is the ‘simple’ job of re-arranging these for a 45-piece orchestra!

We’ll more than likely write up a more detailed article soon, but here are Thatch’s tips and tricks in short… (from James)

Import the full original track into Logic.
Beatmap the entire track to make sure that bars (measures) are exact.
Open the lyrics in a word processor as a working document.
Edit the track down to approx 2.30min.
Do numerous passes of the song, all the while visualizing it on stage, making notes in the word processor and translating those into the mock-up. These ideas are either sequenced in or recorded vocally. Sometimes there’s not much that needs to be done, sometimes the song needs to be entirely reprogrammed to translate our idea properly. Regardless, now is the time to do it.
The producer (and any other necessary parties) now have access to the music (exact timings), lyrics and performance ideas.
This process usually takes the Thatch boys approximately 30min – 2 hours per song.

That’s our week – BOOM!

RIGHT PLACE. RIGHT TIME. BOOM.

2012-01-25T04:00:00.000+02:00

Man, this is too good to forget. James was pitching Jeremy Olivier for an upcoming performance for a notable JHB Corporate Convention, featuring a 45-piece orchestra and some amazing artists. Travelling down to Cape Town, with nothing but his Zoom R16, Handycam and a couple of hours at their disposal, they set out to track some of Jeremy's favorite tunes. The combination of two great friends (Shaun Johannes and Jeremy Olivier) and some awesome musical talent will nearly always result in magic.

Jeremy was booked for the performance and will be in Johannesburg to perform at the convention in mid-February - sometimes it just pays off!

(Sorry - we can't give any more details on the function as it's under tight wraps until the big night. But, be sure, we'll fill you in the very next week.)

PASSION | WEDDING MUSIC | SHARE THE LOVE

2012-01-19T14:14:00.000+02:00

Passion lies at the heart of Thatch Music, to the point that it’s almost broken us (but at least we’ll die happy!). We really love the music industry. And we love being part of its growth. We also believe in sharing the knowledge that we’ve gained as freely as makes sense. Read on and we’ll share some of these thoughts, but first a little recap on the ever-popular Sticky Trigger Wedding Music Band.

From the archives... a production of which we were proud to be a part. We want to share how we contribute to making events like this possible - read on for our reasons for sharing this information!

WEDDING MUSIC | CAPE TOWN

Last week we received a last-minute booking for the Sticky Triggers to perform at a wedding in Cape Town… over the weekend. The bride contacted us to provide wedding reception music but really needed help with the ceremony too. Fortunately for the blushing bride, we offered to edit their songs of choice at no charge (which is what we offer for all of our bridal bouquets) and were able to add to their memorable day by pre-editing the bridal march, the reception entrance and the first dance. We edited “Give a little bit” (Supertramp) for the bride’s entrance, “Viva La Vida” (Coldplay) for the bride and groom’s reception entrance and Wicked Game (Chris Isaak) for their opening dance.

The advantage of preparing these special songs before-hand is that we can decide how long the music will play for and how quickly it will get to the ‘good parts’. Often the parts of a song that are well-known, or that speak to the couple, are in the chorus or a bridge, so we edit it in such a way that the beautiful couple doesn’t have to stand around awkwardly waiting for the words to come and for people to recognize the song. Jeremy Olivier led the band through their live-music slot from after the opening dance through to midnight whereafter he DJ’d until 1am.

THE ROCKETS: THROUGH THE YEARS | RELIVING THE 70’s, BABY

One of South Africa’s memories from the 1970’s floats on the melody lines of the legendary group The Rockets. They were able to unite locals across the boundaries of race and creed and defy the skewed political logic that ruled at the time. Our very own Jaydine joins his dad, Molly (drummer and original member), Bones and other faces from the past prodigy in a four-night tribute show at SABC’s Auditorium in Cape Town. Check out the computicket site for booking details!

THE HEART OF OUR BLOG | SHARING THE LOVE

We have recently been approached by a couple of those in the industry who have essentially asked the same question regarding our blog posts: “Aren’t you worried about giving away your trade-secrets?”
Read more »

2012 - BOOM!

2012-01-12T21:52:00.000+02:00

December was most definitely a month that exceeded expectations, and what a way to end a fantastic 2011, and get us excited for 2012! With plans to increase the compass of our already popular wedding music band, The Sticky Triggers, and add new structures and baselines to our solid approach to musical directing – we’ve got tons to share with the South African music industry!

GHANA REPORTBACK - GLO-CAF FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Glo-Caf Awards Show Opening featuring Loyiso Bala and Gloria Bosman

Pre-production kept us busy with 14-16 hour days in the 10 days leading up our trip to Ghana, but the real work lay ahead of us. Upon arrival, we worked three 20-hour days as we found that several programme and artist changes had been made that required us to arrange and re-arrange the music several times. At one point, we had to completely orchestrate and programme an item during our lunch break. In just 60 minutes we had the charts printed and ready for the 9-piece band and the tracks cued for rehearsal – probably the fastest turn-around that we’ve ever had!

Working with the local musical talents, Efya and Kwabena Kwabena, as well as Zeynab (Benin) and our own two artists, Loyiso Bala and Gloria Bosman, the show was an absolute hit and the final performance was exceptional. The two-hour awards ceremony was broadcast live, included five performance numbers and 35 award stings. James and Jay worked seamlessly to co-direct the music, so when the show, at the last minute was cut from two-and-a-half-hours to two hours, which led to a re-write of all intros and outros to the five performance numbers, Jay could keep rehearsing whilst James met with the clients, performers and technical crew and saw to the re-arranging and printing of music.

We were reminded of how useful an on-stage talkback mic (with the MD) is for being able to direct the band when changes are happening “on the fly”. Jaydine was literally calling out bar numbers during certain sections and the band did a legendary job of staying solid and tight under the extreme pressures that accompany this type of function.

NEW YEARS - LIVE MUSIC
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THE THATCH GUIDE TO WEDDING MUSIC: PART II

2011-12-28T23:27:00.003+02:00

"Stay away from dances that require actions. No YMCA, no Locomotion, no Macarena..."

Anything that comes in two parts is either a duet... or well worth the read! Our guide to wedding music is just that... well worth the read, and here's Part II of our awesome guide. Part I covered wedding music for the ceremony and touched on specific cues and guidelines to pulling off a spectacular and sentimental 'formal occasion'. Whether you're in Cape Town, Johannesburg, The Drakensberg or some remote tropical retreat, this next bit is where you can let your hair down and break bread with the family.

CANAPES/PRE-DRINKS BACKGROUND MUSIC

The wedding music for this part of the day should be ambient and, in our opinion, light-hearted. String quartets work fantastically, but so do jazz duos, French chanson, New Orleans, marimba and acoustic folk groups. Just be sure that they keep their repertoire up-tempo to keep the music lively and not soporific. Don’t stress about song-lists for this. You’re going to be too over the moon to even notice what’s going on here. Even if you don’t go for live music, speak to us at Thatch about preparing a great iTunes playlist for this section of the day!
Some ideas:
Traditional - String Quartet
Classic - 3-piece Jazz Ensemble (Bass, Guitar, Trumpet/Saxophone)
New - Lounge DJ performing remixes of all the classic love songs.

WEDDING RECEPTION MUSIC
A standard reception will usually see the guests leave the canapés at about 18h00 to head for the reception. Timings differ, but here are our suggestions for the evening:

THE THATCH GUIDE TO WEDDING MUSIC: PART I

2011-12-22T04:30:00.004+02:00

Thatch’s Guide to personalizing the music at your wedding.

“There are never ANY rules, as long as you have the guts to pull off what’s on your heart.” James B

Weddings are a special and rare opportunity for the couple to express themselves as a new and unique union. As with most celebrations an essential part of this is the song and music selection. The trouble with wedding music, though, is that the further from the ‘tried-and-tested’ model you wander, the more risk you’ll run of alienating your guests.

Having a friend perform that really cool underground, indie hit of yours at the ceremony might work wonders, but it could also be too disarming for your guests, having never heard the song. Playing the music that you alone want to dance to may be a fantastic idea, but your guests may also hide from the dance floor in silent revolt at the songs they’ve never heard and can’t relate to.

With a little thought on your side, it’s possible to give your guests a poignant and intimate taste of yourselves as a couple, whilst still being accessible to a guest list that will most likely (in this day and age) span the gamut of age, race, religion and culture.

There are never ANY rules, as long as you have the guts to pull off what’s on your heart. With that in mind, though, here is a sum-up of our never-fail approach to an unforgettable wedding. We've split it into two parts - wedding ceremony music and canapes and reception music.

WEDDING CEREMONY MUSIC

GET THE BEST OUT OF EVERY REHEARSAL

2011-12-13T22:47:00.001+02:00

Another week and more Thatch Music tips and tales to share! If you read last week’s post, you’ll know that aside from our wedding music in Cape Town and Drakensberg, we were heavily busy with the first stages of pre-production for the Glo-CAF African Footballer of the Year Awards in Ghana, later this month.

GHANA UPDATE – TAKING YOU THROUGH THE ROPES
Having crossed yellow-fever shots, passports and the guide tracks for the dancers off our lists, we now need to focus on transcribing the tracks to charts for the band and sequencing the percussion and synth tracks that will play behind the band. There are two procedures that we always follow for this: firstly, James takes the arrangements from the Logic files and edits them in Sibelius, which is where the charts will be written. On the flip side, Jay will take the Sibelius files into Ableton Live and start the sequencing for the support tracks. As a standard, we generally double the horn parts, using Garritan Jazz and Big Band sounds to just thicken and slicken the sound a little more. We have booked a seven-piece band consisting of drums, percussion, keyboard, bass, guitar, trombone, saxophone and trumpet.

Our first rehearsal is on Sunday, so we have to be ready and our musicians need to have had the music to rehearse on their own. It is expected that they will have rehearsed the parts - using the pdf charts and mp3 guide tracks that we send them - on their own before the band rehearses together; this makes the band rehearsals less stressful and far more productive. Here are some tips on how we run a typical practice when preparing for a performance with a solo-artist:

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF A BAND REHEARSAL

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CONTRACTS: ALWAYS GET IT IN WRITING

2011-12-08T04:30:00.000+02:00

Wedding music, helping out friends, a Ghanaian awards evening and yellow fever shots – whoever says that being a musician is easy and glamorous should be a fly on the wall in the offices and studio of Thatch Music. BOOM! This week we’ll fill you in on how we make wedding music memorable for brides in both JOHANNESBURG and CAPE TOWN, plan for a massive performance in central Africa and share from the heart about protecting yourself against bad management…

But first, a snippet from last week. On Wednesday evening, Jay and Earl were backing one of our artists, LeAnne Dlamini, at the stunning Radisson Blu Gautrain Hotel. However, Thatch learned a sizable lesson in following up on booking terms. In the rush that is this music season, we overlooked that we were booked to perform two sets, which is about 12 songs more than we usually play with LeAnne. We were reminded to double-check the finer details sooner, rather than later, but with a contract in place, Jay worked overtime, day and night (in spite of a 12 hour electricity cut!) to deliver a knock-out set. With the limited time available, we used percussion loops, synth and backing vocal tracks to support Jay (keyboards) and Earl (bass). Huge kudos to Earl, on his first gig for Leanne, for learning 21 new tunes in only a few hours!

Richard Smith, our legendary sound guy, was tweaking the mix and was a key ingredient to a flawless performance. The engineer gets booked second in priority to the musical director. It is only after we’ve secured and engineer that we book musicians. We have found that it’s more important to have an engineer that knows our sound and have one less musician, than to use a technician that we don’t know, is unfamiliar with our sound and the way that we operate. At every performance, there are new technical people, so achieving uniformity in sound is not easy, which is why we always try to work with the same engineers. This way, we always have a ‘band member’ on the other side, working with the technical guys to help us produce the best show possible.

CONTRACTS AND CANCELLATION FEES

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TIMOTHY MOLOI AND DIGITAL FILING

2011-11-30T22:55:00.001+02:00

Working with South Africa’s top musicians, whether on stage with Timothy Moloi, Kabelo, Mango Groove, Danny K or the like, or providing wedding music and live entertainment to guests as they savour canapés, requires a tight band and tight administration. Keep reading for Part II of Thatch Music’s legendary digital office solutions…

Last week, James flew to Cape Town for some studio production with Jeremy Olivier and Shaun Johannes at Mahogany Studios. Four songs with one take per track, no auto-tuning and basic reverb made this recording a cinch. The video has no tuning and hardly any post-production on the vocals and very little editing to the guitar and bass tracks. What you hear is pretty much exactly how it was delivered! BOOM!

TIMOTHY MOLOI
Last week we performed with Timothy Moloi for Bankmed’s yearend function at Melrose Arch. Booked by Star Trackers, Timothy was given the reigns to sing his own songs and some of his favourites from his extensive repertoire. With Jay on keyboards, Marcus Wyatt’s unerring trumpet, James’ synth bass chops and Godfrey Mcina’s faithful percussion grooves, the tight lineup delivered a complex and diverse performance to a delighted audience.

One of the common challenges that we face when providing live music to corporate functions is that of limited space. Thatch’s performance with Timothy last week is a great example of how it’s just not possible to provide a full horn section, live bassist, drummer and percussionist to produce the sound for which the client is looking. Combined with our support tracks and careful selection of musicians, we are able to create the sound inside the space provided and keep to the budget.

Godfrey’s percussion setup allows him to play solid kit-grooves, from pop to swing, and create a percussion ensemble without needing a standard five-piece kit and a separate percussionist. A genius arrangement of congos, hi-hats, a ride cymbal, a djembe, a snare drum and a foot controlled tambourine provide him all he needs to groove it out.

Jay has a busy few weeks ahead with Loyiso as we begin work on his new Gospel album. Jay will be working closely with Loyiso, and some other Thatch friends, to write and produce this next project. In addition to this, Jay and Earl Baartman (bass) are performing with LeAnne at the Raddison Blu Gautrain Hotel on Wednesday.

DIGITAL FILING: FOUNDATIONS OF SOLID ADMINISTRATION

“Most administrators love music. Most musicians hate administration.”

KABELO : LIVE@5

2011-11-29T05:00:00.000+02:00

KABELO - LIVE@5
To say that Kabelo’s popularity and ability to entertain a crowd is growing exponentially would be an understatement. In two weeks we have performed with this luminary twice and both performances have been exceptional. Last Saturday Thatch Music and Kabelo rocked it out on 5FM’s Live@5 with Catherine Grenfell to promote the new Kabelo album, Immortal Vol 1. Our friends Danny K, AKA and RJ Benjamin joined in the fun and with Richard Smith, of Sound Harmonics, handling the in-house mix, everything was pumping.

Here's a video clip from the event:

Building on the previous week’s performance at Katzys, Thatch chose a loop-based direction as it works well with Kabelo’s flexible and confident stage presence. Backed by the line-up of Josh Thatcher (guitar), Leagan Breda (drums) and Jaydine Baron (keys), the show was a hit and delivered the sound that listeners could expect to hear on the Immortal album. 5FM engineer, Darryl Torr was there to oversee the final sound production to broadcast.

Jaydine musically directed the show with his AKAI APC40, a tailored controller for Ableton Live performances. A separate bass track was sent directly to a bass amp to create the sound of a live bassist, on stage, with the band. This, along with the extra loops and tracks, was controlled through the APC40 to create a versatile and masterful performance. The band rehearsed at Ryno Zeelie’s studio - Figure of 8 Productions. A really important rehearsal feature for us is being able to rehearse with in-ear monitoring, which FO8 provides. Rehearsing with in-ears allows the volume of the rehearsal to be extremely controlled, which makes perfecting all the small elements that much easier.

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KABELO & DEBBIE RAKUSIN'S DANCERS

2011-11-24T12:17:00.002+02:00

KABELO
When Afropolitan booked Kabelo to perform at their magazine launch last Wednesday, they didn’t realize that his new musical director was Thatch Music. The result – a massive, pumping sound from one of the country’s biggest kwaito stars. With a great venue (Katzys) and a show-stopper performer, Afropolitan had all the essential elements for a night to write about. Jaydine musically directed Wednesday’s performance and had very little time to prepare all the music for the JHB function. Kwaito music often contains percussive loop samples and deep bass lines, this allowed us, due to the short turn-around, to produce a show that was loop based, rather than pre-produced where the arrangements and set lists were fixed. A loop-based show allows more freedom on stage and gave Kabelo the space to freestyle and engage with his audience on a deeper personal level, which, at Katzys, was a winner!

James was across town from Jay with a big band function at Urban Tree. Carla Mayo events, with the choreographer Debbie Rakusin, booked Thatch Music to produce and perform the music for eight amazing dancers who stepped their way through the classic form of 40’s swing and Latin salsas to modern contemporary styles. We were once again reminded of the unique requirements of a musician when performing with dancers.

WORKING WITH DANCERS: OUR SIX RULES OF ENGAGEMENT...

DANNY K, LOYISO, KABELO AND TIMOTHY MOLOI

2011-11-10T10:06:00.001+02:00

Danny K, Loyiso, Kabelo and Timothy Moloi… what do they all have in common? South Africa, great tunes and Thatch Music! BOOM!

We had an awesome week; Jaydine performed with Timothy Moloi and Melissa Allison for the Growth Point Properties Gala Event on Thursday evening at the trendsetting 44 Stanley. Performing background music and featured items throughout the evening, in every musical combination from solo to trio, the three moved comfortably across the courtyard to the delight of all the guests. Whilst Timothy and Melissa were performing at Il Giardino, Jay was tinkling the ivories at Salvation Café and even used his blackberry to play some backing tracks behind him.

Amongst other songs, Danny K performed "Projecta" (video above) and the DJ Kent remix of his increasingly popular hit ‘Made to love you’ on Saturday at the Changing Diabetes fundraiser in Mary Fitzgerald Square, Newtown. With Richard Smith (Sound Harmonics) behind the sound desk, the crowd experienced some of the best music in the country.
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LITTLE SHOP OF HORAS

2011-11-03T11:25:00.000+02:00

Never content with the humdrum of routine Thatch Music (booked by Danny K) arranged a collection of traditional horas for the Toy Soldiers. Combining the stirring melodies of ancient Yiddish dances with the latest club and party grooves, we were creatively stretched to produce music that we don’t normally get booked to work with. We always value the opportunity to grow in new styles of arrangement and never limit ourselves to select genres.

That being said, our biggest challenge last week was to arrange an entire three-hour show, featuring four huge artists (Patrizio, Dana Winner, Nianell and Corlea), each with their own arrangements, and produce a slick holistic performance that was smooth and flowing. The vicissitudes of style, genre, tempo and vocal range, with the added complication of vastly different styles of arrangements and orchestrations (some had not been used in over 10 years), required the expert skill and understanding of James to pull everything together into one standardized format.
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PATRIZIO TO PALACES

2011-10-27T10:10:00.000+02:00

From the Palaces of Monte Casino to Patrizio’s Italian suaveness, this week is heating up!

But first – a little recap…. with the turbo trio of Jaydine, Leagan Breda and Alvin Hendricks grooving with Leanne Dlamini at JHB's Rosebank Hyatt Regency Hotel, the South East Soul performance was smooth and sophisticated.

The Sticky Triggers performed to two greatly appreciative audiences – first at the Bokomosa Trust Function on Friday night (with James Hendry taking a turn on the microphone for one set) and then to an intimate wedding party on Saturday where Frank Panau and a mini-big band (9-piece) performed reworked Frank Sinatra classics – My Way, Fly me to the moon, I get a kick out of you and New York New York were amongst the favourites of the evening.

Saturday night’s Jacaranda Pops was a typical performance that required many hours of pre-poduction from the Thatch team of orchestrators. Working with the legendary Janine Neethling, the evening was always set to be brilliant. In a week, Thatch Music produced 15 orchestrations for a full orchestra. The hot young talent that is Melissa van der Spuy, Matthijs van Dijk, Andrew Orkin, James Bassingthwaighte, Jaydine Baron and David Cousins comprised the team of writers. Using Sibelius and Logic combined with the Thatch Music standard of orchestration and notation style, the team was able to work cross-country and produce one complete work that boasted the symmetry and consistency of a single arranger.

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THATCH'S GUIDE TO DRUM NOTATION

2011-10-25T10:36:00.001+02:00

One of our strengths in our arrangements is the high quality and consistency of our drum charts. Here is a basic guide that we've put together for anybody that intends to write for drums.

(Click on the images to enlarge them.)

It is not totally comprehensive, but will work for anybody that's new to the art, or is just looking to brush up on the basics. Based on our discussions over the past eight years with professional drummers from around the world and using the notation guidelines from the Percussive Arts Society as a starting point, we have settled on this style, which we have found works extremely well.

Enjoy, and if you have any questions, always feel free to contact us!

James and the Thatch team.

BUBLÉ MEETS BACH

2011-10-19T10:49:00.000+02:00

It’s Bublé meets Bach at the Toyota Jacaranda Pops that will be hosted this weekend at the Kloofendal Amphitheatre. Thatch Music, using a team of fresh young talent from Cape Town and Johannesburg, has written the lion’s share of the intricate orchestrations that will showcase Johannesburg’s Philharmonic Orchestra with energetic and refreshing arrangements of Afrikaans and English pop songs.

Thatch is also handling all the technical direction for the show, a huge undertaking that includes: setting up the click tracks, handling all the sub-mixes and essentially working as the 'musical engine' for the show. Jaydine will be our ‘man on the ground’ from behind the piano keys.

James has also been busy with the upcoming Frank Sinatra tribute show with Frank Panou. The arrangements for this performance, featuring time-honoured hits from the legendary swing icon, have had the Thatch team working against the clock.

Somehow, in and amongst it all, we managed to produce another exceptional video for a Hip Hop pitch that we sent off last week. Using a similar schedule to the Israel & New Breed Demo, we crammed in as much production time as we could into about 36 hours. Jay began by editing MP3’s into a rough guide track late on Tuesday evening. From this guide track he was able to write the main arrangements, sending them off to James at 3am the following morning. James arranged the horn parts and by 6am the musicians had the charts waiting for them in their inboxes.

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A BALL WITH NEDBANK

2011-10-14T22:22:00.002+02:00

With 400 of South Africa’s highly acclaimed and most influential business leaders as their guests, the Nedbank Winter Ball is an incredible platform for the best creative talent to showcase and perform. Over the past few years, Thatch Music has produced all the music and has made a significant impact in many top performing artists’ careers with this corporate function.

On June 23, this was no different. After many hours of hard work and preparation, the stage was set at Theatre on the Track, Kyalami, and the guests, who are re-invited every year, were ready to network, dine and be entertained by some of our country’s finest and most talented artists. Thatch produced this show under the flawless and dedicated production-hands of Megan Willson and her team at 360 Degrees.

Armed with a 30-piece orchestra and a secret guest-band, James and Jaydine set to work with five other orchestrators to arrange the music for a performance that would bring life to the evening’s theme – “Fabric of Dreams”.

The first act featured Neo Muyanga (Black Sunshine), Lloyd Cele (Pop Idols), Melissa Allison, Shannon Mowday (saxophone), Marcus Wyatt (trumpet) and Themba Machobane (cello) – all performing numbers arranged for a Symphonic Orchestra to knit the fabric of African dreams.

The second act opened with an overture, written by James, and featured each musician from the surprise band.

The overture ended with Claire Johnston singing the evergreen “Hellfire”, to reveal the surprise band – Mango Groove. The production was spectacular and drew tremendous applause, but the technical logistics behind it were what made it all possible.

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THATCHWORK...

2011-10-05T14:35:00.003+02:00

“Dr Dre, Dr Alban and Dr Victor – are they really doctors?”
James Bassingthwaite

A good question – who really knows what goes on behind the scenes of performing artists? We do. It’s our job to know and to play our part in making that artist great. But before we dissect our daily business, here’s what’s kept us busy at Thatch Music this passed week.

MTN’s African Conference, September 27 at Summer Place in Rivonia, was the stage for Timothy Moloi and The Sticky Triggers as they performed and promoted some original, local and international hit songs. James and Jaydine, along with Godfrey Mgcina and Justin Holcroft, formed The Sticky Triggers outfit that backed Moloi to deliver a top-class performance to the corporate function.

Here's a clip of one of our live artists, Danny K, performing with a live band that was all arranged by Thatch Music.

At the end of June, Thatch Music worked on a Mango Groove show and the video footage was sent through this week to have the final audio mix added, which has been keeping Jaydine busy in Thatch Studios. And, with Skouspel this weekend, James has been working on the pre-production with Janine Neethling. The show is running a separate video feed to play behind all the songs, so to ensure that the music fits with the video production, Thatch has created vocal-cue and click tracks for the entire show of 70 numbers to keep everything tight and in-sync.

But here’s the core of what we do, what we offer all our Live Artists; solo, or duet, musicians who mostly perform with backing tracks in order to replicate the sound that they created in the studio. In short: we meet with the artist, listen to their album, arrange music for a live band, source the best musicians and have them ready to arrive at a single rehearsal with the artist and be ready to produce the same sound that was created in the studio – but with a live band.

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THE WEDDING SINGERS

2011-09-27T11:37:00.002+02:00

“My dream, as a musician, is to play at weddings.”

Ask any professional, or non-professional, musician what their dream is and you’re highly unlikely to hear them say that weddings are high on their charts. They will probably cite their role models and share how they will one day ‘make it big’… but the reality for most is that it’s a hard slog to stay a tempo and pay the bills – especially in South Africa.

Several years ago, a band was formed from Cape Town college students who needed to cover their bills, so they took the jobs that were going – weddings. The band was The Sticky Triggers and the front man was James Frank (aka James Bassingthwaighte). In Jim Collins’ book Good to Great he writes that all the great companies kept going back to their roots and remembered how, and why, they started doing what they were doing.

James and his fellow triggers were keenly aware of the important lessons that they learnt on the wedding singer journey but were also noticing how many musicians would perform at weddings with much antipathy. Thatch Music saw the great opportunity in creating a solution. James and Jaydine moved up to Johannesburg to focus on the corporate and live performance side of music production, but were still receiving calls from Cape Town for weddings and functions. They slowly streamlined their wedding bouquet and created a brand, in The Sticky Triggers, that is unique for three reasons:

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ISRAEL & NEW BREED AUDITION

2011-09-22T10:27:00.002+02:00

Like an action packed episode of 24 – we were keenly aware of what can be accomplished in a short time with a couple of entry-level mics, a rehearsal room, some basic home-recording equipment and a Kodak Playsport video camera. Jaydine and James were the Kiefer Sutherland of recording and video production last week as we produced an audition video for Israel & New Breed Africa in under 48 hours.

Jaydine is representing Thatch Music in an audition for the role of musical director and keyboard player for New Breed Africa's African tour.

It began on Tuesday evening around 18h00 when we started arranging the parts and sourcing young and local musical talents to come in and record with us at Jazzworx Studios with Robin Kohl. Jaydine arranged the band parts and James arranged the horn parts, charts were sent out and by early Wednesday afternoon the band spent four hours, take after take, creating a top-class audition video.

Jaydine downloaded a percussion and BV (backing vocals) track from Interactive Worship (which is an awesome resource!) of one of Israel & New Breed’s songs and built up the arrangement from there. This enabled him to incorporate actual New Breed vocalists into the final mix. With his Roland FantomG7, supplied by Anton and Music Connection, he directed the band through the rehearsal, with James taking video footage of every take throughout the session, breaking for two horn takes for which Jaydine manned the camera.
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SHAKESPEARE AT THE ZOO

2011-09-14T09:59:00.004+02:00

It was just another walk in the park for The Sticky Triggers as they supported Timothy Moloi this weekend at the JHB zoo, for the much-acclaimed show “Shakespeare Dreaming - at the Zoo.” Whether playing at high-stress corporate functions or adding their professional touches to a wedding, The Sticky Triggers always deliver a solid performance.

Joining the stage with top actors and performers, Robert Whitehead, Kim Engelbrecht, John Vlismas, Mari-Louise Basson and Craig Arnold, Moloi and The Sticky Triggers kept the crowds captivated with the famous bard’s sonnets sung to contemporary ballades. Arts Alive once again produced a firm family favourite – we look forward to working with them again!

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JOBURG DAY ROCKED, GAUTENG

2011-09-08T13:18:00.005+02:00

Jaydine setting up at Joburg Day 2011

The Parlotones on-stage in the background

Entertaining an audience of nearly 20 000 local music lovers and supporters, Joburg Day 2011 was an awesome show! Thatch Music was proud to be backing Danny K and Locnville at the city’s annual music festival, rocking out at Soccer City. And that was just on Saturday…

Our weekend began in Cape Town at the Grand West Casino with the legendary Loyiso, live in concert at the Divo’s Variety Show (Marmalade Productions). James, CEO of Thatch Music, was the musical director for the show and flew in to rehearse with the band and ensure that the performance was a fantastic success. Thatch travels around the country with all of their live acts to maintain the highest standard of musical professionalism - regardless of where they are performing. All this time, Jaydine was back in Johannesburg setting up for Joburg Day on Saturday.

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THE STICKY TRIGGERS

2011-09-01T12:00:00.010+02:00

"Music is defined by legends and appreciated by the masses."

Thatch Music proudly presents the Sticky Triggers, South Africa's premier function band.

The Sticky Triggers is a live ensemble committed to delivering a flawlessly executed performance in keeping with the traditions and legends of yesteryear.

Available as a full twenty-piece big band or in the blink of an eye - a trio, the band's unique sound is an amalgamation of 1940's and 50's America, the vibrance of the Sophiatown era, sensual Cuban arrangements as well as both local and international Pop hits.
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