Setups

"The timpani tunings are the real challenge of The Little Mermaid. Changing pitches must be done by feel, that was my biggest challenge. Memorizing the mallet parts was also very necessary."

"As you can see in the pictures, I prefer to have as much 'stuff' right in front of me, as close as possible. Because there are so many instruments close in, I have mounted a music stand off of the tom mount.

"Different from the tour, the original Broadway production had acoustic drums, an acoustic set of timbales, and an acoustic tambourine - the tambourine is now programmed in the SPD-SX."

"With the space I had, I knew having an actual set of timpani would not be possible, so I opted to trigger them off of the Alesis Strike MultiPad. In addition to the timpani, all of the extra sound effects and other percussion were programmed into the MultiPad."

"When I got hired for this tour, the first thing I was told was that it was going to be a one player, combined book. This certainly became a challenge but it is laid out very well by UK orchestrater, Stephen Metcalfe, and honors the late Bill Brohn’s work."

Craig Given's combined book setup for Ragtime at the National Academy for Singing and Dramatic Art (3rd Year Students Production) in Christchurch, New Zealand.

"Being flexible to any situation is critical in the pit orchestra world. During the run of this production I was reminded of that in three ways."