Born into a musical family, Tedd Firth is one of the most sought after musical directors, pianists and arrangers in jazz, cabaret, concert halls and beyond. He attended William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ and received a Master’s degree in jazz piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music in 2000. Since then, Firth has gone on to a successful career, working with the likes of Barbara Cook, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Bernadette Peters, Michael Feinstein, Maureen McGovern, Marilyn Maye, Christine Ebersole, Lucie Arnaz, Margaret Whiting, Melissa Errico and many more. He’s appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Blue Note, Birdland, the Iridium, the Algonquin and Cafe Carlyle, among other numerous, prestigious venues nationally, including the White House. As an arranger/orchestrator, Firth’s work has been performed by most major American symphony orchestras.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Tedd Firth (TF) Six Questions:
NLE: One of your last gigs was a concert of Michel Legrand music with Melissa Errico in Florida. Did you have any inkling at that time of the quarantine to come? What were your first thoughts when you realized we’d have to all go into isolation for an extended period of time?
TF: I think it occurred to me that the coronavirus pandemic had the potential to be disruptive to the music business around March 1st or so, but the Florida trip with Melissa Errico was when it became completely apparent that live events were going to be affected, and that these disruptions would likely start happening within days. After the date in Florida with Melissa on March 8th, I continued on to St. Louis for gigs with Marilyn Maye on March 10th, 11th and 12th and it was over those days that nearly everything I had scheduled for the next two months or so got cancelled or postponed. It was extremely stressful and surreal at the same time.
My first thoughts when I realized that there was going to be an extended period of isolation were a personal concern about providing for my family while unemployed, but also concerns about the public health crisis that was playing out. By the end of that week out of town when everything was falling apart, though, I was pretty much just thinking about getting home to be with my family.
LE: This pandemic has certainly had a huge effect on artists that make a living from gigs. How are you coping? Are there options that allow you to minimize consequences, such as coaching or teaching online?
TF: I’m coping well enough, all things considered. First and foremost, my family and I have been healthy through all of this, so we’re fortunate in that regard.
Although the loss of live performance income has been substantial and difficult, I’m working on ways of transferring what I do to the online realm. I’ve had a fairly limited online presence over the years, but I’m now working on making myself more accessible on the internet through creating my own website, expanding my social media presence, etc.
The biggest challenge to transferring to what I do online is the fact that it’s currently impossible for a singers and instrumentalists to perform together in real time over the internet. Despite that, though, I’ve still been able to do some coaching online. I’m also fortunate to have a home studio setup, so one thing I’ve been doing a good bit of is creating tracks for singers to perform with. I’m able to create tracks that can be as simple as a piano accompaniment, but I also have the capability to add virtual instruments that make it sound like a full band. I can then take vocals that singers record at their homes and mix it back with the track I created to make a full recording. In addition, if the singer makes a video of themselves when they record their part, I can sync the entire mixed audio track back to the video. I’ve had a lot of fun doing this and since I’ve always done a lot of arranging work, I’ve found that creating tracks like this is a natural extension of doing that kind of work.
So basically I’m open for business for all kinds of online work, whether it’s creating tracks, coaching or teaching.
NLE: What can be changed about the gig economy to make sure artists whose main source of income isn’t seriously compromised in any future crisis?
TF: This is a great question, but I’m not sure I have the expertise to answer it with the kind of detail that it deserves. Our current situation is virtually unprecedented, so I’m understanding (up to a point) of why there wasn’t a plan in place for this many people being simultaneously out of work. But we can learn from this and I would hope that if something like this ever happens again, the safety net measures that have recently been put in place for self-employed workers (i.e. unemployment benefits, forgivable loans that self-employed people can qualify for, etc.) would be implemented more quickly and efficiently than this first time. Beyond that, I think this crisis has the potential to be the catalyst for positive change in a lot of areas of our society—changes which would be of benefit to most people if something like this were to ever happen again.
NLE: What’s your own pandemic playlist––music you listen to for pleasure and which provides solace in the lockdown?
TF: I’m not sure I have a “pandemic playlist” per se, but one thing about my listening habits that’s changed during this time is that in “normal” times I would often choose what I listened to based on projects I was currently working on. For example, if I had a concert coming up where I had to write some big band arrangements that were stylistically specific to a particular time period, I’d do some immersive listening where I focused a lot on recordings of that era to try and hone in on what makes them sound the way they do. Since most of those projects are on hiatus at this point, my listening habits are a little more scattered, but since I’ve always liked listening to a lot of different kinds of music, scattered is kind of fun. For solace, I like to return to recordings that got me going down the path of being a musician in the first place: Oscar Peterson trio recordings, Ella Fitzgerald with the Count Basie band, etc.
NLE: Your own gifts and talents as a musician, as a pianist are as Duke Ellington would say, “beyond category.” Do you have a particular philosophy or approach to your craft?
TF: Thanks for the nice words, although I’m not sure that I actually live up to the “beyond category” compliment. But as far as a philosophy or approach to what I do goes, maybe the best way to put it is that I always try and stay aware of what I don’t know and what I can’t do and try and improve both of those things. I had a teacher once who pointed out something that made a lot of sense: it’s really easy and fun to practice things that you do well, but it’s a lot harder and not as much fun to practice things that need improvement. This can be transferred to a professional situation: people hire me and know me for what I do well (that’s the fun part.) But by working on what I don’t do well and what I don’t know, I can expand my skills and broaden my capabilities as a musician which can lead to both personal and professional growth.
NLE: How do you see your path evolving when we’re beyond pandemic mode? A return to “normal” or will new ways and means emerge relevant to your career? And are there new projects in the works now?
TF: One thing I’ve realized after several months of being in this situation is that making predictions about what things are going to be like once we’re beyond pandemic mode is a pretty inexact science. With that disclaimer out of the way, I’m reasonably hopeful that once a vaccine or effective treatment is in place, live performance will return and be more or less recognizable as what we had before all this started. People have made some really outstanding online content during this time, and while it’s been a great way to keep the music out there, for the most part it doesn’t have the communal and shared energy that a live performance brings. That being said, I do think a substantial amount of the online element will remain after this is over and continue to thrive and expand alongside the live performance component.
As far as any new projects in the works goes, I’d say that expanding my own online presence is probably the largest one at the moment—for all that I just expounded on how the online element is likely to continue to be a growing part of our business, I’m aware that I’m behind the curve on getting my own stuff out there. Hopefully that should change soon, though, and I’ll have some videos and other things up and running soon.
Here’ a sample of Tedd Firth’s solo piano:
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