More On That “Something Else Entirely”
In Part 1 of this line of thought I talked about the range of possibilities in handling musical styles overall in a show, ranging from pastiche to flavoring to something else entirely. But what does that mean, or rather, what does it mean when sitting down to write?
One concept is to write music of the current time, the time and place of the story be damned, but it still has to make sense. This happens in Pippin; the show takes place in the time of Charlemagne, but the music is mostly early 1970s soft pop/rock. (Complete with a “cheesy Farfisa,” but that’s another story for another day.) The question is, why is there a disconnect between the time and place of the story and the style of music? In the time-honored tradition of Greek philosophers and rabbis, I’ll answer in part with another question: how much music do you know from the time of Charlemagne? Unless you’re a musicologist specializing in the 8th-century, I doubt you know much, if any. There’s Gregorian chant, which sorta covers a bit of it, but the rest? Zip, nada, niente, nothing. Even so, the music is not something most people listen to on a day to day basis. (“Hey, let’s rock out to some sacred chants and maybe some Medieval music for organ.” Um…nope.) An entire 90-minute musical in those older styles would become boring quite quickly not because they are inherently bad but because we are not used to relating to them. So Stephen Schwartz wrote music of his time (the 1970s) and, wouldn’t you know it, it works! More recent examples are found in Something Rotten! and Hamilton.
Another concept on this end of the stylistic spectrum is what I call the analogue to the setting, by which I mean music that isn’t (or can’t be) a pastiche or even a “flavored” score because we know too little about the music of the time and place, but instead is comparable to it. My favorite example is Stephen Sondheim’s use of vaudeville and even burlesque musical concepts. The story is, after all, a bedroom farce at heart, and a musical vaudeville or burlesque treatment is right in keeping with it. (The opening fanfare, by the way, is really playing with us. We still only very little about the music of ancient Rome, but the fanfare is right out of movies made about that era.)
Yet another concept is writing in one’s own style no matter what is the story telling. As far as I can tell Frank Wildhorn does this the most (and somewhat successfully). Every show not only sounds like “Frank Wildhorn,” but it sounds only like him; the music is free of flavoring, pastiche, etc.
When I collaborated with Jay Michaels on Critic back in the Stone Age — he wrote the book and directed, I wrote the music and lyrics — I didn’t know much at all about how to approach writing the music to fit the story. But boy, howdy, did I ever learn from that experience, and from several others since. A lot of that was confirmed in the research Allen Cohen and I did when writing our book Writing Musical Theater many years (and tears) later. Here are some things that are worth considering when you start out to write a show.
SETTING (TIME, PLACE)
Over the years I’ve learned that there is broad range of stylistic choices one can make when it comes to the music for a show. The range runs roughly like this:
PASTICHE ——— FLAVORING ——— SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY
This is a broad range, as I said, and there will be shows that are not quite pastiche but aren’t really flavored either. Pastiche is writing in the style (or styles) of a particular time and/or place. The Drowsey Chaperone‘s show-within-a-show is a deliberate pastiche of the styles prevalent at the time the s-w-a-s took place. Flavoring is when you write in your own style (whatever that is) but incorporate elements of the show’s setting. Rodgers and Hammerstein were masters of this (The King and I, Oklahoma, etc.). The “something else entirely” happens for a variety of reasons, often because any music germane to the source setting is unknown to the general public (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) or could be found uninteresting altogether if used (Pippin).
What never seems to work is trying to write a score that jumps from one end of the spectrum to another and back.
Ultimately the choice is up to the creators of a musical as to which point along the range the show needs to be, but it’s good to make it a conscious choice.
© 2021 Steven L. Rosenhaus
Composing is an unforgiving bastard. There, I said it.
It’s a constant balancing act. Inspiration versus craft; very few works are pure in inspiration, and even fewer works are created solely with craftsmanship. Then there’s balancing repetition and variety (or new ideas); not even the repetitions in the music of certain minimalist composers are ever simple repetitions. Then there’s not repeating oneself from piece to piece but maintaining a sound, a style, that is recognizably yours. Worst of all is the sense of free fall you get once you’ve finished writing a piece of music. What do I write now?
If you’ve been lucky you may have a commission to write something specific, and the details lend themselves to musical ideas which, in turn, lead you to compose something appropriate. But what if that doesn’t happen? Or you have the information you need and still can’t get the music going? Or you have no commission or request or even a hint of a promise to consider programming something of yours if you take a chance and write it? What happens if you want to compose but literally have no idea what, for whom, why, and more?
I think every composer I have ever known has expressed this dreaded scenario. It’s one thing to answer “What do I write now?” with something like “How about a piano solo?”, but that’s no help when the question is “No, really, what do I write now?” Some thoughts come to mind, and as always, your mileage may vary. One approach is to ask yourself some questions.
- Perhaps the best question is “What would happen if…?” This will most often result in you stepping out of your comfort zone compositionally, and that is often a good thing. (Another way of asking this is “What haven’t I tried using in a composition before?”) How you answer it is up to you.
- A similar question is “What would be the opposite of the last thing I wrote?” Or if not the literal opposite, maybe something 90° away. “Let’s see…the last thing I wrote was a fast piece for full orchestra. How about I write a slow piece for string quartet?” You get the idea.
- The third question I personally use to broaden the scope of my catalog of works: “What haven’t I written for yet, and do I need to do that?” Especially if you’ve never written for the instrument(s) or voice(s) before, this could be educational, inspirational, and open up new possibilities.
These are just a few ways to get into writing something new. Come up with your own.
When I wrote “every composer” has expressed the dreaded “writer’s block” scenario I included myself. Last year, 2020, was that scenario made reality. I didn’t — I couldn’t — write any music from January 1st to June 30th. I didn’t even consider it writer’s block, because the term implies that there is something in progress. I couldn’t even get myself interested in composing; I had nothing. The whole first chapter of the Covid world we were plunged into froze me in psychological ways. On July 1st, however, I made a (non-emotional) decision that I had had enough, and that I would force myself to write something, anything. From July 1st to September 15th I did just that. I don’t recall how I determined to violin duets, except that without knowing when society would be free to have larger ensembles meet and play together again my best bet would be to write for one or two musicians at a time. The results were a set of twenty violin duets. In hindsight — which for better or worse is always better than the alternatives — I managed to answer all three of the questions I posed earlier. “What haven’t I written for yet?” Violin duets. “Do I need to do that?” Yes, for myself, for expanding the duet repertoire, and for musicians also dealing with the pandemic who are looking for things to play. The other two questions were answered as I composed. The results vary widely in timing (the shortest is 24 seconds, the longest a bit over 4 minutes), harmonic language (traditional tonality to modes and non-traditional scales to atonality), style, and more. More importantly, this time I wrote for me, not for a commission and not for a specific level of expertise.
©2021 Steven L. Rosenhaus
But wait, there’s still more!
Hi folks. Yes, there’s more. The last posting was not even two weeks ago, but stuff has happened. Good stuff. I’ll try to keep this short.
- The TWENTY VIOLIN DUETS that I wrote last year in an effort to get back to composing after six months of absolute nothing had turned out pretty well, imho. I happen to mention it on my Facebook page recently. The lovely, intelligent, and obviously discerning folks at Excelcia asked to look at them, decided they agreed with my assessment of the music’s worth, and have asked to publish them! Wait, what? That never happens, does it? No, it doesn’t. Except when it does. Like it did this time. Wow!
- It’s official now: I have been commissioned to write a work for flute, two violins, and cello, premiere date and specific performers to be announced. It will be in the ten-minute range, which is a fair amount of music in the scheme of things. I’m really looking forward to writing it.
- As the very first sentence of this post says, “but wait, there’s still more!” Over the last couple of days I’ve also been commissioned by percussionist extraordinaire Mell Csicsila to write a piece for solo percussionist. This is an odd commission — but by no means as strange as writing for three alphorns or a concerto for Baroque lute — in that the work has to be exactly 50 measures long. Tempo and ultimate performance time doesn’t matter, as long as the music itself consists of 50 measures. (It’s Mell’s way of celebrating his 50th birthday. Go Mell!) Note, by the way, that I said it’s for solo percussionist. The choice and number of instruments he’s to play is up to me (he laughed evilly), but his preference is for “something portable.” I’m looking forward to writing this one too!
Meanwhile, my composition students are doing well too. I have three through NYU. One is at the very beginning of the learning process, and it’s good see when she “gets” a new concept and is able to apply it to her writing. She’s got a lot of potential. Another is working simultaneously on songs for a proposed musical and an environment for a computer to learn and apply certain aspects of music composition. The third NYU student is already quite adept and knowledgeable and is filling in some of the gaps that are inevitable when we composers are in the “emerging” stage. I have private student too, a young man on a gap year between high school and college. In some ways he reminds me of, well, me at that age: a voracious musical sponge, focused on learning whatever he can. All of these folks have talent and intelligence, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out after they move on from their studies.
Lastly, a vaccine update: As of this past Wednesday, Spousal Unit and I are both fully vaccinated against Covid-19, which means we are as protected as can be. (Nothing’s 100% or guaranteed, but it sure beats the odds of getting the coronavirus if we didn’t get Pfizerized.) Oh yeah, and even Mom-in-law got her second shot last week. Go team!
Picking up where I left off last month….
Band arrangements for Northeastern Music done, The Monkey Temple of Jaipur for strings done for Wingert-Jones. What’s next? Hmm….
Just as I was contemplating that I received the first of two very interesting communications. The first was from a gentleman who, though not a performer himself (that i know of) wanted to commission me to write a chamber work. He knew of me through Facebook but not much (any?) of my music at the time, but full disclosure is always best and I sent him links to listen to my work. Satisfied with what he heard we discussed and settled on the specifics. I will be writing a work for flute, two violins, and cello. Premiere date is currently up in the air, but it looks like we’re looking at the fall.
The second communication was even more interesting. Oh heck, let’s call it for what it was: weird. A mutual friend put me together with. . . an alphorn player. (Alphorn? Think of the Ricola cough drop commercials; everyone else does.) An alphorn is a large wood instrument — some 12 feet in length depending on the tuning — thoroughly associated with Switzerland. Speaking of the tuning, the alphorn is a natural horn. It has no valves, pistons, or slides, so the only notes available are those produced according to the harmonic series of overtones (fundamental, root, fifth, root, third, fifth, out of tune flatted 7th, and so on). Oh yeah, and alphorns only come in a few tunings: F#/G-flat (the de facto standard in Switzerland), F, and E. Sometimes you’ll find them in other keys (B, C, etc.), but that’s rare. So again, after discussing and settling on particulars (and having the alphorn player listen to some of my works), I have what I consider the strangest commission yet — stranger than the double bass quartet (Fundamentum), stranger than the harp quartet (For the Gipsy in My Soul), and even stranger than the Lute Concerto. Nope, they’re all out shined by a commission to write a work for THREE alphorns, harp, and double bass. Well, I do claim to love a challenge….
Because of overall timing necessities, I’ve written the alphorn piece first. It’s called Other Side of the Mountain, and it’s in two movements: “Mountain Hymn,” and “Mountain Dance.” And no, it’s not so much about the Swiss alps as it is about mountain ranges in the U.S. I had fun writing it too.
But wait, there’s more!
But first, a short digression. Considering last year at this time I was completely devoid of any desire or ability to write anything, the past couple of months have been a 180° turn. It’s not a question of inspiration, and it usually isn’t that; I always say that if I had to wait for inspiration I’d never get any writing done. What gets me going is the opportunity to write, knowing that somewhere along the line what I compose will be performed, that my music will be heard. Thus endeth the digression.
I belong to more than a few groups on Facebook. Probably too many, but that’s another topic for another time, maybe. Anyway, on one group page for orchestra teachers some folks were lamenting the lack of string ensemble music for the very beginners that is, well, musical and not just exercises. I read that and thought: They’re right. I also thought: Why haven’t I done something about that? Within a week I had written Antelope Freeway for grade 0.5 strings, with a rehearsal piano part. What makes a piece of music even less than a grade 1 (on a scale of 1 to 6)? In this case the music only uses six pitches in D major — D, E, F#, G, A, B — and only quarter notes and quarter rests. I have always thought writing a piece like this is a real test of a composer’s abilities. How much music can you squeeze out of such small number of parameters? I think I did okay or better with this work, even convincing the listener of harmonies that work despite a certain pitch (i.e., C#) not actually be present. (Note: I play similar harmonic tricks in Other Side to make you think the horns are playing harmonies they can’t in real life.) Also, I realized afterwards that, though I had in mind that the music would be played arco (with bows), it can just as easily be played pizzicato (plucked).
A note about the title: If “Antelope Freeway’ makes you think of the state of Wyoming, that’s absolutely fine with me. If it makes you think of a bit by the Firesign Theatre comedy troupe, that is also absolutely fine with me. <grin>
Last bit: During all of this Spousal Unit and I received our first and second vaccine shots (Pfizer). As of mid-April we will be as protected from Covid-19 as anyone can be.
So, here it is already, the beginning of March 2021. On March 10th of last year I worked as a background actor on the t.v. show New Amsterdam, just as Covid-19 was beginning to hit. It would be the last time I’d be doing that sort of work for the rest of the year and for now. As I wrote previously, it would also be the last time I wrote any music at all until July; even then it was one work that I forced myself to compose. (Note: It turned out a lot better than I thought it would.)
Thanks to friends and colleagues both established and new, though, I’ve been composing and arranging (and in some cases rewriting older things to make them more useful). First Randy Navarre of Northeastern Music Publications contacted me, to see if I had any new band works for lower grade levels. I didn’t, but after a quick discussion I went into my first writing frenzy in quite a while.
I wrote an arrangement of the lovely British folk song Early One Morning that, as it happens, is often used by the British Army as a slow march. It was in my head because of a recording I was enjoying for the umpteenth time by The Starboard List, a sea shanty group. My arrangement focuses on the pretty aspects but also laces in some of the march feel as a sort of emotional counterpoint. I got that done rather quickly — more quickly than either I or Randy expected — so I decided to do a second arrangement. Still in sea shanty mode I went to my all-time favorite capstan shanty, Paddy Lay Back, and gave it a rollicking treatment. Sent that in, both accepted for publication. Then it dawned on me: I had played around with a tune band maven (and not at all coincidentally the chief musicologist at the Library of Congress) Loras Schissel had turned me onto, Harllee High School March by Joseph Curry Spikes. Spikes was a jazz pioneer, but this was a march he wrote the school I think he went to before he left Dallas with his family for California. He was 16 at the time. Oh yeah, and he self-published it too. Amazing guy. I want to know more about him. I wrote the arrangement working off of the only available source, a piano version. It’s a fun tune, albeit a bit quirky, with no jazz per se but elements of ragtime here and there. Done, sent in, accepted. Wow. Seriously, wow. But wait, there’s more! as the old t.v. ads go.
Around the same time as I was putting the final touches on the Harllee piece I was contacted by Joe Snyder of Wingert-Jones Music. I’ve never had anything published by them but always respected their catalog and, more importantly, the way they do business. (I have a theory about the inverse proportion between the size of a company and their business ethics, but since I could easily be wrong about it I won’t go into it here.) Joe said flat-out that he wants me to write things for the WJ catalog. Again, wow. This has happened before — first with Bob Dingley at Print Music Source, then with Randy at Northeastern, and then with Larry Clark at Excelcia Music Publications. I’ve got startled by this each time it has happened. They’re asking me? They’re asking me? They’re asking me? Most composers I know know these feelings of inadequacy and/or doubt. We usually don’t let it show though. (What’s that old commercial tag? Oh yeah: Don’t let them see you sweat.) Anyway….
I knew I have one string orchestra work coming out in the spring with Excelcia (Phantom Dance); the three band works and two arrangements of tunes for Christmas for bassoon and cello, all with Northeastern. Plus Excelcia has a couple of things under consideration for next year, presumably when ensembles will be meeting more normally post-pandemic (B’ruch Hashem!). I was clean out of works to submit, nothing left over, with one exception. Writin’ time! Speaking with Joe he mentioned he was looking for something “exotic,” among other things. The one thing I had left over was Con El Viento (With the Wind) for strings; it’s a piece I believe in but haven’t yet been able to get a publisher to take on. Sent it. Nope, not exotic enough. What to do?
Shortish version: I wrote an Indian-influenced tune for strings. It is not a raga. I would not insult anyone’s intelligence nor their heritage by claiming so; but you can hear the influences. It uses an unusual scale — C D E F# G A Bb — and drones, as you might hear in music from India. Beyond that it’s all “me.” I think players will get a kick out of it. (Composer/theorist types, heads up: I also play with the rhythmic structure. The piece is in 4/4, and there’s a repeating pattern of four eighths followed by a quarter rest that takes 3 measures to complete. It makes things…interesting. Writing the piece took a while. I had a sketch within a day but it took a couple of tries before I got it to where I was happy with it. The hardest part was coming up with an appropriate title. Joe and I went back and forth, he wanting to make it more obviously “Indian” and me saying no for the reasons I mentioned earlier in this paragraph. During all of this I was in touch with a couple of friends who are intimately familiar with Indian music, particularly Christine Ghezzo Weiss. I sent Christine an audio mockup and after listening she gave me all sorts of title ideas. I finally merged a couple into The Monkey Temple at Jaipur. It’s a real Hindu temple just outside the city of Jaipur, and it is literally overrun by over 600 monkeys at any given time. Now that it had a title, I submitted it. So far so good. Joe likes it, and Wingert-Jones will publish it. (Yay!)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch….
I’m going to end things here; there’s more to tell, which I’ll do in the next installment. Ciao!
© 2021 Steven L. Rosenhaus
Last year, 2019, I was rather productive, composing five new works including several for large ensembles. In fact, I finished the last one, Variations on a Theme of Schumann, that December. I decided then to take off a month or two and resume writing in March. The first two weeks of March I got busy with other things, including some acting gigs (!), so I was okay with that. But then the scary realities of Covid-19 quickly came to the fore. Next I knew — the next we all knew — the world essentially shut down. We were in completely uncharted territory (not many of us were alive during the 1918 flu pandemic), and for most of us it was, well, scary.
With that went every hint of any desire I had to create music. This wasn’t writer’s block. I’ve experienced that, I know what it feels like, and I even know how to get past it. (My saying is “If I had to wait for inspiration I’d never get anything done” tells about half of it. The other half is “But it has to sound like it’s inspired.”) No, this was utterly different. I had nothing. It was like someone pulled the plug. There was no juice. The metaphorical gears didn’t engage because the battery was gone.
The upshot was that from January 1st to June 30th, 2020, I wrote nothing. Not even an arrangement. Oh, I did things. I taught composition, ironically enough, and felt good about helping my students stay creative. I decided to create a virtual orchestra video of my Phantom Dance with middle school and high school musicians from around the U.S. to give them something artistic to focus on. I even gave a Zoom lecture on the how to get started writing a musical. But creating something, making music in any way? Zilch. Nada. Niente. Nothing.
I don’t know why on July 1st I decided I would write something, anything. I don’t remember why I decided to write some short violin duets, or how I came to decide on 20 of them as the goal. The first one, just under half a minute in duration, came grudgingly. But writing it was…satisfactory, and the results sounded good too. I finished the twentieth duet in late August/early September. (I can’t pinpoint when because I did some tweaks on it here and there.)
Thoughts about composing the duets:
* The first few were written using “what would happen if” ideas. As the project evolved, it became more of a “what’s the opposite of the last few I did” approach.
* After writing works for specific grade levels all the previous year, this was “just” composing for me. No parameters except the instrumentation and the general length of each duet — no shorter than 20 seconds, no longer than 4 minutes. (Disclosure: There is at least one duet that is over 4 minutes. So what?)
* All the tunes are original, but the styles vary widely. There’s an Indian-influenced duet, and one that makes me think of Tico, Tico just a little. There’s also one that is a deliberate throwback to 1960s-1970s “N.EA.R. music,” aka NorthEastern American Rationalism or what my wife would call “squeak-poop” (as onomatopoeia). That last one was definitely written with my sarcasm hat on, but it’s very short. Regardless of style, though, it’s all me.
I felt satisfied when I was done writing the duets, but not enthusiastically happy. I hadn’t written them with any performers in mind. To date no one has expressed interest yet. But then I was contacted by a cellist friend who wanted some arrangements of Christmas tunes done for her trio (va, vc, pf) and for her duo (bsn, vc). I had a fun time writing those from September through early November. By the time I sent off the last scores I felt whole again.
I don’t know when composing will seem like a normal thing to do again, although most likely it will be a bit of time after a vaccine is made available to enough people to effectively eradicate Covid. I do know, however, that it will at some point. Meanwhile I need to find reasons/excuses to write. Solo works, more duets (hopefully for two musicians who live together who want things to perform), or music to be played outdoors. Or maybe something to be done over Zoom (like the opera my friend David Wolfson wrote!). We’ll see. At least now I’m hopeful.
Steven Rosenhaus
© 2020 Steven L. Rosenhaus
My first concert as a composer (as opposed to as a songwriter) was as an undergrad at Queens College (C.U.N.Y.). The music department, now the Aaron Copland School of Music, was in a long, low building with two regular floors and a basement. It’s still a part of the campus, although I doubt it’s used by ACSM. I also doubt it was designed for any performing arts. The classrooms were, well, classrooms. There was (is) only one space large enough for ensemble rehearsals, M11. It was acoustically okay, but not great. It was also the de facto space for many concerts. Seating was folding chairs on risers, the latter going up some 8 levels (more? fewer?).
I was always getting ahead of myself back then, coming up with grand plans that I probably, or definitely, was not prepared to execute properly. It did’t stop me in the least. I got the bright idea of putting on a concert of undergraduate composer works sometime in 1974. I know the year because I was already dating the amazingly smart and gorgeous woman who would later consent to marrying me. The concert would have been around the 4 month mark of our relationship. More on that in a moment.
Anyway, I corralled some fellow composers and talked some performers into joining in this venture. I also somehow convinced the powers that be to allow the concert in M11. I don’t remember a lot of the details, although I know I had 3 works on the program: For Clarinet Solo (which I later revised), Malinconia for a, ahem, diverse group of instruments including guitar (which I played), and Two Movements for violin and piano.
Spousal Unit-later-to-be came to the concert, of course, and she brought her mother. (I’ll refer to the former as SU and the latter as MIL.) You should know that both are extremely intelligent and musically savvy. So there they were, listening to all the squeaks and squawks and whatnot that all of us composers-in-training were churning out then because, well, that’s what you did. (For Clarinet Solo, though, turned out to have “legs”; it still gets played. And later I took one of the themes from the Two Movements for violin and piano and turned it into a movement for cello and piano as part of Quadtych. I hate to waste of good material.)
The first work of mine to be performed was For Clarinet Solo. After a minute or so, MIL leaned over to SU and quietly asked, “Does he hear that in his head?” SU responded “Yes, he does.” “That poor man,” MIL deadpanned.
May 20, 2020
Okay, that’s a long-winded title. But it’s accurate. Allow me to explain.
For the longest time I have assiduously avoided taking on writing a new musical. I’ve spent quite a long time teaching others about the process, and almost as much time as a dramaturge, aka “show doctor,” for musicals on their way to Broadway or off-Broadway. So a good deal of my reluctance was fear-based. How can I possibly measure up to the standards I set for others? That’s a pretty reasonable fear, right? Another factor was that over the years I’ve explored a variety of stories as fodder for a musical. In the last five years alone I’ve come across something I thought (and in some cases still think) would make a good, or even great musical, only to have it shot down because (1) someone else also thought that and got an option on the story ahead of me or (2) the owner of the copyright either didn’t want to deal with me (me not being Sondheim, Schwarz, et al.) or just didn’t want the property musicalized.
Of course there are always stories in the Public Domain to be used. Critic, the show I wrote with Jay Michaels long, long ago, was loosely based on Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper. (TPATP is a classic story that also pops up as a reference point for Writing Musical Theater, the how-to book I co-authored with Allen Cohen.) But choosing one of those is difficult in ways you might not expect. As I just hinted, a story may have been done already, in fact multiple times. Or a story may not be able to work no matter how famous it is. Take Bram Stoker’s Dracula. How many musicals have been written based on this timeless story? Well, there’s the 2001 American musical Dracula, the Musical, with music by Frank Wildhorn. There’s also the Swedish musical of 2010, Dracula: The Musical, by Lisa Linder. And there are the musicals not based on Stoker’s book, but are nevertheless about vampires, like Dance of the Vampires and Elton John’s (!) Lestat. How many of these does the theater-going public know? Or care about if they do? My guess is none or close to it. Why? There is an inherent flaw in thinking Dracula would make a good musical: The character of Dracula does not, can not change. He is literally a force of nature — okay, a supernatural force of nature, but still…. Read Stoker’s book and you quickly realize that the story may be about the bloodsucking Count, but he’s just there. Everyone else has things to say, things to do. Dracula himself is, both literally and as written lifeless. There is no personality, only evil intent. So how can anyone — sorry Mr. Wildhorn — be expected to musicalize a story about someone who doesn’t change, doesn’t grow emotionally, and for whom we can’t feel anything? Which is not to say I didn’t find stories I’d like to musicalize, just not for a Broadway or off-Broadway stage. There are some stories I would love to turn into opera, because I think they’re, I dunno, big enough for the operatic stage.
Despite my misgivings about diving back into writing something for the stage again, I admit that I’ve been looking at possible stories to tell. One was a book, later a movie, considered to be written for the “Young Adult” market. Heartwarming, a little magical (without coming anywhere near Harry Potter territory), funny at times; all with a protagonist you want to feed a nutritious meal to or hug until he’s all better. Nope; somebody else got that one. Another was a movie, a truly bizarre take on the entertainment world; quite funny, with a lead character who is really crazy and does some terrible (but not horrible) things, but you like him anyway. Sorry, someone else got the option on that. Then I remembered a film I saw years ago — rented-DVD-from-Blockbuster-out-of-sheer-curiosity years ago — and realized that I remembered it vividly. No, I’m not going to tell you the name, but I can say that if you’re an American you probably have not heard of it anyway. I thought about it, put the idea away to work on other things, and then Covid-19 hit the world.
More time to think, right? After two months of emotional disconnect from creating music or any art, the film I just mentioned came flooding back to my memory. Funny, that. I can see a parallel of sorts between the film and what’s going on as I write this, but that’s not an obvious one nor relevant. No, it’s that this film has everything I’ve been looking for in a possible musical. A main character anyone can relate to, a heartwarming and bittersweet story to tell, and amazing opportunities to find the music in it.
Next time: The first step, learning more about the source material.
Personal (Weird) Firsts:
- My first musical, sort of: In high school we put on a production of The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder. The teacher in charge (also my English teacher) knew I was getting into writing songs, etc., and asked if I would write a song or two for the show. (I wasn’t interested in trying out for a role or ensemble.) Recently two friends, Arthur Shapiro and Andrew Ricci, and I had formed a group, Triangle ASR. (Arthur Shapiro, Steven Rosenhaus, Andrew Ricci; get it?) So I wrote one or two songs and threw in one or two I had already written. Everything I wrote was, in retrospect, terrible. I had no idea whatsoever of what I was doing, although that never stopped me. I remember some things about it. One song was a jaunty number called “Pass Up the Chairs” — for a scene in which the cast was taking the available furniture to build a bonfire, to stave off the impending Ice Age. (It’s a weird play, what can I say?) Triangle ASR became the pit band too. It was good to have the experience.
- The first first time I did background work: I don’t remember how it came about — I think I saw an ad in the Village Voice — but my friend Brian and I decided to be in a crowd scene on the Intrepid for a movie called The Squeeze in 1985. There would be no pay, but it was overnight on the battleship-cum-museum, movie-making, and a fun thing to do on a late-summer night. It was okay but not great. We didn’t know what was going on at any given moment (neither of us knew anything at all about the filmmaking process), one of the actors couldn’t remember basic lines (Brian and I memorized them faster), and the promised “lunch” for our efforts were disgusting bologna and American cheese on white bread sandwiches. (No, I didn’t eat the bologna.) Still, it was a fun thing to do twice — first time and last time. (Who knew I’d do it again anyway? Not just over the last two years, either. See the next item.)
- The second first time I did background work: It was late fall of 1988. I was still teaching theory classes at NYU, before everything to do with grades became fully computerized and online. I had to go into school to hand in my grades for the semester. As I got to the Education Building on West 4th Street I noticed there was a crowd blocking most of the street. As I wended my way through two things happened simultaneously. One was I noticed a large camera hovering above the crowd and various people looking somewhat officious, etc. Oh, okay, I thought, they’re shooting a movie or something. At the same time one of those officious-looking people, a fellow (with what I since learned is the ubiquitous walkie-talkie and ear piece of a Production Assistant) pointed at me and then to one side, and said “You! Get over there!” I tried to explain I wasn’t in the shoot but he cut me off immediately. “I don’t have time for this,” he said, “just get over there with the rest.” I shrugged and did as he demanded. I had the time — I was only there to hand in my grades, after all — and if he didn’t want to know I didn’t belong in the shoot, who am I to dissuade him? So I kept my mouth shut, followed direction(s), and became part of the movie-making process. The three main stars, Julie Hagarty, Eric Roberts, and Cheech Marin, were up on the second floor of the building across from the Education Building, at various times literally hanging out the windows to perform. We — stills feels strange to have included myself at that point — did the same scene several times, and several times more from different angles. They kept reducing the size of the crowd along the way, to make for tighter focus, and they kept me pretty much in the middle the whole time. I later learned they kept only the SAG folks — and me — for the tighter/tightest shots. After it was all done I found the A.D. who originally stopped me, and I thanked him for “letting me be in the movie.” “Wait, you’re not SAG?” he asked. I said no, and that I was there by accident. He cursed (not at me) and said he’d be right back, and that meanwhile I should go the Craft Services table and get something to eat. Uh, okay. Did that, met and talked a little with Cheech Marin while there too. The P.A. found me then and asked me to sign a release form. I didn’t get paid for being an extra, but all things considered, that was okay. If you’re interested, the movie — called Rude Awakening — came out in 1989. Somewhere in the last 10-15 minutes is the crowd scene, and in that you will be able to see (a much younger) me, complete with red hair and red beard. (Hey, that’s the way I looked then!) Almost impossible to miss me.
WEIRDNESS IN BITS AND PIECES:
Letters
- Sometime between January 1961 and October 1963 (I would have been 8 and 11, respectively) I took it upon myself to “invent” things for President John F. Kennedy to use. Nowadays I figure it had to have been in 1962, as the first James Bond film “Dr. No” had come out then and 007 had all sorts of cool gadgets. The only thing I actually remember drawing and including in the package (!) was a telephone in a briefcase, so he could call anyone from anywhere! I was disappointed that Kennedy himself didn’t write back, but mollified that Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara wrote to me in JFK’s stead. I recall reading McNamara’s letter and bits like “You’ve done our country a great service.” To a 9 or 10 year this was a great thing. If the FBI opened a file on me then there may be copies of that and my original missive to the President. Maybe one day I or someone else will find all of that.
- My parents told me that, since I was singing so much as a kid, they wrote to Eddie Cantor. Cantor was an entertainer of the very old school, known for singing songs like “Toot-Toot-Tootsie, Goodbye,” “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,” and “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm,” as well as the nickname “Banjo eyes.” In 1955 he had a t.v. show; they wrote to him about a year after it went off the air, so I was about 6 years old. He responded but, my mother told me, he was ill at the time and couldn’t make any arrangements to meet me. This is another letter I wished I had.
Weird stuff I did in high school
(I’m not writing about Junior High School because I don’t remember about that time, and frankly don’t wish to. If you know anything about me then, I’m sorry, and please keep it to yourself.)
- I don’t know how/why I got into it, but I (and a few other similar weird folks) would go into Manhattan on Wednesdays, ahem, after school to sneak into Broadway shows. (You can’t do this today, nor would I ever recommend it in the first place. But I was a stupid kid then and certainly didn’t know any better.) What I/we would do was, once a show was picked, just stand out where they’d let folks out to smoke during the inevitable intermission. Smokers then were often a careless lot, dropping their ticket stubs and/or programs outside. I’d “casually” pick one of each off the ground, put on my best “I belong here” look — how in heaven’s name did I pull that off, let alone think I could? — and stroll in with the rest of the audience. I got to see many a good show’s second act that way. One, Minnie’s Boys, was about my favorite comedy group, The Marx Brothers. I even had the foresight to go to a Broadway/film souvenir store nearby beforehand and buy a production still from The Cocoanuts that has the four Marxes shaking hands. After the show I went to the stage door with the still and managed to get all four of the actors playing the brothers (including Lewis J. Stadlen, who played Groucho) to autograph it. The Shelly Winters, who played Minnie herself, came out. I got her to sign the photo as well. Looking at it she asked “Ooh, is this for me?” Right or wrong of me — this was not a question I expected at all — I blurted out “No, sorry.” As she scurried, yes, scurried, to her waiting limo, she said over her shoulder “Come back here if you change your mind!” I still have the photo.
- This next thing I did all on my own because…well, I was weird. I learned that The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was done from a studio at 30 Rockefeller Center. (Years later I had a job across the plaza from there.) Note that security, while it wasn’t lax, certainly wasn’t as efficient as we’ve come to expect. There were multiple ways to get upstairs to the floors you wanted, and if you looked like you belonged there (i.e., not nervous, giving the sense that you knew exactly where you were going even if you had no clue), you could pretty much get anywhere. Keep in mind I was a teenager — 16, 17 years old — with bright red hair (not orange, not firetruck red, but definitely RED). I have never blended into my surroundings by any means, and back then any game of “Where’s Steven?” would end in seconds. But I digress. I made several of these surreptitious treks, making my way into the audience of some game shows (the original Jeopardy! with Art Fleming, with whom I also shared an elevator a couple of times but never speaking with him). I also went a couple of times to the Tonight Show studio. During the day there would be rehearsals, mostly for the musical acts. That was my primary reason to be there anyway; I wanted to hear the band rehearse and learn stuff along the way. The third or fourth time I did this Doc Severinsen stopped the rehearsal to give the band a break. That’s when he turned around and noticed me sitting off to one darkened side of the audience. I remember most of what happened next. “Come here, kid.” Not unfriendly, sort of like a parental figure whose caught you doing something stupid/cute. “What are you doing here?” I told him the truth, that I had come to hear the band rehearse. “You’ve got to be a musician then. Whaddaya play?” I told him I play guitar. “Hey Bucky,” he called over to Bucky Pizzarelli, “come meet this kid! And bring your guitar!” As Pizzarelli made his way over, Doc grilled me on what I was doing musically (theory class, orchestra, starting to perform locally), plans (college, definitely; where, not so definite). Bucky had brought over his 7-string Van Epps guitar, an arch-top beauty that made sounds so gorgeous you could cry. He and I talked for a bit about it, about his playing, about mine. Then he handed me his guitar and say, ‘go on, give it a try.’ Everything I knew about guitar playing abruptly abandoned me entirely, out of sheer nervousness, so I just strummed a few chords, trying to figure out what to do with the extra low A string. Still, that instrument had the best tone, even unplugged, of any guitar I’ve tried since. But wait, there’s more….During this Doc had called over Tommy Newsom, the show’s main arranger at the time and dynamite saxophonist. He came off “square” but was hipper than the way Doc dressed. Doc introduced us and I got to talk composing/arranging shop with Tommy. (Yes, they all insisted I call them by their first or nicknames.) Then came the moment of truth. The break was almost over and the band had to go back to rehearsing. Doc asked if I wanted to see the show that night? I said yes, of course. He said okay, I’ll get you in, but “you can’t sneak in here any more after this. I don’t want Johnny to fire me for letting you.” I promised (and kept the promise). Doc gave me some other advice, which I’ll keep to myself but have relied on over the years. I’ll always be grateful for that and for not having me thrown out the moment he discovered me sitting in the dark listening to his band rehearse.
THE WEIRDNESS CONTINUES. Back in the 1950s/1960s New York City public schools would allow kids in grade school to leave early one day a week so they could attend religious instruction. My neighborhood was predominately Jewish, and although my family wasn’t very much into observance (until I was 12 I mostly saw our synagogue on the High Holy Days) we did have a strong sense of Jewish identity. The upshot is that my parents signed me up for the religious instruction. Every Wednesday afternoon about 1 PM during 3rd grade (possibly 4th and 5th grades as well, but this I remember) I and few others would be pulled out of class, shuffled onto a bus, and driven to Eastern Parkway. There were all of these men — they all looked so old because they all had beards (yeah I know, I have a beard now) — whom I later learned were Lubuvitch hassidem, followers of the Lubuvitche Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson. One day a group of us were learning a song — it may have been Chad Gad Yor — and the man (a rabbi?) stopped us. He told the group to practice but said to me “Come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
He brought me over to a much older man (it seemed that way to me anyway), said something I couldn’t understand (I now realize he was speaking in Yiddish) to him. The younger man said to me something like “Sing for the Rebbe.” Always game to sing, I sang the song I just learned. Apparently the older man liked it. He said something — I don’t remember what or if he even said it in English — smiling. Then he did something I though was strange. He put his hands on the top of my head, closed his eyes, and recited something I didn’t understand (in Hebrew I can now surmise). The other man was looking on, and I remember thinking “He thinks this is strange too,” because I distinctly remember him being all wide-eyed. He thanked the older man and brought me back to the group, but not before he said something like “Remember this. You just received something special.” I had no clue at all what he was talking about or what just happened beyond the fact that I sang for someone and he liked it.
Who knew that I had been blessed by Rabbi Schneerson?
A BIT MORE ABOUT LIFE AS A WEIRD KID.
I mentioned in the first Fodder post that I’ve been singing since the age of two. Things really set off the weird-o-scope between the years of — I think — six and thirteen. I wish I had a better memory about this (or that my parents had left some sort of record about it). I know what I did, where (in most cases), and who else was involved. But the when is frustratingly elusive. (Sorry musicologist of the future. You’re on your own on this one.) Anyway, I’ll put all of this out there to be sorted through at some later date, and probably not by me. I should also mention that, with the exception of the accordion lessons, everything was my idea. My parents knew I was a weird kid, and wanted to do what would be best for me but, frankly, they had no clue what to do with me.
- Accordion lessons: It was the 1960s for goodness sake. I don’t know why I (or my parents) chose the accordion as an instrument for me to play. It was not a good fit by any standard then. In any case it didn’t last long at all, just long enough for me to pick out the theme from the film Exodus (1960), which I most likely heard on the radio. Only with the right hand. Never did get anything going with the buttons on the left side. Most likely I was 8 years old.
- Piano lessons (the first time): I think these came before the accordion and lasted an even shorter period of time. We couldn’t afford a piano (not that I knew that or would have understood) so I “practiced” on a kid-sized wooden mock “keyboard.”
- Acting lessons: This had to be before I was 11, but again I don’t remember when. What I do remember, clearly, is that lessons were in Manhattan on Saturdays at Coliseum Studios off/on/near Times Square somewhere, and that my acting teachers were — no joke — John Cassavetes and Telly Savalas. This was before either of them became well known and just before Savalas shaved his head for the first time. (I think it was to play a Greek judge on a soap opera.) I wound up never doing anything acting-wise, at least based on those lessons. Mom would take me and sit out in the hallway while I and a room full of other little would-be actors learned how to read copy for Pepsodent commercials and such. One day (so she later told me) Mom was sitting out in the hall while I was in acting class with Cassavetes. Suddenly there was the sounds of chairs being thrown and a booming voice yelling indistinctly coming from the other classroom next door. The door to that room opened swiftly, Savalas came out and looked at my mother, and said “And that’s what acting is about.” He then smiled, turned, and went back into his classroom quietly as if nothing had happened. Me, I was trying to wrap my mouth around the word “Pepsodent” and not succeeding. At least I liked going out to lunch with my mother afterward, often at a Chinese restaurant on the second floor of a building with windows that faced the Camel cigarettes sign — the one with a picture of a guy smoking, blowing real “smoke” rings!
- Tap dancing lessons: Took them with a nice man named Mr. Cole. Later learned that it was Charles “Honi” Cole, a legend among tap dancers and aficionados. But this was sometime between 1961 and 1962 (9 to 10 years old), and I was still a know-nothing kid. Lessons were in Brooklyn (Howard Avenue off Eastern Parkway?). And while I learned a time step and an easy shuffle, I was out sick a lot and missed a lot of lessons. So…
- First public performance (singing): Because I missed so many tap lessons I couldn’t be in the year-end show. I was very upset, very disappointed. But I had the chutzpah to ask Mr. Cole if I could sing at the show instead, and he agreed. (Back then they didn’t use backing tracks but hired real musicians to play for dance recitals!) So I made my public performing debut singing My Friend the Witch Doctor. I had to stand on a chair though — the microphone stand was stuck at its highest height — and they had to turn the mic around so I was singing into the wrong side of it. There was a professional photographer there, and thanks to my sister Frances for finding it, I have a print. In fact I have since used it for the cover of my CD. So the answer to the inevitable question is, yes, that’s me, orthopedic shoes and all. http://cdbaby.com/cd/rosenhaus
- Auditioning for the Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour: There have been shows like this as long as television has been around (the latest being America’s Got Talent). In fact TMOAH started in radio. I’m thinking this was also sometime between 1960 and 1962 (ages 6 to 109), because the song I auditioned with was Perry Como’s Kewpie Doll, which came out in 1958. I lost the first round to a ventriloquist act. I’m pretty sure it was Willie Tyler and Lester.
Other than all of that I was leading the weird kid life: comic books, magic tricks, puppets, some school (when not getting beaten up for, well, being weird).
Next: Being blessed by the Lubuvitche Rebbe.
THE TITLE of this post says it all, really. I’m putting down some aspects of my earlier days, all true as far as I can remember them. I’ve always been terrible with dates and other specifics, but I am good — make that very good — at remembering the gist of what happens to me. Some names have stuck with me, which should make it easier for some poor biographer in the future to see just how much of what I’m saying is actually true. If you’re interested enough to read, thank you. If not, I totally get it. I do not, by any means, consider myself to be inherently interesting, interesting, or even “interesting.” I do, however want to get down in writing whatever I can, just in case. Just in case my memory goes, for example. sigh. Okay, here goes nothin’….
I was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1952. Dad, Lawrence (usually “Larry”), was pure blue collar, a guy who worked hard at a sheet-metal factory building elevator cabs among other things. Mom, Anne, was mostly a “stay at home mom” who would sometimes work part-time at the Post Office during Christmas season. The two of them were a team, always, no matter what. (Yeah, they fought — yelling, no hitting — over who knows what half the time, but G*d forbid you should attack one of them in any way and the other would get you like the Ten Plagues. My brother Jay was born early one in their marriage, then me, three years after that. Our sister Frances was born 14 years after me, and yes, intentionally so. The first four of us lived in East Flatbush in an apartment on Rockaway Parkway. My grandmother Rose — Dad’s mom — lived in the apartment above ours. (She was a widow; I get my Hebrew name, Sholom, from my late grandfather Samuel.) Mom’s parents, Grandpa Max and Bubbie Clara, lived about two blocks north of us in another apartment. Rose was a terrible cook, and played favorites — she didn’t like Jay for no reason at all and doted on me, which I in turn hated because it made Jay resent me from the get-go. Grandpa Max and Bubbie Clara treated us all in the traditional way — love ’em, spoil ’em, send ’em home — equally.
When I was at the tail end of fifth grade my parents announced that we would be moving up in the world to Canarsie, to live in the Bayview Housing Project; this was so we would have more room and, presumably, a better life overall. This was good news. We then lived in a one-bedroom apartment — in what would now be called a “Pre-War” building. Jay and I shared the bedroom; Mom and Dad slept on the fold-out bed/couch unit in the living room. One other reason we were moving was that Mom was going to have a baby. Jay and I didn’t quite know what to do with that information, but yeah, okay. Unfortunately, Mom had a miscarriage even before we could move. This was something else my brother and I had wrap our brains around. It was a difficult time for all of us of course.
Getting the go-ahead to move took some time, but by the time we got it Mom was pregnant again. We moved into a two-bedroom apartment — Jay and I still had to share a bedroom, much to our mutual displeasure — but at least Mom and Dad now had some modicum of privacy. This time Mom’s pregnancy went well and Fran was born. We were all ecstatically happy.
I was, by my own admission and by all accounts, a weird kid. In just about every respect. I looked weird: I was born with what all of my elders constantly reminded me was a full head of bright red hair. Mom used to say that at birth the nurse kept trying to wash my hair until the doctor stopped her, telling the nurse “That’s his hair, not blood.” Growing up as a boy with red hair (not orangey-red, not strawberry blond, but deep dark red) was rare, unusual, weird. In grade school I only knew one other boy with a similar hair color, Alec Wittick (you don’t forget such things), but his hair had more blond in it, so he didn’t stand out quite so much. This uniqueness, this unintentional aspect that made me stand out, made me a target for just about every schoolyard bully there was at P.S. 219. It didn’t help that I was completely uninterested in sports then (and now, frankly) and certainly wasn’t the rough and tumble type. Teasing, mostly during recess and after school, often included bullies yelling “better red than dead” at me — which didn’t make any sense despite the “Red Scare” of communism at the time, but hurt anyway. I also got called “faggot,” a lot, but neither I nor anyone doing the name calling really understood what that meant. It was just something to call someone you didn’t like. And I was beaten up fairly frequently too. Jay protected me when he could (being 3 years older he was in the same school until he was ready to graduate) but couldn’t be everywhere, all the time.
Another Jay, I’ll call him “JL,” considered himself to be my private tormentor. One day — this was in 5th or 6th grade — he and some of his bully friends of his decided to gang up on me after school. For no reason I was ever able to determine. Two of them held my arms while JL pummeled me. I couldn’t fight back even if I wanted to, that is until I saw an opportunity. JL swung just a little too close to my face. I managed to bite his arm, hard. I drew blood and left marks (that I hope are still there). I let go once he started screaming, and his buddies let go when they realized I was prepared to do anything to get them to stop. JL started blabbering things like “You bit me! Why did you bite me?” Me, being the weird kid, just said “What did you expect me to do?” As I recall, no one at that school ever bothered me again. No one else did either, really. I don’t recall having many (any?) friends, with the occasional exception of the aforementioned Alec.
Back to the weirdness. Music has been my source of weirdness as well as my salvation since, well, always. All of my elder relatives told me, once I became an adult, that I was singing — on pitch, in rhythm — starting at the age of 2. This was even before I could talk, so it was all on nonsense sounds at first. I have no proof of any of this — it was the 1950s — but the same story came from my mother, my father, my grandparents, aunts, my uncle, et al., so I gather there’s truth to it.
More weirdness. As if being a red head, being someone more interested in singing than in sports, weren’t enough, I was a sickly kid. I was severely asthmatic (who knew that my both my parents chain smoking unfiltered Camels cigarettes would affect my health, let alone theirs?) and, as a result often got respiratory illnesses. Also developed tonsillitis several times — yeah, you read that right — but each time the doctor would pump me with Tetracyclin to prevent secondary infection and, lo and behold, the tonsils would shrink back to normal. As I got closer to teen-hood my parents and doctors figured it was best to leave the tonsils in, as I was still singing and they didn’t want to take a chance that it would ruin my voice. So as I said, I wound up with a lot of respiratory illnesses. These kept me out of school. A lot. Probably another reason for the bullies to pick on me. I got pretty good at being a loner, which was actually just fine. I read a lot, particularly comic books but all sorts of things. I got into doing magic tricks, science experiments (with Jay, and it’s a wonder we didn’t blow up the apartment), and puppetry. Like I said, weird.
But wait, there’s more.
I’ve received an e-mail from a composition student yesterday, one who received an A-minus. The student, who did not question the grade, asked what could be done to improve. I should say the student is intelligent, musical, and as creative as the student’s current level of knowledge allows. Here is my response:
Dear [Student]:
There are several ways you can improve your craft. First the easy ones:
* Listen to a *lot* more music, not just by the composers you already know and like, but a wide variety of composers. Make sure you hear music by composers not only from the late 19th century, but from all of the 20th century and, yes, even from this century. No, you won’t find everything to your liking, and some of it may even be terrible, but it is most important that you “open your ears” to more than what you’re already used to hearing. You can start with music by these composers:
* Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
* Gustav Mahler
* Richard Strauss
* Igor Stravinsky
* Erik Satie
* Arnold Schoenberg
* Alban Berg
* Anton Webern
* Edgar Varese
* Charles Ives
* Ralph Vaughan Williams
* Paul Hindemith
* Carl Orff
* Aaron Copland
* Bela Bartok
* Leonard Bernstein
* John Cage
* Terry Riley
* Ruth Crawford Seeger
* Steve Reich
* Phillip Glass
* George Walker
* Toru Takamitsu
[The list goes on, including composers from around the world.]
These names are just “off the top of my head.”
* Look at/read scores, all kinds of scores, not just piano music. If you don’t know how to read an orchestral score, you can learn. Start with music of the Baroque era (JS Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, for example), move on to classical works (Mozart symphonies, then Betthoven’s), and so on. YouTube has a lot of music with scores, so that is an easy way to start.
The not-so-easy ways to improve:
* You need to improve your knowledge of music theory (harmony and counterpoint). Composition lessons are not the place for that; theory classes are.
* You need to know more about musical structure. Getting to know scores will help, but theory classes and learning musical analysis will help considerably.
* This next one is more about how you think about writing music than anything else: You need to be willing to “open your ears” to “new” sounds, to music that is different from what you’re used to hearing. (Yes, I am repeating myself. This is intentional.) I have not been trying to make you into a composer of unlikable music, but to have you develop as a more well-rounded composer, one who is aware of the myriad ways one can compose and can *choose* to write in particular ways. To use a weird metaphor, you can not break down walls unless you know where they are.
* Finally, a three-part suggestion:
1. Write music. Write a LOT of music. Experiment. Write music in a style you’ve never written in before, just because you haven’t done it yet. Write for instruments and voices you have never written for before. And don’t just “throw notes on the page”; listen, really listen to what it is you’re writing, and make sure it makes sense, that it takes you on a journey from the first notes to the last. Don’t just repeat phrases; treat them as DNA that needs to be expressed. Let them grow.
2. Do not be afraid to “fail” — to create unsuccessful music. We all (and by “we” I included myself) have written music that doesn’t “work,” but that is not only “okay,” it is essential to our development. We learn much more from the mistakes we make than from our successes.
3. Ask yourself questions when you compose:
* What did I do the last time I composed, and what is the opposite of that?
* What would happen if I. . .?
* Where does the piece I’m writing get boring? Why?
I hope this helps.
Best regards,
Dr. R.
Hello Readers.
I recently realized that I haven’t posted here at all since August of last year. I have good reasons for not doing so — not tales of trials, tribulations, troubles, or woes, but actually good, cool reasons. In a nutshell, I’ve been writing. A lot.
I composed six works since 8/16 and written seven. What?, you ask, How can you have composed six pieces of music but written seven? I’m glad you asked.
Back as 2015 I determined to write a work to honor the late John F. Kennedy’s 100th birthday, which was to be in May of 2017. It took setting up a consortium of ensembles (to pay for it and premiere the work) and doing a lot of research (inestimably helped by musicologist, conductor, and JFK fan, Loras Schissel), but it was worth it to get to the composing point. Here’s where things get complicated. I decided to create two versions of the piece — by now I figured out the title, JFK: A Profile — one for narrator and orchestra, the other for narrator and concert band. But I didn’t want one to be a transcription of the other. Each version needed to be written as independently and idiomatically as possible, so I composed it as a sort of “instrumentation-neutral” short score and orchestrated both versions from that. Because the band version was to be premiered some five months after scheduled orchestra premiere, I gave the orchestra version a bit more attention at first; otherwise I wrote both versions simultaneously. Ergo composing one work but writing two. Each version has been premiered; the Carson City Symphony (David Bugli, Music Director) did the orchestral honors in April 2017, and the Virginia Grand Military Band (Loras Schissel, Conductor) did the same for the band version in September.
The other works I wrote during this time included Triple T[h]reat for brass trio (trumpet, horn, and trombone). Three instruments, in triple meter and in, you guessed it, about 3 minutes. Keith Johnston commissioned it, and I had fun writing it. A word about Keith. I met him at the Conductors Institute (Columbia, SC) back in 1995. We’ve become good friends over the years and he has become one of the staunchest supporters of my work as a composer. Over the years he has commissioned, for himself and/or his band at Sacred Heart University, where he leads the band program:
* Triple T[h]reat for brass trio (2016). Published by Music-Print Productions, available from LudwigMasters Publications.
* Prayer for band (2013). This was a commission I was honored but very disheartened to receive, as it was the first memorial for the lives lost at the Newton, CT, massacre of 26 children and adults. Hardest to write music ever. Published by Music-Print Productions, available from LudwigMasters Publications.
* Nine Feet of Brass (A Concerto for Trombone and Band) (2012). Keith is a trombonist; what more do I need say? No publisher yet.
* Rainbow Chasing Moon for brass band (1997). This is an arrangement of a Chinese folk song for what was supposed to be a concert tour of China. I was even invited along as Guest Composer. Unfortunately there were, ahem, political issues, so when we arrived we discovered that we were not allowed to perform anywhere in China. (I am proud to say that my instrumental music was considered “decadent and pornographic,” in spite of being a simple arrangement of one of China’s own traditional tunes. Oh well.) I have since pulled the work from my catalog — I plan on revisiting it at some point, perhaps with an eye to recasting it for concert band. I never did get to hear it played. (I was copying parts by hand on the flight from L.A. to Shanghai. This was 1997 after all, and pen/ink on paper was still viable and we had no way of knowing what computer/printer options there would be available. Good thing. There were none available to us.)
The other works I wrote since August 2016 were mostly for string orchestra and full orchestra:
* The Inspector General: Overture for orchestra (2017). Commissioned and premiered by the New York Repertory Orchestra, David Leibowitz, Music Director. A five-minute frolic based on the Gogol farce (with a nod to the Danny Kaye movie loosely based on the play). No publisher yet.
* Tangled Tango for string orchestra (2017). Commissioned by Ann Geiler for her middle school orchestra. From now on I will point to this piece for an example of writing music that works musically at a lower technical level. (It’s not about writing “down to” a particular level, as that never works, but rather squeezing as much music as you can from that level.) It will be published by LudwigMasters Publications in 2018-2019.
* Danza de mi Corazón (Dance of My Heart) for string orchestra (2017). Also for middle school. Also a good example, if not quite as successful (so far).
* Tournament Galop for band (2017). This is an arrangement of the piano work by Louis Gottschalk. NYU’s Concert Band gave the premiere. It will be published in 2018 by Grand Mesa Music.
After spending much of the summer on things other than composing I’m working my way back into the swing of things. On my plate at the moment:
- Editing a collection of “easy” works for violin and guitar by Mauro Giuliani. The “easy” term is Giuliani’s and refers almost entirely to the guitar parts. The violin parts will need some work though. What I’m finding is the combination of violin and guitar is a lovely one, and that I can still play classical guitar. That last part has come in very handy too because….
- I just finished composing two easy and short waltzes for guitar duet. More on the where, whom, and when of the first performance (sometime in September I think). Writing this was weird for me. I’ve played guitar since just after my bar mitzvah. I’ve written so many guitar arrangements of popular and classical music over the years (thank you, Warner Bros., and Hal Leonard, for the work) that I gave up counting after 200 tunes. (Many of those tunes are in books, and I know I did over two dozen books, etc.) I have even written a concerto for Baroque lute (a forerunner of the guitar). But except for the introduction to my song You’re Still Mine, this is the very first time I have written anything original for guitar, let alone two of them. I suppose it was a psychological issue, the usual fears that I wouldn’t be able to play what I’ve written, that prevented me from writing for the instrument for so long. Stupid, stupid me.
- The JFK piece is “in progress.” I’ve collected what I think are the most useful speeches and other writings by John F. Kennedy. Now I’m in phase 2, in which I organize and edit down the most useful parts of those. I expect to be composing actual music by October, and orchestrating by December.
Musicals are usually based on one of three things: A pre-existing story or other source (such as Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera), an original story or idea (Company or The Music Man), or a collection of songs intended as some sort of revue or “jukebox” musical. As with all things there aren’t always clear lines of demarcation between them, but that’s not an issue, really. One question I often get when in discussions about writing for the stage is “What makes a good pre-existing story for a musical?” There is no single answer to that, though; in fact it’s a darn-difficult question to even begin answering. But I’ve been thinking about it and I’d like to get some of my thoughts about the topic here, in no particular order:
- The most difficult shows to write are about real people who create/perform music. Some time ago my wife and I saw a show about Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine (his wife). It had a solid storyline, telling how they met and how she became his specialty-number composer. Except for “Tchaikovsky” by Kurt Weill and Oscar Hammerstein II and “Ballin’ the Jack,” which was an old song when DK started singing it, all of the songs Kaye is known for were pretty much written by Fine. Therein lies the problem. To write a show about Kaye and Fine you have to have the music she wrote for him to perform. To write a musical about, well, anybody, has to have new music written to suit the needs of the characters and the story. Combining the two approaches is dangerous, because as soon as you use existing, already-known material the audience (subconsciously at least) compares that with the new music — and the new music always loses. Heard on its own the new material might be wonderful, but taken in context with other, better-known music it will always seem to have been “stuck on” and, therefore, as inferior. The show about Kaye and Fine ultimately didn’t work for that reason. If they left out the new material and just kept the music Kaye was already known for, in other words, as a jukebox musical, it would have been, well, fine. That said….
- The second most difficult shows to write are jukebox musicals. The tunes are already written, so that hard part is done, right? But integrating those songs into a coherent story and having those songs come up in a natural way is tricky at best. Some shows, like Jersey Boys, does this very well indeed, and mostly because the show uses the songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in the context of the story. Sometimes show creators will have a musical that uses songs from a wide variety of sources (like shows about 1980s “hair bands”) and while that can work care must be taken to make it seem seamless and natural.
- Surprise: Revues are also difficult to write. You’d think this type of show would be one of the easier ones, but it’s not. Why? After all, there are no specific characters to deal with and no specific plot to unfold. The answer is, that’s why. Since there are no actual story to tell about specific characters, how to get an audience’s attention and keep it for a couple of hours? What that revue-type show needs is a premise, a single idea that carries us through from beginning to end and demonstrates what I call a logical progression of thought. Even if — or especially if — there is no storyline, the creator of a revue has to ask “What is this show about?”
All of the above is about pre-existing stories in one form or another: straight plays, films, short stories, and novels. A discussion of sources like poems is for another day.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I got to see Something Rotten which has been playing on Broadway for a good amount of time (and is doing well). Despite my professional connections to theater, maybe because of them, I love going to see shows and appreciating them on their own terms. I do not go with a clipboard (literally or metaphorically) to keep track of what is wrong with a show. Even going to see a musical with a name like Something Rotten, which of course invites all sorts of critical hijinks, I do my best to watch with an open mind. I just try to be audience. Here’s what I thought of the show:
- The premise is silly and brilliant, in a Spamalot meets The Producers sort of way. Essentially a play writing team of brothers living during the English Renaissance try to out do none other than William Shakespeare. (It plays better than I can describe it.)
- The dialogue, with its constant Shakespeare references and in jokes about Shakespeare AND modern musicals, AND it’s winking acknowledgement of modern times (“Who talks like that?,” asks one character after reading some typical ‘older English’ verbiage) is wonderful. And I do not use that term lightly.
- The song lyrics are consistently witty (often laugh out loud funny, which is a much more difficult reaction to get from an audience than by straight out telling jokes as dialogue).
- The actors (among them, Brian D’Arcy James) are superb. (One quibble; see below.)
- The orchestrations were top notch, as was the orchestra.
- The scenery was extremely well done, as were the costumes.
- It turns out that the show was written by a team of brothers (one of them a well-known Nashville songwriter to the country stars including Garth Brooks) and an also well-known English writer of things humorous.
So why was I slightly disappointed?
Afterward my wife and I talked about it. She felt as I did, and her explanation as to why hit the nail on the head. The music is serviceable, she said. There is nothing wrong with the score per se. Every song is logically and emotionally where it should be (no song felt out of place in any way, no spot seemed to be missing a song, and so on). All of the actors sang with gusto, passion, whatever the song and the moment called for. But except for one number that came back a couple of times, both as “Welcome to the Renaissance” and, the last time, as “Welcome to America,” there was no tune that either of us could remember after an hour past the final curtain. (Disclosure: I had a couple of song fragments in my head for that time, but those too fell out of my memory within 2 hours.) The tunes were professional; they did what they were supposed to do. The lyrics for the songs, as I said, were consistently witty — better than the tunes, frankly. But the music didn’t, couldn’t, raise the level of the score from “okay” to even “interesting,” let alone “wonderful.”
The music was indeed serviceable, or as some of my students might say, it was meh. (Is that even still a thing?)
One casting disappointment: The female ingenue was played by someone with one of those extremely reedy, nasal, piercing voices that seem to plague Broadway these days thanks, methinks, to pop music where it lives in infamy. Pity. Once in a while she “slipped” and sang with a rounder tone that would have made it a real pleasure to hear her if she continued that way, but then she didn’t.
Disappointments aside, it really is a good, funny show, especially if you’re a fan of The Bard and also of musical theater. It’s worth seeing. Who knows maybe you’ll remember more of the score than I could.
My not-so-funny joke is that I have some 17 jobs; the reality is that sometimes I indeed have at least that many, and sometimes just a few. In addition to being a composer, I am a lyricist, arranger, conductor, educator, author, music publisher consultant, “show doctor” for musicals, clinician, performer, music editor, engraver, and proofreader. I’m sure I left some things out, but you get the point. This is not bragging. In fact I would love to be able to say I only have four jobs — composer, lyricist, arranger, and conductor — and leave it at that. Okay, maybe five jobs; I enjoy teaching too.
One of the things I feel my composition students need to know besides the compositional basics is the business of being a composer, and that it should be a required course for undergrad composition majors, maybe even going for two semesters. A one-semester overview wouldn’t cover everything, but even one semester would be better than what young composers get now. Off the top of my head, here are topics that should be covered:
- Copyright. What it is, how/why/when to use it.
- Performing Rights Organizations. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, what they are and do for you.
- Income Streams. How do you actually earn money composing. Topics would include: Commissions, Competitions, Grants, Publication, Subsequent Performances, Audio Recordings (Mechanical Licenses), Audio/Visual Media (Synchronization Licenses), performance royalties, grand rights, and non-performance licenses (tee shirts, mugs, and other “merch”).
- Networking. Topics would include: Presenting Yourself as a Composer; Press Kits and Business Cards; Internet Presence; Researching and Knowing Your Market; Effective Conversation; and Following Up.
- Presenting Your Music. Music Notation Do’s and Don’ts; Recordings (on physical media and online). MIDI versus “live” recordings.
- Finances. Musicians are, in the eyes of the IRS, low-hanging fruit just ripe for picking. This is mostly because (1) we musicians have a reputation for being not-too-bright business-wise (which, I should point out, is inaccurate), and (2) we are in the public eye. The best defense is honesty and accuracy in maintaining your finances. Topics would include: Bank Accounts and Checkbooks, and How and Why You Should Balance the Latter; Keeping Basic, Documented, and Accurate Contemporaneous Records for Tax Purposes; and Doing Your Own Taxes versus Hiring a CPA.
- Contract Basics. Topics would include: When Do You Need an Agreement (Contract)?; Lawyer or No Lawyer?; Negotiating Terms; How to Read a Contract; Composer-Specific Agreement Items.
- Agents. What Do Agents Do and Does a Composer Need One?
Based on conversations with students and colleagues, as well as my own experiences, I would say that the most time would be spent on items 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7. Number 4, in particular, would probably need the most of all — especially the last 3 items.
© 2015 Steven L. Rosenhaus
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO NOT REPRINT OR PUBLISH WITHOUT PERMISSION.
Ruminations:
- I have never been a fan of complexity for its own sake, and every so often I’m reminded why. Sometimes it’s because I hear something so interesting and simple, and I find myself enjoying it thoroughly. Other times I hear something new that is so complicated, so obscure in intent, that it drives me barmy. Last evening I heard two works new to me, Tribute for Orchestra by James Grant and Suite from ‘Corbeau’ by Michael Gagliardo. I was impressed by both, for similar reasons. For one thing, each had interesting things to say, what those things were had been rooted in emotions and/or story telling, and the writing in terms of pure composition and orchestration was in each case clear. Even when things did become complex one could follow it or at least let it wash over and evoke a response. Of course being too simple can be a defect as well. Case in point was another work I heard yesterday, The Red Detachment of Women co-written by Wu Zuqiang and Du Ming Xin. Very simple and lovely tunes, dressed up in pretty orchestral colors and, unfortunately, ultimately forgettable. It would make a good score for a travelogue on PBS. About 1:00 AM. On a Sunday. I should note that I enjoy — really! — the music of Milton Babbitt, and of course my mentor, George Perle. But neither was ever into being convoluted or unnecessarily complex in their music. Sometimes their works swing (after a fashion).
- Who is the first (only?) composer you think of when you think of ragtime? If you said “Scott Joplin” I would have to agree. But ragtime was more than “just” SJ, and at least several other composers should be mentioned in the same metaphorical breath as the acknowledged ragtime master. I’m thinking mainly of Joseph Lamb, whose Patricia Rag I just finished arranging for orchestra. At first it seems simpler than Joplin’s work — a little repetitive, with harmonies that don’t seem more than basic. Then you get to know it and discover all sorts of things, like the frequent use of dissonances on the downbeat (usually accented chromatic passing tones, for you theory geeks) or harmonic resolutions in one hand but delayed resolutions in the other. Fascinating.
- I was a newbie composer; then an emerging composer. In about a decade you could rightfully refer to me as a venerable composer. But right now I am not well known among my musician peers, let alone the general public, but I get more commissions and performances than ever. (To paraphrase Groucho Marx, now I get turned down by a better class of people.) So am I an “emerged” composer? I think I’ll just leave it at “working composer.”
Ballads in musical theater are quite often the songs that stand a chance of being heard outside of the shows for which they are written. The reasons have to do with their purpose(s). In addition to the usual reasons for having a song in a musical in the first place (giving insight to a character, moving the plot forward, setting a scene, etc.), ballads are the musical moments of psychological or emotional self-reflection, or both, or a moment of decision making. This is a musical moment in which we are let into the hearts and minds of the persons singing; often enough these are “everyman” (or “everywoman”) thoughts and feelings that can transcend the scene, even the show.
Way back when I worked with Jay Michaels on Critic I wrote a couple of ballads of which I am still proud, So Many Roads, and I Could Love You. The former’s verse lyrics are somewhat flawed (and tied closely to the story line, making it unusable outside of the show), but the chorus works:
WITH SO MANY ROADS, AND SO MANY CHANCES,
HOW DO I CHOOSE AND NOT HURT ANYONE?
WILL SOMEONE SHOW ME, PLEASE TELL ME THE ANSWER,
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
(©1988 Steven L. Rosenhaus)
Note, first off, that nothing rhymes at all — this was intentional. The moment was too emotional and if it rhymed I don’t think folks would have taken it as seriously, as honest, as it was meant to be. In far better-known ballads the emotional honesty is what counts as well. For example:
* I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face, from My Fair Lady, in which Professor Henry Higgins comes as close as he can possibly come to admitting his love for Eliza Doolittle.
* Maria, from West Side Story, where Tony has met — and immediately been captivated by — the woman of whom he sings.
* Maybe This Time, originally written for the film version but added back into the staged Cabaret, is sung by Sally Bowles.
You get the idea.
Of course not all ballads are pure sentiment. Songs like Pity the Child (from Chess), The Impossible Dream (from The Man of La Mancha), Memory (from Cats), and Not While I’m Around (from Sweeney Todd) are all examples of ballads that exhibit power and/or emotion but are not overridingly romantic or sentimental.
Ballads, when they work, do so because they take time. These are slow to medium tempo songs, which allow us to really let the words sink in, to affect us deeply on some level. These songs also work because of the attention to melody and harmony are even more important than usual. These are the tunes written with “the long line” in mind, with the chord progressions that are not always so simple or predictable.
The premise of Critic is similar to that of Mark Twain’s book The Prince and the Pauper, only here we’re in the 20th Century and in the theater world. A drama critic and a struggling actor look surprisingly alike, and the critic decides to play a joke by having the two of them switch life roles for a few hours — only to have the joke backfire and have the two of them stuck in their new roles for a time. In the song I Could Love You the critic has discovered some disconcerting feelings (on several levels) for the actor’s live-in girl friend.
IN ANOTHER TIME, IN ANOTHER PLACE,
WITH ANOTHER NAME, OR WITH ANOTHER FACE
I COULD LOVE YOU. I COULD LOVE YOU
(©1988 Steven L. Rosenhaus)
The critic is not singing to the object of his feelings (she is, in fact, sleeping as he sings his thoughts aloud), and she is convinced that he is her boy friend, who is albeit acting a little stranger than usual. At the word “name” below there is a chord that is ever-so-slightly dissonant; coupled with what the audience knows (and she doesn’t), it makes for all sorts of emotional response within us, and gives us a sense of what the singer is going through. (Did I know all of this when I wrote it? Definitely on an intuitive level.)
By the way: When is a ballad not a ballad? When it’s a true ballad in the old-folk-music sense. Huh? I refer to The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, which like its folk ancestors, is not so much about emotion as it is in telling a tale in short form.
Comedy songs can serve any of the usual functions in musical theater: helping to give insight into a character; giving insight into the way the character thinks; moving the plot forward; and so on. They do so in a straight forward way, by making us laugh. But as the old actors’ saying goes, “Death is easy; comedy is hard.” How do you make a song funny?
Comedy is even more ephemeral than music. What is funny to some will not be to others, and what is funny at one point in time may not hold up over the years (or even less depending on the topicality of the jokes). Layer that over the idea of song structure and you have a potential mess on your hands. That said, writing a good comedic song can be done. Here are some of the basics first:
- Tempo: Comedy songs can be any tempo, from a slow ballad to a fast rhythm number. The music itself is not the defining element.
- Character versus Situation versus Jokes: As Allen Cohen and I write in Writing Musical Theater, the good comedy songs tend to be “based usually on character, occasionally on situation, but almost never on jokes.” Which isn’t to say there can’t be jokes, but that focus shouldn’t be on them.
- Comedic structure: One thing Allen and I never covered in the book is how the comedy in a comedic song can be structured. I’ve found that comedic songs tend to fall into two types: (1) songs that use multiple jokes, each with a bigger punchline, and (2) songs with one joke, with the punchline at the end. Adelaide’s Lament from Guys and Dolls is an example of the former, while Chrysanthemum Tea from Pacific Overtures is a clear example of the latter.
- Principle of Opposition: Allen and I talk about the principle of opposition, in this case the idea that something can funny because the character is in an unpleasant situation or sad moods (Adelaide’s Lament again). It can take other forms too, such as a character who is in denial about his or her situation (The Company Way from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, or I’m Not at all in Love from The Pajama Game).
One of my favorite comedic moments — well, favorite TWO comedic moments — occurs in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The male and female ingenues, Philia and Hero, sing the duet Lovely. The song is not hah-hah funny but “kinda cute” funny. Hero tells Philia that she’s lovely, and she freely admits that she may be near-stupid and talented but “lovely is what I do.” Okay then, a nice, cute, whimsical moment. But then…. In Act 2 there is a (rare for Sondheim) reprise of the song, this time sung by…Pseudolus and Hysterium, with the latter singing Philia’s lines. From what I recall no lyrics have been changed, only who sings them and the immediate context, and the results are pretty much fall-down laughing in the audience. If nothing else the reprise is an epitome of the principle of opposition at work.
I’ve mentioned this before elsewhere, but it bears repeating: Songs don’t have to be one type or another; there can be overlaps. Do You Love Me? from A Fiddler on the Roof is a case in point. The song is funny to be sure, but it also functions as a charm song, and it’s a ballad to boot.
By the way, sometimes an otherwise non-comedic songs becomes funny in a new context: Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life (originally from Naughty Marietta) takes on a whole new meaning in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (both in the original non-musical film and the later musical theater version). Ditto the use of Irving Berlin’s Puttin’ on the Ritz in the same new context.
So, just how do you write a comedy song? First and foremost, find the funny — especially in the character(s), in the situation he or she is in, and in the character’s reaction to it. Don’t go for “joke” jokes if you can help it, and if you can’t help it, try to save it for the big finish.
Last comment: In our book Allen and I consider Brush Up Your Shakespeare from Kiss Me, Kate to be a comedy. Nowadays I’m not so sure. I think it’s far more of a charm song, albeit one that comes extremely late in the show AND for relatively minor characters at that. And yes, it has jokes, but they’re of the bad-vaudeville type with words purposefullly mangled to make rhymes for the most part. I find the song to be cute but not much more, and I question the need for it in the show, but whom am I to argue with Cole Porter?
Balance is ultimately what can make or break a musical. There is the balance of comedy and drama, the balance of action and inaction, the balance of moving a plot forward and lingering on a moment, the balance between giving the audience too much information and not enough, and more. There should be balance in the music too. A show consisting of just ballads, or just songs for one type of voice is possible but one of the most difficult things to pull off successfully. Even when a limitation is imposed intentionally, such as Sondheim’s use of triple meter throughout A Little Night Music, there is a substantial amount of variety of styles and uses within triple meters. In general though musical theater composers rely on certain types of songs to help tell the story, clue us in about a character, set the time/place/tone of the show, or just plain entertain us. Below are some song types. Keep in mind that there are no lines of demarcation among them, and that a song can be a combination of them.
The most prevalent type of song in a musical is the ballad. Ballads use slow to medium tempos, and usually focus on an emotional point (“I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” from My Fair Lady, for example). The second most prevalent type of song is the ballad’s musical opposite in many ways, the rhythm number. Rhythm numbers are what their name suggest, songs that move, that have a quicker pulse than ballads. They range in tempo from medium to fast (the title song from Oklahoma! is a rhythm number). A comedy song is another self-explanatory song; it’s supposed to be funny. Comedy songs can be at any tempo. (“Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls is a standard example.) A list song is, as you can guess, made up of a list; it can be done at any tempo and in any style. (“My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music is a list song.) A musical scene is not a whole song, but a sort of stream-of-consciousness that musically follows the action or a character’s thought processes; “Soliloquy” from Carousel is a musical scene.
Another type of song, the name of which was coined by Lehman Engel, is the charm song. In Writing Musical Theater, Allen Cohen and I wrote that a charm song “makes the character singing come across as charming.” More on that in a moment. We also wrote that a charm song is almost always in medium tempo, and while that is generally true I’ve come to think that it can be created on either side of moderate tempo and still be quite effective. Most often a charm song is sung by one person, but it can be done by two.
What does it mean, to have a character come across as “charming”? In the usual way it means that the character gives us some insight into his or her basic character. A charm song allows us to find something in the character to which we find a connection, even if we have absolutely nothing in common. “If I Only Had a Brain” from The Wizard of Oz, “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story and, especially, “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” from My Fair Lady are all charm songs. Who hasn’t ever felt like they could conquer the world (not literally of course) “if only” they had something they think they lack? Or wished for some simple creature comforts to make life more bearable?
Over the years I’ve come to realize that there seems to be another type of charm song possible, in which the singer charms another character while we the audience remain aware that he or she is not at all charming. The thing is, to date I have not found any songs in a show that would qualify as such. (Please: If you know of one, post it here.)
Who usually gets a charm song? Most of the time it’s the lead character or at least an important secondary character. Eliza Doolittle gets one, because we need to be charmed by her, but Higgins does not get a charm song. We are not supposed to find him charming, and we don’t — even when he finally sings “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.”
Where/when do charm songs come up in a show? Theoretically at any point in the show, but usually not too long after we are introduced to the character. That’s why a lot of charm songs can be found in the first act of a show (or the first part of a one-act).
Earlier I said that there are no lines of demarcation when it comes to types of songs. One great example of that is “Do You Love Me?” from A Fiddler on the Roof. This is a ballad (it has a slow tempo, and it is very emotional), but it’s also a comedy song (“Do you love me?” “Do I WHAT?”) and it is charm song. The song also functions to charm us about Tevye, but also about Golde, and Tevye and Golde as a couple.
More about song types in a later posting.
I don’t watch a lot of t.v.; in fact our actual television set is hardly ever plugged in, let alone watched. I admit to watching some shows streamed on the internet though, and it’s in doing this I’ve noticed something over the years. When it comes to showing musicians, especially composers and conductors, the folks who make movies and television shows never get it quite right.
Case in point: Watching an old episode of “The Mentalist” with a murder of the concertmistress of an orchestra, I noticed the following without even trying:
- Nowhere near enough performers to cover the parts in the score. There are maybe 40 people shown “playing” (another sticking point), when there should be more winds and brass.
- What the heck is the “conductor” doing? He looks intense (I keep waiting for off-screen screams of “It’s Leopold!”) and makes some very dramatic hand motions, but they have no relation to the music we hear or even to any music at all.
- The way the conductor sees fit to move performers from a secondary position to first chair is plainly ridiculous in this day and age of unionized orchestras. Unless it’s a community orchestra, in which case a whole ‘nother set of issues come up. This is supposed to be a professional group, so I wonder where the union rep was.
- Last but not least is the major plot point — spoiler alert — that the nebbishy oboist (hmm, a little stereotyping?) is the killer. What?
And this one episode of this one show is only an example. Time and again we see “composers” creating “masterworks” that sound like somebody’s idea of what a modern work should sound like, but for only a minute or so, and then full of clichés — and they do so after working feverishly under the curse of “inspiration.” Or watching a string quartet “play” without a clue as to how what they do relates to “making” the music (ST:TNG, you know who you are).
Surprisingly, one t.v. show gets it right, and for the right reasons. The Big Bang Theory is a comedy about nerdy scientists (no stereotypes there, eh?), but every so often we see a musical side of the characters/actors. Two play piano (and sing), one plays cello pretty well. That the characters do this comes from the actors being able to do so, so it always seems natural.
Directors, please: If you want to have your actors play musicians, have them learn enough to do it right.
Rant over.
ComposingMyThoughts 