Seriously, chords

How seriously should I take these arpeggios?

Well, they are kind of nice chords but when I see a page of chords like this with sixteenth note arpeggios separating them, I ask myself: How seriously should I take this?  What role are these arpeggios playing in the score?  Are they voice-leading or just pretty?

Act 1: Practice Week 1

Here I am hanging out again with another really busy score for New Line Theatre: “High Fidelity.”  I’ve been working through Act 1 pretty thoroughly this past week sorting out the usual issues:

1. Page Turns:  Why did I print two copies of the score?  Because the first one ended up being full of nasty page turns that had me writing the chords of basically the entire next side on the bottom inch of the page to avoid turning mid-crescendo.  I look ahead to see how much more of that to prepare and wouldn’t you know, it’s like that the whole way through.  My FB friends:

• D. Mike Bauer Two things: best thing is to print it all on single pages, and then use scotch tape and three-hole-punch to figure out the page turns. Secondly, holla at me.
• Trisha Bakula Kinko schminko. I printed dave’s for free from my work computer. This girlfriend rocks!
• Scott Miller Wow. My printer does two-sided printing. Doesn’t everybody’s?
• Aaron Doerr DMike, ya good one! Considering it as we speak…
  Trisha, I love Kinko’s or any office supply store. I browse there all the time. Free rocks though.
  Scot, seems like ours is always out of ink. Plus, it’s a business expense.
• Scott Schoonover I wish my printer would print my drawings…but alas it doesn’t print pages that are 24″ x 18″…. One of these days though…..

 So the next day I ended up just re-printing the whole thing using a blank page as the first side.  Now I’m sitting pretty, and there’s even a part where I went back and used the first print-off for a tune that was easier that way.  (Although I accidentally punched holes on the wrong side for the first ten pages or so in the process)

DISCLAIMER: I planted thirteen trees yesterday. 

     2. Informal Notation: Question – Are capos for fags too or is it just TAB?  This note on my score from the previous jack-ass who decided that his every last markup should be preserved for future guitarists to come was particularly ironic given the nature of our work in musical theatre:

FYI I am a huge fan of TABs for guitar and cannot sight-read notation on the treble clef.  It always takes me a good while to figure out any lead parts in these scores as a result, and I usually end up squeezing in the part in TAB somewhere above it.  For my teaching and students, why, that’s a good question!  My post about notation and why it doesn’t always help

     3. Chord Voicings – there’s always a new voicing to learn.  There are some cool sounding ones (F#m7add4), some cheesy-sounding ones (Gadd9), and damn, always with the sus4!  How would we ever have a buildup or crescendo without those suspended chords?

Behind the Scenes at a New Line Theatre Rehearsal

A look behind the scenes at New Line Theatre’s production of Passing Strange.  Warmups, tuneups, fine-tunings, cherries on top and how it all comes together.  See the band, cast and director Scott Miller prepare for preview night in a montage of footage from behind the curtain.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Musical Theatre Notes to Self 2

A note to self that fixes a quick-page-turn moment:   going from fuzzy ascending chromatics with wah embellishment (plane taking off – “can be energetic” according to Scott, director —> but NOT with fifths – octaves only)  to clean finger-picking progression.  So I wrote it on the bottom – no page turn needed 🙂  This part doesn’t scare me anymore.

Musical Theatre Notes to Self

A little note to myself that calls for a small embellishment of this Gmaj9 – I call it the Sinatra chord cause it’s so cheesy-classy and fits right in at the end of this number.  Try it out!  This shape can actually be used as a lot of different chords depending on where you assume the root note to be.   Here it’s on the fifth string:

Woah – A Page Turn Bandaid

Taped this binder hole in this page to make it stronger after a very thoughtful and caring yet strong and frenzied conductor turned my page for me.

It was actually a hilarious and pleasant surprise the first time it happened: there’s lots of difficult page turns and I’ve actually written on the bottom of any page that requires a quick turn the part I need to be playing next so I don’t have to mess with it.  But on this particular song I hadn’t made any notes I guess and Justin saw (or remembered from rehearsal) it coming in the score.  Justin – how did you know seriously?

I’m playing my stuff and getting near the end and just in time BAM! An arm reaches across and turns the page and I was all “WTF and then like Woah no shit – that IS helpful,” and kept playing 🙂