My favorite part of a musical...
(Please sing the title of this post to the tune of "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...")
You know what my favorite part of writing a musical is? It's that point you reach when you're 3 or 4 songs away from your first draft. I like it because there's an adreneline rush, and the musical seems to almost finish itself. The character's voices are second nature by now, the musical world of the show is running in your veins, notes and rests like plasma and platelets in your bloodstream. The story's in place and you've just got to fill in the gaps. If all has gone well, you've got a few killer tunes already, and there's a push in writing these last few to make them really great -- a last gasp to top everything you've written so far. Also, there's a total grasp of the vocabulary of the show, and at this point, you're able to twist the existing vocabulary into all sorts of neat storytelling tricks. I find that the last 3 or 4 songs I write for a show are often the glue that holds a show together, craft-wise. Writing the last few songs feels to me the most liberated part of the whole process, for the very reason that all the rules of the show are already in place.
But the real joy of this moment in the process is knowing that, soon, other people are gonna get involved! And that, for the lonely, lonely writer, is the best part of all.
If you couldn't guess, I've reached this favorite of moments with my latest musical, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and I'm tapping my toes in anticipation.
You know what my favorite part of writing a musical is? It's that point you reach when you're 3 or 4 songs away from your first draft. I like it because there's an adreneline rush, and the musical seems to almost finish itself. The character's voices are second nature by now, the musical world of the show is running in your veins, notes and rests like plasma and platelets in your bloodstream. The story's in place and you've just got to fill in the gaps. If all has gone well, you've got a few killer tunes already, and there's a push in writing these last few to make them really great -- a last gasp to top everything you've written so far. Also, there's a total grasp of the vocabulary of the show, and at this point, you're able to twist the existing vocabulary into all sorts of neat storytelling tricks. I find that the last 3 or 4 songs I write for a show are often the glue that holds a show together, craft-wise. Writing the last few songs feels to me the most liberated part of the whole process, for the very reason that all the rules of the show are already in place.
But the real joy of this moment in the process is knowing that, soon, other people are gonna get involved! And that, for the lonely, lonely writer, is the best part of all.
If you couldn't guess, I've reached this favorite of moments with my latest musical, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, and I'm tapping my toes in anticipation.
posted by Adam at 10:12 AM
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