Musical Direction

While performing on Moulin Rouge, I had a lot of direction from the MD. Some things were not written in the score which we're important to the overall show.

Some of the things were kind of trial and error. For example in rehearsals, sometimes I would play the melody in a different octave and asked what the MD thought. Sometimes, it worked, other times it didn't. I was also told which inversion to do some chords in too, which I had to remember.

As a new thing for me, I was also given direction on how to act. Relating back to my post on comfort zones, I almost had to learn some stage techniques in a different area of an art. My part was simple. I had to walk on stage with my guitar and sit with a group of actors. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing in rehearsals, but after a chat with some tutors, they gave me some good advice. One tutor said 'Don't look at the audience. As for as your concerned, the audience isn't there'. This helped me a lot, because it made me think it was just us on the stage with no one watching. Another tutor said 'When you're on stage, just go with the flow. Follow the other actors, you own the part of the stage you're on.' Again, this gave me the confidence to just relax and go with the flow. It took away the awkwardness of myself being somewhere I shouldn't.

All in all, I enjoyed playing the show. Seeing as I've never acted in my life, giving me a taste of what it's like has made me appreciate my comfort zone more (although I would like to stretch myself).

I've also started to notice how people approach rehearsals. Being at college for the time I am, I've experienced a lot of techniques.

For example, while rehearsing for a show with Andy, we were given time to get musicians together and to get the song sorted. I'll go more into how we went about this later in this post. After the song is done, we then all congregate in a room and almost give a mini performance. I remember the first time I was put in this situation, I was terrified. Being in front your peers while you're basically still practicing is  a horrible situation. But it works! The pressure and desire not to mess up is an amazing motivator.

While rehearsing with Murphy, I noticed it to be a lot more methodical. While rehearsing for Moulin Rouge, we took each track and broke it into it's sections and worked through each one separately. This is a really good technique, as it gets you comfortable with each section and then you can put it all together. Although it takes a little longer, it's probably the best way to rehearse.

As mentioned earlier, rehearsing with the Musical Theater is completely different. After learning all the tracks with Murphy's method, we would then go in the the actors and singers and work through things. We start by going through the acts, so the actors can rehearse, and we come in when needed. This helps us get the cues right. As we go along, we tweak parts that need it so the show flows better. After we do the acts, we then go through any parts that need working with the singers, and we repeat this until show night.

I'm now going to talk about how I rehearse with my band. It's quite weird, because it's a mix of all the techniques mentioned above. Normally, I'll come up with a verse and chorus, and make sure everyone's up to speed with them. We then link these together and do an A, B, A, B run. This shows us any transitions that need tweaking, and it puts us all on the spot in a way. We then write a C section and make it into a full song and keep going over it. If someone makes a mistake, we carry on and talk about what went wrong after. In the next run, we play the whole song and focus on where we messed up. If it's a recurring problem, we then run the section over and over until it's perfect.

Obviously, everyone has their own techniques, and if they work for you then hey, go for it!

Comfort Zones

Being a musician, your main performance role is to go on stage, play your music and give of a good vibe to the crowd. So why is it, when I was asked to act on stage, I started to feel really insecure. It's weird, because I'm on the stage normally, doing as I please. But this time I have direction on what to do and where to be a specific time.

This got me thinking about comfort zones. Seeing as I've had no theatrical training what-so-ever, it's really thrown me. Ryan and Nash are reading this as I type, and that's making me uncomfortable. I guess the only thing I can really do is to stop being a whiff and power through.

Easier Sight Reading Memory

I've had to memorise a lot of tracks to perform on Moulin Rouge. It's a daunting task, and I've been getting my hair off with it. So many songs and cues!

But, I've heard that some people make 'cheat sheets' for songs, so I tried it out. I can say it makes it a lot easier to see it all laid out on one page. Now I can carry on with memorising them, and it's not so overwhelming.

Moulin Rouge Rehearsal

Today, I've been with the guys rehearsing the scores for the next college musical 'Moulin Rouge'. I'm finding it okay, because I've had a lot of experience sight readying for shows before.

I'm going to be on the floor with the cast. This has brought up the challenge of not being able to have the music in front of me. I'm going to have to memorize all the parts I play, which may be quite difficult. Nevertheless, I'm working hard on it and I'm about 75% of the way there.

It's rather a weird feeling playing the guitar I am for this show. I'm used to playing a strat or some other electric, but for this I'm using a nylon string classical guitar. I chose this so that it would give more of a twangy, Spanish/French kind of sound. It's working well! And it's a really nice sound!

Being a classical guitar, it's meant for finger picking and playing through classical pieces. It's still hard for me to finge rpick, but it's coming along nicely. I've found a lot of things online that help and talk you through the process of different pattern to play.

A bit of subject, but my favourite PlayStation game is called The Last Of Us. The game is about being one of a few survivors left in a world overrun with zombies. The music matches this exactly, as it has such a spacey, desolate feel to it. The composer was Gustavo Santaolalla, who composes for a lot of games. Here's a link to the soundtrack, I think it's beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97u-U0nvJM