At 6:52 AM -0400 5/24/10, Christopher Smith wrote:
This is probably going to be less that useless to Kim, but I wanted to point out something interesting (to me, anyway) in your comments, John. Your point about the music growing out of the story line is even more reinforced by the use the of the verse in pre-WW2 musical comedy. The verse was typically (though not always) rubato, and it is WAY easier to accompany a rubato singer with a single instrument like piano than with a full orchestra (such as it was.
Absolutely correct on all counts, Christopher. The only additional comment I'd make is that, even though I'm no expert (although I've played and helped organize musical theater productions for the past 19 years), a verse is much more likely to be accompagnato in most shows' orchestrations than it is to be bare-bones piano or guitar. THAT is more the approach used by nightclub singers singing the same Golden Age songs, but again it gets them smoothly from their talking with the audience and into their next song.
But the place of the Verse in a Broadway tune was exactly the kind of transition you described--which is why some of the verses don't make much sense out of that context! I do recall, though, Sinatra recording JUST the Verse of "Stardust" on a bet, and for him (and Nelson Riddle) it worked really well!
Musicals like Oklahoma were trying even more to blur the line between dialogue and song, with registers chosen to put some of the singing in a similar area of the voice used in the dialogue,
I'm not sure I'd agree with the latter, but you may be right. Rodgers--among others--knew EXACTLY where to pitch the voices to carry in a NYC theater, which is why many of the songs were taken down a 4th or a 5th when they were made into movies. But yes, I take "Oklahoma!" as the tipping point, even though "Showboat" had tended that way earlier (and significantly with the help of Hammerstein). The whole concept of opening with a single singer walking on stage alone and starting to tell the audience "Oh, what a beautiful mornin'" a cappalla went against EVERY Broadway convention, and songs like "Surrey" and "Poor Judd" made NO sense outside the story line.
and the rhythms used in a typical verse were speech rhythms rather than musical ones.
Yes, absolutely, and that HAS to reflect some kind of heritage from earlier opera or, as you say, operetta.
Thanks!! John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[email protected]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
