At least when my waltz was bumped for "The Blue Danube" I got to use and expand it in a wind ensemble piece the following year.
ajr ---- Christopher Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mon May 24, at MondayMay 24 7:19 PM, Ryan wrote: > > > I love hearing these "horror stories" from musical theater. I'm > > getting > > ready to conduct Fiddler on the Roof and the director has told me he's > > considering putting the orchestra on stage (partly in the wings), > > so that we > > can become the "wedding band" at the end of Act I. I don't like the > > idea of > > having 15 musicians trying to perform during a brawl... > > Christopher, I wonder if we've worked with the same choreographer. > > There > > always seems to be one like her involved in every show I've done! > > > Hey, man, I've got TONs of horror stories! Here's my favourite, which > I have actually heard variants of, from two or three different > sources, aside from the incident that I was involved with. This must > happen more often than I thought possible. > > I was preparing arrangements for a hotel revue (think cruise ship) > and the choreographer said, "I have an original piece in the show > that I have invented. It's very exotic, with an Arabian Nights theme, > and it's in seven. Can you compose something that will go with the > style? I'll give you the counts and the hits." I spent a lot of time > working out a very cool (in my opinion) original composition in 7/4, > proud of my work. In the first rehearsal with the dancers and band > (time was very tight, so he had taught it with counts and clapping) > he stopped us after a few measures. "Oops, we got off beat. Try > again." Six or seven times we restarted, then he started to blame us. > We weren't playing it properly, the hits weren't right, the musicians > weren't good enough, I had written it wrong. Finally I asked him, > "Can you show me the counts as you conceived it?" "Certainly!" he > said proudly, and counted off emphatically with a clap on each > syllable, "One, two, three, four, five, six, sev-en." It was in > eight, with two counts for "sev-en". > > We faked Caravan and he was happy. > > Oy. > > Christopher > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
