Best Button at the End of a Song.- Page 2
Best Button at the End of a Song.
Mattbrain
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/23/05
#25Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/11/07 at 3:44pmI think my favorite button is in Candide at the end of Dear Boy.
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ATTENTION FANS: I will be played by James Barbour in the upcoming musical, "BroadwayWorld: The Musical."
Raspberry
Leading Actor Joined: 1/29/07
#26Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/12/07 at 7:45pm
ANY Kander and Ebb song! They all have wonderful buttons, I wouldn't even know where to begin picking favorites...
..but if I had to, here's a couple:
Don't Tell Mama
New York, New York (the original Liza arrangement)
Mister Cellophane
Two Ladies
Coffee in a Cardboard Cup
"I just want a story and a few good songs that will take me away. I just want to be entertained. I mean, isn't that the point?"
jonartdesigns
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/04
#27Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/12/07 at 8:33pm
all that jazz
defying gravity (when she thrusts the broom up and for a split second before the blackout theres a spotlight on just her face)
"Grease," the fourth revival of the season, is the worst show in the history of theater and represents an unparalleled assault on Western civilization and its values. - Michael Reidel
Fenchurch
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/16/06
#28Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/12/07 at 8:35pm
"The overture to Gypsy. It's pretty much the greatest in all areas are far as music goes."
come on.....
greatest in all areas, what does that mean exactly? Just the button or the whole overture?
and "as far as music goes" does that include ALL music?
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual."
-Keen on Kean
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
"Fenchurch is correct, as usual." - muscle23ftl
sidjones09
Leading Actor Joined: 1/4/07
#29Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/13/07 at 1:08am
"I love the Margaret entrance in Piazza at the end of Say It Somehow when Fabrizio and Clara are in that delicious embrace on the bed......... "
You took the words out of my mouth evadiva. Most powerful button in a show I can remember. The way the music builds and picks up tempo while they are in that "delicious embrace" as you put it (I like that), right after this beautifully romantic duet, and you see Margaret coming down the hallway. She enters the room right before the last note punctuates the build in the music and in just enough time to give a slight shocked reaction before the immediate blackout. It's timed perfectly. Talk about building tension. Then you have all intermission to sit there and think about what's going to happen next. It's brilliantly staged. Now, THAT'S a button!
"If you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better." - David Mamet
#30Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/24/07 at 11:15pmI know this is kind of a bump, but what's a button? I don't mean to sound stupid, but I just don't know...
ShowtuneRick
Chorus Member Joined: 2/8/07
#31Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 10:25am
"I don't wanna show OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFF. no more." BUTTON!
Love it!
RuprechtJr.
Featured Actor Joined: 6/22/05
#32Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 10:33amHow about the never ending buttons to Cunegonde's Jewel Song?
#33Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 11:05am
for those still asking "what's a button?"
It is, musically speaking, the period at the end of the sentence
As a composer and arranger, it is one of my pet peeves when a pianist or conductor let a song end limply, without giving a healthy "oomph" to that last note, or the end of a held chord. God hates a sloppy button!
Of course, some songs/orchestrations are meant to dissolve and not have that little or big bump...or segue directly into the next piece of music...
Many of the folks writing in seem to be using the measures leading up to the button as their definition or understanding of what a button is. And that makes sense, since, when the arranger (even more than the composer sometimes) really is inspired, there is a feeling in those last bars that is...if I said pre-orgasmic, would I be arrested?
Someone mentioned the ending of MUSIC AND THE MIRROR from A Chorus Line. What a perfect example of the final measures creating a frenzy, and then the final chords, their syncopated rhythm, the choice of instruments in the orchestrations, the dancing in perfect tandem, the split second call by the stage manager for the lighting to change, the final image...when it all coincides...LOOK OUT!!
Theatrical and musical heaven!
Marc "I Love A Button" Shaiman
circusliz
Broadway Star Joined: 11/19/05
#34Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 11:18amThe end of the finale from Into the Woods, with everyone building to the final "and happliy ever after", followed by Cinderella's "I wish" and then the big, loud stinger by the orchestra......definitely my favorite button.
On the road of life, do not pause for suicidal chipmunks who freeze in your headlights, seeking death by your tires...
#35Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 11:21am
Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett hoisting their razor and rolling pin high up in the air at the end of "A Little Priest"
Perfection.
"One no longer loves one's insight enough once one communicates it."
The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.
The opposite of creation isn't war, it's stagnation.
leefowler
Broadway Star Joined: 7/13/04
#36Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 11:36am
One of the worst places to be when you're in rehearsal for a new musical is "button hell". That's when you have a number that's good, but somehow ends in such a way that it recieves little applause. That's why so often you'll see the lights suddenly get brighter on the last note of a song. You're trying to encourage applause.
The worst example of this is when you have a song that actually recieves NO APPLAUSE WHATSOEVER. I'm getting shaky just thinking of it.
Behind the fake tinsel of Broadway is real tinsel.
#37Best Button at the End of a Song.
Posted: 3/25/07 at 11:40amMarc, I think we should start the "I Love A Button" club.
"I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about." - Oscar Wilde
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