Musical Direction

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 11/4/10 at 8:56pm

I am MD/Conductor for Oklahoma! in a high school.
How do I go about working out music for the choreographer. Like, some of the music, e.g. Kansas City dance is not the same on the commercial recordings (1980 UK, 1998 UK etc), so how do I go about recording myself playing these musical sections for the choreographer? Tape or... ? How is this usually done?
Thanks a lot!

[RuprechtJr.]

Posted: 11/4/10 at 10:01pm

It's almost always played live at rehearsals by the MD, AMD or a separately paid rehearsal pianist. In my opinion it would be too hard to choreograph using a recording because you couldn't rehearse it slowly and it would be a pain to go back and try to search for the right spot to start. Plus, high school choreographers are notorious for shortening breaks or altering them in some way, sometimes on the spot at a rehearsal. So having someone play live would be the best solution. Hope that helped!
-Ryan

[dramamama611]

Posted: 11/4/10 at 10:15pm

You do it in any way that works for you. My choreographer works from the cd....they just don't always put it to music while they are bringing it up to speed.

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 11/4/10 at 10:17pm

play it live. and get a rehearsal drummer.

and as a last resort, record it as a MIDI file that could be sped up or slowed down as needed.

[dramamama611]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 4:07am

Most high schools cannot afford to hire even MORE people to work on their productions. For most schools, those suggestions are unrealistic.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 9:08am

From my experience with high schools, it's usually done in the worst way possible. The music director offers to record a tape for the choreographer. The choreographer agrees. The choreographer than will swear up and down, regardless of witnesses to the contrary, that he never received a tape and had to choreograph to the CD. He will then say he will quit the show if the score isn't cut to match the CD exactly in every scene and the music director is left cursing the day he agreed to go back to working with high school theater students. Then he realizes its the awful choreographer who causes the problems and remember how great it is to work in educational theater, the one place in a high school where the majority of students want to learn what you're teaching.

With some wonderful, intelligent, and better-planning directors, a rehearsal accompanist is found for the big dance numbers. This could be a student, a coerced colleague, or the music director himself. I know with the latest director I've been working with that orchestra/vocals are split so at least one piano player can be there while she choreographs the dance numbers. It helps the students that it's not always the same player as they learn really quick that more is happening in the music than what they think.

My advice to you is to see if you can be at the dance rehearsals and play live if at all possible. It really does make a difference. Even if you wind up screaming out counts and slamming your foot on the ground to keep them in rhythm, it's better than fighting over whether or not a recording you made was loud enough. The end product will be better as the dancers will learn real quick that you are in charge of how fast they go on the stage and you will learn what the students can actually handle.

[RuprechtJr.]

Posted: 11/5/10 at 9:43am

Oh, don't get me started on choreographers. Not all of them are bad, some quite good. I once music directed "Footloose" and she couldn't read music, nor did she have a sense of rhythm. This was a woman who owned her own dance studio. Needless to say I didn't recommend her. To anyone. Anyway, since she couldn't read music she choreographed everything before rehearsals to the cd. The "Footloose" Cd has a million cuts and even very different verses sometimes. Even though I was there for every rehearsal she insisted her cuts be made, making the dance breaks twenty seconds long. Which, in effect, was good because the steps were so mediocre that even my father, usually tolerant with bad productions, couldn't help but laugh at how bad it was. It was just not a fun experience. I should have known the whole thing was going to go down hill once she acted shocked and disgusted there were people in the company, myself included, were gay. She told us we were just going through a phase. I really wanted to snap back and ask, "Is your anorexia just a phase too?" Needless to say I never returned to that theatre, which I had enjoyed two previous seasons.