Unorthodox Orchestrations

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 10:36am

Rent calls for the guitarists to put down their instruments and clap for a few numbers.

The Fantasticks is typically a piano and a harp.

High School Musical 2 has the guitarist double on guitar, electric sitar, ukulele and banjo... playing three of those within one song.

Gorey Stories features a musical saw as its lead instrument.

What other musicals feacher either unorthodox orchestration styles, quirky instrument use, or unusual requests for the musicians?

[bwaylvsong]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 12:09pm

City of Angels' pit is more like a big band than an orchestra.
Spelling Bee (I believe) only uses four instruments.

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 12:41pm

Could you include the Fender Rhodes in Les Misérables?

the West Side Story orchestra includes a Police whistle...

[darquegk]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 12:44pm

Spelling Bee... I'm pretty sure there's three keyboards, a bass, drums and a cello... the cast recording includes guitar as well, but I'm not sure if that's something added in the studio or if our production simply didn't have the guitar since our guitarist was playing bass and cello for the show.

And isn't the whistle in West Side Story an onstage sound effect?

[TheLadyoftheWood]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 12:49pm

The Orchestrasions for Urinetown only call for 4 parts: Piano, Drums, Reeds, and Brass. In most shows there are only four people in the pit simply because the reeds and brass are meant to switch instruments with a lot of downtime and the piano doubling most of their parts.

[musikman]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 1:21pm

Darque: The whistle is most likely onstage during actual performances of the show, but when orchestras perform the Symphonic Dances Suite, it's definitely a percussionist with the whistle.

[Tag]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 2:08pm

Here's a very interesting read on some of the rare violins and fiddles used in The Lord of the Rings Musical:


Instruments of torture; STRUNG UP Musician tries ancient sounds for Lord of the Rings

[Jon]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 2:08pm

Light in the Piazza is scored for 16 players, but NO brass section. It's strings, woodwinds, guitar, harp, piano, percussion.

See What I Wanna See: Piano, bass, two woodwinds, and THREE percussionists.

Of course, Richard Rodgers' NO STRINGS uses... no strings.

[trentsketch]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 8:20pm

Runaways uses a toy piano played randomly, as the mood strikes, in a song or two.

The last thing played by the orchestra in City of Angels is everyone in the pit yelling on the final beat of the Bows/Exit Music.

[givesmevoice]

Posted: 12/11/10 at 8:44pm

Whatever score they used for the Encores production of No, No, Nanette used calls for two pianos.

Some productions of I Do! I Do! (including the recent Westport Country Playhouse production) use only two pianos.