A Musical vision is a powerful thing, especially when combined with passion and determination. If you’re hearing the songs and seeing the production in your mind, you’re well on your way to creating a Musical Theater Play. The process of getting your ideas into communicable formThe structure or organization of a piece of music, including its sections, repetitions, and overall shape. will need to involve notationA system of symbols used to write down music. at some point of the creative process. Theaters still use live musicians – there’s no other way to accommodate variables like audience response, let alone whatever Union regulations there might be in your local theater requiring the hiring of musicians. You’re going to need a scoreA written representation of a piece of music, including the notation for all parts of an ensemble. and partsIndividual pieces of music, each designed to be performed by a single musician or section of an ensemble., and the sooner the better. The earlier in the process your work is presentable in printable notation form, the better it is for your workflow, and your budget.
As Steven Covey said in “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People,” “Begin with the end in mind!”
Q. What is the end for a Broadway Musical Play?
A. People on stage singing, and musicians reading written parts in the orchestra pitSpace in front of and below the stage for the orchestra or band; or any offstage space where the orchestra is located for live performance.
The Musical Development Process
Start with recordings and/or lead sheets of your songs. Your song will have melodyA sequence of single pitches perceived as a unit, usually the main theme or tune in a piece of music., lyric, and (hopefully) a bass line or chords. Get it into Finale or Sibelius. If you’re not familiar or comfortable with music notation software, then you need to hire an arranger to do it for you at this stage.
Ask if the arranger has done large scores, and whether they can produce tracks from scores. Both of these skill sets will be necessary at some point in your development process. If your arranger has prior experience as a music copyist and/or performer in Broadway pits, so much the better!
Musical Scores are Flexible and Expandable
Once in Finale, the score can be expanded and orchestrated. Parts can be printed from Finale as soon as the initial arrangementrefers to the structure and order of musical elements in a composition, such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation. is complete. Begin with a piano score, with a bass line in the left hand, and a vocal line with lyric – those elements will enable you to rehearse and workshop the material. To make a demoA recording created to preview the content of a show or song. Demos can also become master recordings. of (some of) the songs, other instruments can be added to the score to represent the sound to potential investors. Fuller orchestrations can always be added later to these same scores as needed to meet house minimums (which are encountered in Union theaters such as those on Broadway.)
Record Without a Score? Don’t Do It!
We recently encountered an emergency call – a completed “show” (rather, a set of demos of songs from a possible show) was done almost entirely without notation, and the self-described “orchestrator” was refusing to output a score and parts. He played the parts by hand into sessions in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAWDigital Audio Workstation. Some are: Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro X, Cubase, Pro Tools, Studio One, Reason, Reaper, Digital Performer, Bitwig Studio, Samplitude Pro X, GarageBand (Mac), Cakewalk by BandLab, Presonus Studio One, Tracktion Waveform) (such as Logic, ProTools, or a multitude of other possible options). A person delivering work in this fashion, particularly for a musical, is not an “orchestrator” – he’s a track producer, who’s effectively driven the project a hundred miles down the wrong road. Although the work may sound beautiful, the result is not deliverable for the end product – which is a live musical performance – without substantial additional investment in transcriptions. If the project had begun in Finale (or Sibelius), all the work of musical preparation and transcriptionThe process of notating a piece of music as it is performed, either by ear or from a recording. would have already been done.
MidiA protocol for communicating musical information, such as notes and control signals, between electronic musical instruments and computers. Can Be a Mess
If you’ve already have your tracks produced in a DAW without notation, please be aware – it’s often easier to transcribe a piece completely by ear rather than editing imported midi. The importation quality depends on whether the entry was quantized (although re-quantization is possible in Finale after import). Even under ideal circumstances – perfect midi import – extensive editing is still required to get the score into professionally acceptable format with legible parts and proper markings for all musicians. Producers creating parts in a DAW often fail to consider human playability. We’ve seen multiple DAW recorded midi passes merged into a single track resulting in parts that would require a six-handed pianist, which need to be unscrambled on transcription (image above).
Notate First!
When the project is done in notation first, and throughout, midi from notation can be exported into a DAW for production. Current versions of Finale (and Sibelius) generate acceptable audio for demo underscore over which vocals can be recorded. Finale can even be “rewired” into a DAW, playing back in the recording session, so vocals can be recorded over the score. This process gives you your demo AND your score.
Make Your Demo from your Score!
Use your score to make your demo, rather than the inverse! You’ll have both for the same money, rather than paying twice for the same work!
