Collectively Hitting the Groove
Previews kick you when you’re down. At the end of a long day’s rehearsal, tired minds and bodies could really do with the comfort of performing something familiar. No such luck.
For the music department it’s often just a quick coffee, 30 minutes with the band to bring them up to speed with the day’s changes, and then off into the unknown once again: a number’s been cut, another added, a piece of underscore is twice as fast, and just as you’re expecting to settle into a rousing chorus, a new bridge begins.
So until a few days ago, the challenge for the musicians in the pit was to do the right thing at the right time; to make sure that your eye successfully navigated through the scribbles on your part telling you what to omit and what to repeat; to overrule muscle memory.
But now that the show will be the same from day to day, the challenge is different. A good show is no longer simply about making it to the end unscathed. It’s about collectively hitting the groove as soon as a number starts; it’s about being perfectly in sync with David (the conductor), so that we’re supporting the action on stage as closely as possible; it’s about making the music soar for a new audience at every performance.
As the singing starts in “G Company Blues” – the show’s opening number – the band kicks into a groove that grows and grows until the end of the song. When we get it right, heads start bouncing, we catch each other’s eyes across the pit, and you know it’s going to be a good show. The challenge, now, is to make that happen every night.
Posted by Will Stuart (Associate Music Director & Keyboard) on 20/10/2013 @ 09:00hrs