Low Eh!

I have been fortunate this year to have been booked on a few musicals. The first musical, MJ: The Musical was at the National Arts Centre with Broadway Across Canada, and it ran from December 31st through January 5th. The second, which is coming up in February into the first two weeks of March, is Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.

It has been many years since I was involved in musical theatre productions, and I’m loving getting back into performing in these productions – contributing to something larger than the music, the camaraderie of being in the pit with your peers, the doubling (in my case, mostly low winds), and the process of learning a show.

The process of learning these books for me comes in a few different approaches. First, I like to just play through the book. With the MJ show, we were sent a conductor’s reel, so I played along with that. I wasn’t super concerned with it being perfect, I just wanted to make sure that I knew what tempo changes, doublings, and feels were coming up. After that a couple of runs through the book, I would take each instrument through its sections of the book, skipping through to all of the clarinet parts (and then bass clarinet parts, then tenor saxophone, and baritone saxophone). Making sure that each section was correct, and totally under my fingers, and in my ears for each individual instruments. In the Reed 2 book for the MJ production, there weren’t many quick switches for my doubles, but if there were, I would practice that specific double. At this time, I would also try to figure out where each instrument should be set up for the most efficient switches. At this time I will have learned the book, and would be ready to perform the show.

I really enjoy this process of getting into a set of music that I’m going to perform for multiple shows, because the nature of my work (as primarily a jazz player) has me playing lots of one-off shows, or monthly shows, but the musicals allow me to prep, and develop a set of music that we play for an extended run. I can’t wait for the next one!