Music Monday - What makes some music difficult to play or sing?

I am currently doing vocal coaching on a high school production of “Mary Poppins”. The cast are specialist music theatre students in a college of the arts and the orchestra are specialist music students at the same school. It is my first time working on this show and from the outset I was surprised at how difficult and complex the musical score is. The Sherman brothers have written many moments in the vocal ensemble in up to 6 -part harmony. Dissonance is used as an effect. There are sudden vocal modulations  - with no  helpful modulating chords from the orchestra. The score is musically dense – both vocally and orchestrally. Much of our preparation time has been spent working out which notes in a chord we could leave out without losing the harmonic effect and intention at that moment.

It is proving to be a challenging gig for all involved, so I was mildly frustrated recently when, after a particularly long session in the rehearsal room, a friend remarked, “Mary Poppins? That’s not difficult music!”

That casual remark set me thinking. Of course, we all know the tunes from the show – think “Feed The Birds”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “Chim Chim Cheree”, “Go Fly A Kite”. Those are all catchy tunes and we can hum them easily. In this case, it is the arrangements which make the music difficult.

Many years ago, I attended the state finals of the ABC’s Concerto and Vocal competition, held in the Basil Kirke Studio in the long defunct ABC studios on Adelaide Terrace in Perth. David Helfgott (of movie “Shine” fame) was one of the piano finalists. At that time, he was going through mental health challenges, but was nonetheless a virtuosic player, in a class all his own. He played  Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini” with such power and speed that I wondered if he would cause the Steinway grand to move across the floor, such was his passion. Yet, when he reached the 18th variation (the famous, legato, melancholic one) his playing and interpretation was curiously detached. This variation is the easiest, technically, to play, but it demands that the pianist make the piano really sing. On that day it was just too difficult for him and his headspace. A different kind of musical difficulty.

And, by way of another example, in the world of singing, especially as it applies to young singers, some technically easy songs can have texts which are too sophisticated, or which deal with themes beyond the singer’s life experience and maturity. And then some other songs, with appropriate themes, can be annoyingly hard in terms of range or vocal intensity required.

There are many definitions of musical difficulty.

Getting back to Mary Poppins. The show is fun and appropriate for young singer actors, provided that they commit to many, many hours of intense dance and vocal calls. But easy? Definitely not!