Music Monday - Music Theatre Overload

It’s a music theatre overload. Straight from Mac and Mabel at The Maj (WAAPA) to John Curtin for 42nd Street ( with a detour for fish and chips at The Groper and His Wife!)

42nd Street is amazing. 

Yes there were some sloppy mike cues. And a bit of fluffiness first night nerves. But truly amazing. Not just the usual disclaimer that they’re just school kids. The actors danced their taps off. They sang with attack and gusto. A complete package. The orchestra was fierce (sometimes a bit too so!). And tunefully on point for style and oomph. 

Yes, there are some severely overworked males filling too many roles. Take nothing away from them. But the drought of boys and flood of girl talent needs attention. But when you think where the music theatre program has travelled to get to this point it’s a theatre mystery. To quote the classics. 

And by contrast with this arvo, I could understand every word (when the mike cues worked!). Why do you think that is? 

Some talented younger performers too. Year 10. Great tapping – amazing tapping. Staging.  

Increasingly we see more use of projections. Jury is out still about the effectiveness of their use. Challenging to get right.  But as I noted to Liz, the whole MTI packaging of music theatre  productions for schools is phenomenal (https://www.mtishows.com/production-resources). It’s not just that they have a range of productions available (Senior and Junior versions), it’s the breadth of the resources: not just music and recordings but also choreography. The scripts are well produced and informative for students. There’s a range of resources. Talking of projections there are also packages of them for shows that can be licensed (https://www.mtishows.com/marketplace/resource/performance/scenic-projectionstm). Of course, you also need the equipment to project them – and the sophistication of this virtual scenography is increasing.  

The WAAPA production of Mac and Mabel was also highly entertaining. And used lots of projections. Those students are also amazing. But I do have a couple of  questions unanswered.

There’s good reason why some music theatre shows are revived often and have enduring popularity (though that can change over time!).

But there’s also shows that fade away. 

Mac and Mabel is Structurally problematic. Two Mack Sennets. And, my, how the 1927 Sennet grew 12 inches in the intervening years. Despite disparity of heights though they were well matched performances. 

But, you know there’s a problem with the show when there’s a full five minutes of explanatory slideshow to address the gaps in the audience’s understanding of the people in the story. 

The person beside me asked before the overture if this was about the Mabel from the wireless days (Mabel was a character in Dad and Dave from Snake Gully an Australian radio drama series 1937 – 1953). 

For me, it was minute 37 before there was a popularly recognisable tune.

And issues of clarity with spoken lines from leading lady - not from singing. Go figure!

Makes you wonder why this show was the Big Ticket WAAPA showcase in The Maj. Something to offer in terms of challenge and learning for students but why this  rather forgettable piece which would fit more easily into another slot in the WAAPA calendar. 

As I said, though, a music theatre overload for one day and I haven’t even talked about seeing the Black Swan production of Once at the Regal. 

Music Monday - ANZAC Day

Anzac Day. One of the most important days in the Australian calendar year. Over my 45 plus years of teaching I have witnessed the resurgence of observation of Anzac services in schools. Back in 1975, as a young high school Music and English teacher I was fresh from the moratorium marches of the Vietnam war years and not wanting to be seen to glorify war in my choice of songs for Anzac Day. So, it was “I Was Only Nineteen” rather than the more patriotic traditional choices. Emphasising the futility, rather than the glory, of war.

Nevertheless, in our family – like so many Australian families – we have our own WW1 story; that of my great uncle Sam’s untimely death at Passchendaele, Belgium on 17 October 1917.

Samuel Vaughan Selby was a dentist, working at rebuilding soldiers’ destroyed faces after shelling. He received a white feather which shamed him into direct combat on the battlefield where he was killed on his first sortie.

Today I was sorting through music in my music room when I serendipitously stumbled on two pieces of old family music.

One was great uncle Sam’s - a work for violin and piano. He never returned home to play his violin again.

The other was one of my grandmother’s piano pieces, purchased when she was studying piano in London, after winning a place at the prestigious Royal College of Music. At the start of the war, her father sent her a cable to tell her to come home immediately as it was no longer safe to stay. Her performance career was cut short, and she returned to Perth to work as a piano teacher for the rest of her 84 years. My grandmother was Samuel Selby’s sister. 

So here, on my bookshelf, are two volumes of music, each representing music silenced by war.

Where are the songs about that?

Music Monday - Using song cues for learning intervals.

I’m sure that we have all used song cues in the learning and teaching of musical intervals (the difference in pitch between two sounds). 

An understanding of intervals is crucial to our understanding of the shape of music, the structure of scales and chords and intune singing. Understanding intervals is also pretty important for passing music theory exams!

My earliest memory of using song cues was thinking the opening phrase of “My bonny lies over the ocean” to identify a major 6th  as a child preparing for the aural component of AMEB piano exams.

During my teaching career I have created lists of song cues and used other teachers’ lists and suggestions too.

Recently a community of singing teachers I am part of was discussing the challenges of singing a perfect 4th. One member posted the following link as a comprehensive list of song cues for intervals. It was certainly one of the most comprehensive I had come across and so I share it with you. There seems to be a song for everyone on this list.

https://www.earmaster.com/products/free-tools/interval-song-chart-generator.html

Happy music teaching!

Music Monday - Are Christmas carols okay again?

Over the past two weeks as my high school students complete their final voice classes for the year, I have encouraged them to bring in ‘own choice’ songs from any genre. I do this every year, as do many singing teachers. 

What has interested me this year, however, is that rather than choosing current popular songs, most of my students have asked to sing carols. 

Now these are specialist music theatre students, reasonably diverse in terms of ethnicity, and not from predominantly Christian families. It is a government (secular) school. And by ‘carols’ the students have meant traditional songs such as Oh Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night and The First Noel, as well as Christmas themed songs such as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Winter Wonderland and We Wish You A Merry Christmas.

A few years ago, schools were actively avoiding the use of Christmas carols in class and at assemblies, for fear of offending non-Christian cultural groups within their communities.

 For several years, I kept carols out of December too.

 So it was a real surprise to be singing and playing them for a good part of the last fortnight, especially as they were requested by the students.

Has Australia become more truly multicultural (despite the noisy racist minority) where we can sing songs from traditions other than our own for a cultural rather than religious experience? (For many years the blaring of Christmas themed songs and carols has been a feature in shopping centres – mainly to remind customers that it is the season of consuming. Few people have associated carols over the intercom with a perception of Australia as a Christian country). 

Perhaps we are now happily moving to a time where we can appreciate some of the really good tunes in Christmas carols without letting it become socially divisive.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Music Monday - Koolbardi Wer Wardong

The world’s first Noongar opera is coming to the Awesome Festival next week!

Western Australian music teachers are familiar with the sound and work of award-winning songwriters and storytellers, Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse, whose performances and workshops over recent years have inspired and educated many of us in aspects of Noongar language, culture and music. (Noongar is the language of the first nations people from the southwest of Western Australia.)

It is therefore very exciting to see that their opera, Koolbardi Wer Wardong is part of the upcoming Awesome Festival for children. The theme of the opera is described as one of sibling rivalry. “Koolbardi the Magpie and Wardong the Crow are two very proud, vain, jealous brothers. Watch as their cunning, their rivalry and one-upmanship brings them unstuck in spectacular fashion”.

We do hope that many of you get along to see this world first. The recommended age is 8+.

Also check out the whole program for the Awesome Festival. It is a wonderful opportunity to give kids of all ages an arts enriched holiday experience. (And how lucky are we here on the west coast of Australia that we can enjoy live performance at this time.)

https://awesomearts.com

https://www.waopera.asn.au/shows/events/koolbardi-wer-wardong/

https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/west-australian-opera-commissions-new-noongar-language-work/

https://www.ptt.wa.gov.au/venues/his-majestys-theatre/whats-on/koolbardi-wer-wardong/

https://www.artshub.com.au/2020/07/14/first-opera-sung-entirely-in-noongar-language-commissioned-in-wa-260729/

Schmigadoon!

I discovered this last night, after urgings from son Ben (not a particular music theatre fan) and conversations with several music theatre students in recent weeks.

It is an American musical comedy TV series of 6 episodes created by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. It premiered on Apple TV+ on 16th July this year.

Broadly, it is a parody of the Golden Age musical, Brigadoon, but it goes much further in also parodying famous musicals of the 1940s and 1950s – Oklahoma, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Finian’s Rainbow, Carousel, and many more. (You can play the game ‘spot the reference’).

The cast line-up is stellar- Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Martin Short, Aaron Tveit, Ariana DeBose – to name only a few. It’s as if all these stars wanted to fill their downtime during Covid – if so, lucky us!

At all levels it tries to parody the Technicolor palette from the golden years of Hollywood, while using a contemporary sensibility. It is firmly tongue in cheek.

It would be an interesting classroom challenge for music theatre students to identify, not just the sources, but also the cliches and habits of music theatre writers. 

Sidenote – will they ever parody Sondheim?

Music Monday - Broadway Junior Musicals

I have just had my first experience with a Broadway Junior musical, in this case, “Matilda”. Everything is provided – scripts, piano / vocal score, backing tracks with and without the vocal lines – and even instructions for bringing it all together. The cynical side of me approached the start of the rehearsal process thinking that it was a ‘paint by numbers’ approach to putting on a show. But I must admit that by the end of the process, I could see benefits, particularly for younger high school students doing their first show.

For starters, as inexperienced performers, there is so much to learn about standard theatre practice, eg signing in backstage, stage directions, the role of the stage manager, sound checks, tech rehearsals, etc. (Things which we take for granted but which 13 year olds take some time to remember!) Taking away the additional layer of the Sitzprobe and a live band / orchestra can be helpful.

In early rehearsals I encouraged the kids to sing along with the voices on the track, mainly to build confidence. Then I worked on the songs from the piano, with the students (who are all music theatre students) looking at the notation on their page. Once we returned to the track – now minus the voices – the songs were musically secure and ready for the next stage of thought changes, choices and so on – all the interpretive textual stuff.

I certainly would not want to see this format replace the more traditional approach we use for the senior school musicals at this school. But I have learned that there is a valuable place for them.

As a footnote, I recall my excitement many years ago, to receive an LP record “Music Minus One Piano” on loan from my piano teacher, Stephen Dornan, to practise Mozart’s C minor concerto K491. The excitement of having an orchestra in the room with me as I played was indescribable. These days, of course, we can all have backings of every shape and size from our phones.

Music Monday - And into another lockdown we go…

Today was the first of 3 days of stage one restrictions being reintroduced here in Western Australia, in response to an outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in Sydney and a case brought home to Perth by a traveller returned from the east coast. By 8pm the 3-day restrictions had developed into a 4-day lockdown from midnight. 

Australia has an embarrassingly low rate of vaccination – less than 5% of our population is fully vaccinated. Compare that with around 59% in Israel and 45% in the USA, to name just two of the many countries ahead of us. I sense that it’s not the anti-vaxxers here (though they are out in their minority with rattlings of ‘it’s a worldwide experiment’ etc), but more the  sense of ‘she’ll be right, mate’ complacency which comes from living in a country where the rate of infection has been relatively low throughout the pandemic. 

Our Australian government responded firmly and effectively at the start of the pandemic, following health advice rather than the political polls, to ensure that Australians stayed safe. Unfortunately, they took a too relaxed approach to rolling out the vaccines, contributing to our current situation.

So today at school, the students were back in masks, never ideal for singing. It is the last week of an 11-week term so as far as possible, I tried to make each voice lesson about the preparation for next term. Where singing had to occur, I encouraged the students to sing lightly and rest frequently if they felt too constrained behind their fabric. 

After school we ran a rehearsal of Matilda (Junior Version) as that performance is scheduled for the 2nd week of next term. Again, the kids sang lightly in masks while the director and I struggled to hear them – but at least they rehearsed the blocking, choreography and music accuracy.

Earlier in the school day, I couldn’t help observing, as I walked past the school gym, that around 30 students were exercising without masks – properly spaced, as the regulations require – but shouting and calling out to each other as they chased a basketball. This struck me as a metaphor for Australia’s response to Covid-19. The Arts are constantly locked down while large sporting events have still gone ahead. Are Covid-19 aerosols just more contagious when sung than when shouted out of someone’s mouth?

And so we start another lockdown. Everyone on the planet knows what to expect from that. Let’s hope that lockdown fatigue inspires more and more Australians to get vaccinated so that outbreaks in the future are significantly curtailed.

Music Monday - Enthralled in the moment

 Our grandson, William (aged 4 and three quarters, as he insists on telling us) was in the audience of the John Curtin College of the Arts production of Mary Poppins. Cousin Janet sneakily managed an iPhoto portrait as William watched, his face lit up by the reflected light from the stage.

He knew the words to songs like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. and sang along. 

He was amazed at the animals in the toy box coming to life. 

In the interval, he wriggled and danced (and spilt his bottle of water).

In the second half his attention waned a little (and he missed the spectacular Step in Time because he had to go to the toilet with his mum). He got back to his seat just in time for the reprise.

After the show, I took him backstage (I was one of the vocal directors on the show)  He shook hands with Bert whom he could name from the show.  

When he was taken out on the stage itself, behind the closed curtain, his hand gripping mine was tighter and tighter. The following day I asked him why he seemed nervous on the stage itself and he revealed that he was afraid that the curtain would open again and that he “didn’t know the words.” Cute - but in his childlike way, an understanding of the process.

We cannot overlook how important it is for kids to see theatre live, to experience the transformation in themselves when their eyes, ears and imaginations takes them somewhere different.

Nor, how important it is that before, during and after the experience, we share ways of making meaning of it. Before going to the production I sat down with him on a wet Sunday afternoon and we watched clips on YouTube of the songs. We then sat at the piano and sang through those songs from the score. And the day after the event, he was telling us to Step in Time. Step in time. as he beat the rhythm with his feet and mimicked the tap routine.

Music Monday - International Women's Day

On this International Women’s Day, I have been reflecting on gender differences in the various aspects of music and teaching activity I am involved in.

As a registered teacher, I am firmly part of a majority. In 2017-18 the ratio of female to male teachers in Australian government schools was 76% to 24%. ( www.abs.gov.au)

As a registered music teacher, the ratio of females increases further to around 82% female to 18% male. 

And in the world of singing teaching and our professional association in Australia, ANATS, the female members significantly outnumber the males. (www.anats.org.au)

Yet when we look at the statistics on singing performance in Australia, males dominate the scene. In radio, for example, solo female artists tend to make up about 28% of the top 100 most-played songs. This kind of statistic is reflected across all aspects of the industry – festival line-ups, board representation, awards, grants. 

How do we redress this imbalance? Certainly, there is much being achieved by passionate young musicians of all genders, but there is still a very long road ahead.

Finally, in a post that offers no solutions, I would like to commemorate the composer generally acknowledged to be one of the first female composers – Hildegard of Bingen (12th century).

Check out her biography on www.classicfm.com

Happy International Women’s Day!