I’m getting back into playing the piano more regularly and my fascination with musical theatre music has been reignited. Blame it on the fact that my theatre company, Top Shelf Theatre Company, has just gotten the rights to Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Blame it on the fact that I FINALLY have a piano in the house. Either way, I’m loving it.
Now, as a musician and a teacher, I have to say that I love the music of both Sondheim and Schwartz, or as I call them, the “Stephens” of musical theatre. My hands are getting quite the workout from trying to play arrangements of their compositions. I’ve been learning Agony from Into the Woods and a very interesting discussion has ignited between myself and a student about the theoretical implications given by the harmony. Personally, I’ve always found it difficult to find the first vocal note in Agony, while he says that it’s the only note he can here. Granted, the note is buried in the middle of an Fmaj9 chord, so I think it could go either way. The idea that the arrangement on the piano doesn’t contain the melody note stacked on top has become foreign to me in recent years due to the prevalence of the “Piano/Vocal/Guitar” arrangements of piano music that have the melody built into the piano arrangement. I am intrigued and impressed by the musicians whose job it is to listen to an orchestral arrangement and compile it into the P/V/G format. However, I have to ask why the chosen voicing are often so hard to actually play quickly. More on this as I go, but I’m currently working on Agony/Sondheim, For Good/Schwartz, Corner of the Sky/Schwartz, and Bohemian Rhapsody/Mercury. Dueling Pianos, here I come. 