Music - Transitions between scenes

   On Monday 23rd, we were told that we would be having to play in between the individual scenes.  This came as a surprise, since most people didn't have their instruments with them that day and we were under a week away from the actual show. So, we started by looking at the each scene, what sort of scene they were and then tried to fit our already existing pieces of music from the play into those scenes to work on ones more people had their instruments with them. We decided to use already existing pieces of music was simply because we didn't have too much time to work on this, and so it would be easier to modify some music everyone already knows rather than try to come up with new music.
   On Wednesday we continued to work on these pieces of music and also recorded them(link). The constant worry was with so many songs, was that everyone had to learn them and memorize them in just couple of days AND fit each instrument together. So, on Thursday afternoon Helen came out to help us and cut the songs down to five different songs we would be playing on repeat.

1. Happy-Sing-Along
2. Drinking with us (instrumental version of Wind & The Rain)
3. Heta's Lullaby (ukulele and humming version of Come Away Death)
4. (a capella O mistress mine, no lyrics)
5. Hey Robin Jazz

   Of course there was a couple of times when we switched the order of these songs according to the scene before them, just to make them fit a little better, and one of the transitions was when I sang the song 'I am gone sir' at the end of act 4 scene 2. Having only these five songs to work on really made it easier for us all to make them sound good as a group, but also a lot simpler and clearer for the audience to not have a scramble of half-finished tunes. Everyone of the musician already knew four of the songs, and the fifth one(Happy-Sing-Along) was very simple to learn and only required the ukulele and some of the singer, it made it faster for us to learn all of the songs. On Friday we were just thrown into the run troughs and do the songs half-rehearsed. I think this really helped us to just get our focus in and learn the songs on the spot, and by the second run trough we had pretty much perfected the transitions between scenes.  We were also allowed to have music sheets with us during the performance to helps us remember the cues for the songs. 

   I have to say, I am very proud of all of the musicians. Creating the transitions came as such a surprise, but everyone took it so professionally and worked hard to make it happen. I also think this was a very good representation of what could happen in real life. Things come up and things have to be changed, cut or created last minute in theatre and we need to learn how to think on our feet or at least make the best of the situation and work with what we got.