I've listen to this a few times now - just haven't had time to post for a while. I like this quite a bit. Maybe a little clichéd but fun (of course there are the few twists Phil spoke of too). As usual you do a great job making the the instruments sound, well, like instruments...
Looking forward to the next installment.
Trent P. McDonald
Raymond, thanks much - I love the Scott Joplin reference! This is sure a far cry from the intricate and cerebral dimensions you're currently charting in your compositions, isn't it though? That's great testimony to your wide range of tastes. Even though you're most interested in more serious music, you can still enjoy the simple, earthy pleasures of these tunes I wrote for my "Sawyer." I think that's great!Originally Posted by Raymond62
Randy
AH HU! Another fun tune from the pen of R. Bowser. I can see the actors on stage having a lot of fun with this project.
Thanks for posting Randy.
Jay
My loyal listener, Trent - Thanks for the post. Glad you're still enjoying "Sawyer." You have a good grasp on what the concept is with these songs. Familiar, predictable, singable - in fact, "predictable" was one of the requests from the producer who asked me to write this show. Of course I can't resist having a least a few surprises sprinkled throughout, but basically, they're just up-beat little tunes.
Thanks for listening!
Randy
Maybe, using your words, "beat-up little tunes" but you make it sound great.
Trent P. McDonald
Hey Randy,
That was fun. Thanks for posting that! Very nice work on the harmonica. Brilliant idea to use a wah plugin.
- Jamie Kowalski
All Hands Music - Kowalski on the web
The Ear Is Always Correct - Writings on composition
Hiya, Jay - Thanks for the post. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing a cast having fun with the show. The particularly talented, highly theatrical group I originally wrote it for would make this a real audience pleaser. Hopefully I'll have news about that coming to be during the course of 2012.
Randy
Hi Randy,
Have been listenin’ to “Tom Sawyer” the past couple of weeks!
After you provided me with the links to the first three songs that I had missed, I downloaded those songs along with the one I jumped on with (“The Bosses”), and now, the fifth one as well, “Best Friends”.
I’m really enjoying this! It’s great to load up the five songs together, in order, and have a ‘cast album’ listen (even if it’s essentially a one-man show at this point! LOL). The songs are all individually enjoyable, but the collective vibe of the five played together is right on point; there is a most definite mid-1800’s mid-Americana vibe going on. I think it fits the subject very nicely … great job!
What I had mentioned to you previously in my comments for “The Bosses”, applies now to all five numbers as well. The songs all sound quite ‘theatrical', what with the start-stop backgrounds, lots of meter and rhythm shifts, and bouncing between sung and recited lines within the numbers.
The numbers are all ‘showy’, but without being pretentious; the simplicity you mentioned you were striving for is intact, although I don’t think you could call these songs ‘simple’ … it’s just good music giving the impression of simplicity. Since this is to be performed by young adults and not 12-yr olds, that vibe should come off perfectly in a staged performance.
The orchestrations compliment the numbers nicely too. I love the intimacy of using a small ensemble, and the banjo and the harmonica do a lot to keep it feeling ‘down home’. Really piqued my interest w/ the Sonar wah-wah plug-in … I need to try it out myself!
When I listened to “I Can Hardly Wait”, I immediately guessed Russian! I actually went and You-Tube’d and listened to “Midnight In Moscow”, one of my all-time favorite Russian-flavored pop songs. I enjoyed the bluesy prologue to “Whitewash”, especially the line … “I could charm the moon right down from the sky” … is that yours or Twain’s? It’s killer! The last song posted does a nice job of showing the bond between Tom and Huck.
Only question/comment is on the opener, “St. Petersburg”: Do you think there’s enough time between the very short instrumental intro and the first “Tom … Tom Sawyer” (5 sec) … would the curtain have time to even open, or, can it take place as the curtain is opening? Minor point that’s easily worked out during your first walk-thru.
Good luck with the rest of this project … looking forward to No. 6!
Best regards,
Frank
Thanks, Jamie - Adapting "Tom Sawyer" as short stage musical was my biggest project in 2011. It kept me happy and amused - great fun to work with Twain's wonderful novel, and to write some honest-to-goodness Songs for a change. As I worked, I enjoyed the challenge of keeping things as repetitive and simple as I could, even though I often got frustrated by the restraints I was working under.
The harmonica! - Getting that wah action going on it did help fill in the blanks in the static samples. I've used that technique a few times, and it's always a bit tricky - The wah plug-in from Cakewalk that I used also has EQ controls that need adjusting while working the data. I'd like to get even better at it so that a harmonica could be even more solo-worthy, and more prominent in a mix.
Thanks again, glad you had a listen.
Randy
My dear Mr. D - Your post is so upbeat, energetic, and positive - I finally now have time to sit down and properly reply. wow--Your post is so great, and I'm getting a good energy boost again from re-reading it.
I'm inserting replies, and answers to questions in your original post:
That's great - you got yer "one-man-band cast album" going on! hehe - Thanks for letting me know you used the links I gave you, so you could catch up on this project. You're such a good audience member, I didn't want you get an incomplete version of the album!
That's cool that you feel a 19th Century vibe going on, and I think "vibe" is the operative word. I needed the music to have a pop sensibility, with drums and bass, and the music is only an abstraction, a "vibe" suggested of the period. I wouldn't have minded putting something together which is more literal and authentic to the period, but I do appreciate the modern eclecticism which has been a hallmark of modern musical theatre for sometime now. That's what gave me "permission" to write these songs in the way I have. The score for "Phantom" is a good example - It doesn't disappoint the audience's expectation that there be a quasi-Gothic, Grand Opera feel to it - but there are drums, synths, and many modern touches to the music.
I think you know now that some specifics about the show's style were dictated to me. It needed to be a one act show, lots of up-beat music, primarily pop in style, light in tone etc. It was a fun challenge to work within the producer's guidelines.
Again, you show what a careful, thoughtful listener you are. Some of your text here could be adapted well in promotional literature!
You're referring also to how I've made mention probably on all the "Sawyer" threads that these are just "simple" little songs. You're right that they could even be simpler, without the theatrical sensibility that gives them a bit more sophistication than they could have otherwise. I know that one thing I always think of when I put these up, is that our Listening Room is mostly filled with serious instrumental work, and I feel like putting a warning label on these "Listener beware - Not our usual bill of fare!" hehe - And I know from experience that quite a few Forum members aren't inclined to care for vocals, or "songs" of most any sort. And so, with some self consciousness, I add the caveat that these are "just simple songs."
The way it works out, of course, is that people who don't want to hear music outside of what they usually listen to just skip on by. And that, of course, is just fine.
The instrumentation keeps expanding as the show goes on, I mean that the variety of instruments keeps increasing. Someone pointed out on one of these threads that what's being heard sounds like it'd be difficult for a live band to perform. Quite correct. What I have in the demos would actually be impossible - the band would end up very large. That's because in this current form of the music, my only concern was to produce instrumental backing tracks that can be used by the theatre in performance. That gave me wonderful leeway - I want strings to come in, I just go for it. Strings could be
adapted to a keyboardist's score, but it would be an adaptation. The number of string instruments would need to be cut down etc In fact, I'll need to develop a separate score for live playing, it's just not a high priority at this point. Electric guitar comes in a bit later!
Jamie "Skysaw" liked the wah/harmonica concept too. Try it! Turn the auto wah off, and automate the parameters. Used in combination with the vibrato control in the Garritan Harmonica, done with AfterTouch, and you can get some much more natural results than if the patch is played with just volume control. Glad you like that tip.
hehe--yeah, when I worked on "I Can Hardly Wait," I assembled a folder full of current Russian pop-children's songs, heard that they were mostly popped-up folk, and then had fun letting those influence the approach on that tune.
The opening verse of "Whitewash"--thanks for mentioning it. The first version of the song didn't have that, but then I saw the need for Tom to have an inner-monologue as he first settles back to watch his work being done for him. And, instead of having a conventional spoken soliloquey, I saw the chance for a sung monologue. After trying several different approaches, basing that verse on 16 bar blues turned out to be what worked.
"I could charm the moon..." Glad you like that line! So do I - That's me, not Twain. One of the really fun things of writing vocal songs, is walking around with bits of melodies in your head, and ad-libbing whatever comes to mind, based on the situation - and eventually editing the ideas down to the few that survive as lyrics. That line is one that somehow just popped up after I had the first part, "Oh I'm a clever guy..."--and I felt I wanted to end on a rhyming couplet - soon, I was at that line with the moon and the sky--and I was happy. Thanks for pointing that one out.
Ah! Good question. As with the entire script, when I wrote the opening, I was visualizing the show on the stage of this particular theatre group I was writing for. I pictured the curtain being closed at the top of the show. Then on her first line, "Tom Sawyer!"--Aunt Polly either suddenly steps out from the center slit in the grand drapes, or just sticks her head out holding the curtain tight under her chin. Then, immediately, the company starts coming on in front of the curtains, from around the corners at far left and right, and down the aisles. Simultaneously the curtain starts opening, doing a reveal of the set, and isn't finished opening until the first dialogue section, "Hey! Don't crowd me." That makes for a very active, visualizing interesting start of the show.
They sometimes don't use the curtain at all, like a lot of theatres. If they wanted the set to be in view before the audience comes in, a variation of the opening stage could be with Aunt Polly's first line being done from the back of the house. She'd call out Tom's name, then start barging down the aisle as the company starts pouring on stage.
In any case, the show would start immediately with the first measure of music. The first version of the staging I described is my preference, with the drapes closed, and Polly having that sudden entrance, either full body or head only. I like the reveal of the set rather than having everything in place before hand.
Scripts need to keep stage directions brief, to-the-point, so that directors and designers aren't being dictated to - they need to come up with their own solutions. So here's the way this opening looks in the script, except none of the stage formatting survives in this C&P:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"TOM SAWYER" 1.
ACT I
SCENE 1
St. Petersburg, Missouri, U.S.A.
Mid-19th century. A street.
(NOTE: All locations are
suggested with a minimum of
pieces, and only with lights in
some cases.
The general impression should be
of a sunny, rural, woodsy
environment.
MUSIC: “St. Petersburg.”
AUNT POLLY [40’S-60’S, IMMACULATE
AND PLAIN] Steps out from behind
the grand drape.)
POLLY
Tom! Tom Sawyer!
(TOWNSPEOPLE [THATCHER, MUFF and
the entire company] enter from all
sides as the curtain opens
revealing the suggestion of a
small town street.
TOM SAWYER [12-15, in worn, but
clean clothes] is seen running
across the stage, looking for a
place to hide.)
TOWNSPEOPLE
1) “ST. PETERSBURG MISSOURI”
THAT BOY RUNS LIKE THE DICKENS
WHEN HE HEARS HIS DEAR AUNT POLLY
POLLY
TOM SAWYER!
TOWNSPEOPLE
THAT BOY GETS IN MORE TROUBLE
I DECLARE, BY GUM BY GOLLY
(The TOWNSPEOPLE move to either
side, revealing TOM and THE BULLY
[same age as Tom, taller] trying
to get past each other.)
TOM
Hey, don't crowd me.
BULLY
Knock off my hat. I dare ya.
TOM
Yeah?
BULLY
Yeah.
(They wrestle. TOM soon has THE
BULLY pinned to the ground.)
Thank you Much for your juicy reply, Frank - It's been great fun giving you a full reply.
I shall return with more of "Sawyer"--!
Randy
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