2018-03-11
【Aiden in English】 After a certain amount of time at school, certain classes just get really easy. It isn’t an easier course, but the sense of belonging grows. I think this effect is multiplied in bands and music in general since everyone can become more accustomed to playing in front of their peers. However, no matter how comfortable you get, music can always challenge you. While most no longer get embarrassed for messing up on their first attempt, it doesn’t look good if you don’t know music. This year for the pit orchestra, Pennbrook MS decided to rent a show from Broadway. It’s a show most of you should know. Really, it’s a musical, which isn’t something Pennbrook does often. It’s also called “Seussical”, a blend of at least seven Seuss books. It took me a while to get the gist of it because all the words were in song form.
Enter the problem. Our musical was rented from Broadway, which means hard music. Apparently, it wasn’t that bad for the cast. It only took them a day or two to figure out the overall sound of each song. The pit orchestra, lacking practice time together, continued to fall apart until the few rehearsals before opening night. So what was so hard?
I’m not too confident in what I can say about the play that isn’t copyrighted, but I’ll go for it anyway. The music is hard, mostly due to four things. First of all, there is an excessive amount of key changes. In a single song, which is usually a few pages long, the amount of sharps and flats that appear on the staff is incredible. This explains why the cast could breeze through the notes: they didn’t have to worry about seven sharps! Singing can be based on relations between notes, which isn’t possible on instruments, so no luck for the band there. Secondly, I don’t even think the beats-per-minute ever drops below 130. That probably isn’t true, but for most of the songs, the rhythmic feel was up-tempo constantly, which tires out the band a lot. In fact, I’m willing to say a run-through of the show is more mentally taxing than anything else. Your mind just gets tired of thinking about notes and upcoming solos. Speaking of which, I have three solos in the show in total, of which only one is longer than ten measures, and a plethora of solos. Thirdly, time signatures never seemed to be a problem for me. I mean, when I play the piano, I study time signatures in theory. There’s nothing to be afraid of, right? Right? Well, I was wrong. This experience alone has shown me 12/8, 6/4, 9/8, 1/2, and plenty of odder and rarely used signatures (except 12/8, which is extremely common). It made counting a mess, and the cues were always weird since there wasn’t an actual conductor’s score for the conductor. Finally, the most annoying thing of all was the length. I mentioned it earlier, but after twenty pages of music, you feel really tired. And then add another twenty. In total, the show contains 40 songs, each split into two to three sections. We cut around seven songs, but the idea is there: the show Seussical is long. I can’t stress how taxing it is to play for two and a half hours for four days straight and toss jazz rehearsal after certain days. I don’t even think these problems are that hard to deal with, but toss them all together, and you’ve got yourself a mess.
Now that it’s done, I actually really miss it. This will mark my final Pennbrook show, which is awesome to go out on a bang. The shows were all performed well, with an exception of a terrible mess-up on Friday night when the cast completely missed a cue (that happens a lot too). Regardless, we brushed that error off with two nice performances to end the season. Next year, the high school offers a pit program…sometimes. Nevertheless, it was a fun time, and I enjoyed it every night.
【红霞译文】
在学校久待一段时间，某些课程会变得相当简单，其实并非课程越来越容易，而是归属感增强，我觉得这种效应普遍适用于乐队和音乐领域，因为人人都能逐渐当着同伴的面演奏自如。然而，无论你多放得开，音乐总要向你挑战，即使不再为首次尝试出现失误而甚感羞愧，如果你对它一知半解，那么还是收获不大。
今年伴奏管弦乐队要演奏宾溪中学租赁的百老汇歌舞剧，很多人都知道这出戏，没错，它是一部音乐剧，并非宾溪中学经常干的把戏，被称为“苏斯狂想曲”，汇集了至少七部苏斯著作，让我花费不少心思才搞清作品原意，毕竟所有台词都是以歌曲的形式演唱出来的。
直击问题吧。我们的音乐剧是从百老汇租来的，言外之意音乐作品难度可观，对于演员来说倒没那么糟糕，只要花上几天功夫就能搞定每首歌曲基调，而伴奏管弦乐队则因缺乏合练机会，直到首场演出前几次预演依旧错误百出，究竟难在哪里呢？
出于版权原因，我不敢在此信口开河，只能针对性地说上几句，作品难度可以归纳为四个方面。第一，调式变化过多，一首歌通常光谱子就有几页长，五线谱上升降号此起彼伏，简直不可思议，这恰好说明演员为什么能够轻松自如地唱准音符：他们不必担心七个升号！歌曲可以按照音符之间的音程关系来演唱，而乐器弹奏谈何容易，因此乐队没法用音符来辨别歌的元素。第二，我觉得音乐速度没有低于每分钟130节拍的，或许不都是这样，但对多数歌曲来说，节奏感不断增加，乐队伴奏起来非常辛苦。实际上，参加这部音乐剧演出更需要做好精神准备，不然你对乐谱和随之而来的独奏部分唯恐避之不及。说到这里，我有三段独奏，其中只有一段独奏超过十个小节，同时还有很多不同配器的独奏曲。第三，拍号对我来说似乎永远不成问题，毕竟本人弹奏钢琴，其间免不了跟拍号打交道，犯得着担心拍号吗？对不？我大错特错，实践告诉我诸如12/8、6/4、9/8、1/2以及其它偶然使用的拍号（除了12/8例外，该拍号屡见不鲜）都给数拍子带来厄运，况且开始切入部分总是怪怪的，甚至没有谱子确切地告诉指挥怎么做。最后，令人讨厌至极的就是歌曲太多，前面我曾提到，当奏完20页乐谱之后，你真的精疲力竭，后面还有20页等着翻篇，全剧总共40首歌曲，每首又分成两到三个部分，幸亏已经剪掉七首，但归根结底：“苏斯狂想曲” 冗长，我难以说清两个半小时接连表演四天的剧目怎么搅和爵士乐队排练时间，本来对之不以为然，但当所有的事情都往一起凑，准保叫你无所适从。 眼下“苏斯狂想曲”结束了，我反倒十分想念它，这将是我在宾溪中学参演的最后一出戏，值得好好庆祝。演出进展顺利，仅有星期五晚场因演员拿捏不准开唱的地方（其实经常发生）而造成混乱，幸好接下来两场劲爆一扫先前不快，并给整个表演画上圆满句号。明年时逢高中组织伴奏管弦乐队……并非年年承办，不管今后如何，这段开心的日子让我每晚乐在其中。 Today in History(历史上的今天): 2017: Eighth-Grade Pit Orchestra(初三伴奏管弦乐队) 2017 Twp Rec B-ball Quarterfinal(2017年乡村娱乐篮球四分之一赛) 
Seussical @ PBMS (宾溪初中·音乐剧《苏斯狂想曲》) 
Pit Band (伴奏乐队 03-11-2018) 
Seussical @ PBMS (宾溪初中·音乐剧《苏斯狂想曲》) Crosslinks(相关博文): 2017 Winter Concert of Ninth Grade(2017年高一冬季音乐会) 2016 Winter Concert of Eighth Grade(2016初三冬季音乐会)
2016 Seventh Grade Spring Concert(2016年初二春季音乐会) 2015 Winter Concert of Seventh Grade(2015年初二冬季音乐会) 2015 Sixth Grade Spring Concert(2015年初一春季音乐会) 9th Grade(高中一年级) |
