From Mick Napier's Second City Directing Notes 1996
Music
Every scene's a song. It has it's own musicality. I often tap my notebook with my pen to feel the rhythm of a scene. I can hear, see, or feel when it abruptly changes pitch or goes off beat or changes key. A scene can do all of those things but it must be a strong choice to have it do so......just like a song. Otherwise, the scene must adhere to it's initial declaration of chord progression, tempo, and lyric continuity. The music's point of view must stay intact yet always surprise within it's construct. We want the music of the scene to jolt us, but it must be a familiar tune......the familiar tune that we learned just now from those humans on stage. By the time the scene's over, we can sing it's chorus.....but just barely......we have to go on to another song. The show is a collection of songs. The show is an album. This album has many different songs with many different lengths and energies and tempos. At intermission we flip the album. Each word, action, light cue, or transition is a note. The notes go together to form a song and the songs go together to form an album. Between the notes there is silence. There must be rests. Carefully chosen rests. It's a live concert eight times a week and the instruments are the actors. Instruments that write their own songs and play their own music. And what wonderful songs they write if you just let them play.
Every scene's a song. It has it's own musicality. I often tap my notebook with my pen to feel the rhythm of a scene. I can hear, see, or feel when it abruptly changes pitch or goes off beat or changes key. A scene can do all of those things but it must be a strong choice to have it do so......just like a song. Otherwise, the scene must adhere to it's initial declaration of chord progression, tempo, and lyric continuity. The music's point of view must stay intact yet always surprise within it's construct. We want the music of the scene to jolt us, but it must be a familiar tune......the familiar tune that we learned just now from those humans on stage. By the time the scene's over, we can sing it's chorus.....but just barely......we have to go on to another song. The show is a collection of songs. The show is an album. This album has many different songs with many different lengths and energies and tempos. At intermission we flip the album. Each word, action, light cue, or transition is a note. The notes go together to form a song and the songs go together to form an album. Between the notes there is silence. There must be rests. Carefully chosen rests. It's a live concert eight times a week and the instruments are the actors. Instruments that write their own songs and play their own music. And what wonderful songs they write if you just let them play.