Rehearsal On "Urinetown" Leads To Heavy Sleep
Yesterday was pretty strange, I must say. I had some ideas about what I wanted to do with my afternoon, ready to ask Will if I could duck out of the rehearsal. The only reason I didn't necessarily want to go to it at first is because I didn't know the music that well, I'd have to bring my digital piano, and it'd be a big chunk of the afternoon.
Right as I was going to call him, he calls me and asks if I'm still going to the rehearsal. I told him, "Well, I didn't have a lot of time to practice, I don't know..." But he said that they wanted to do a full run-thru, and everyone had been there since nine o'clock in the morning, working on the set, so it'd be great if I could help out. I caved in and thought, "It's the least I can do."
Nearing two o'clock--when he wanted me to be there--I packed my digital piano up, stuck it in the car, and headed over to the rental home where everyone was rehearsing. Everyone was outside working on the set, which was mainly just a backdrop made out of wood. I brought everything in and set it up. Once they all had changed into their costumes and we were all ready, we started reading through the songs.
Will gave me all sorts of cues, when to vamp, when to tremolo a note, and all sorts of things like that. I had a nice set up: it was spacious, the sound was conveniently heard by everyone, and I had a lot of light from a lamp that was to the right of me. They had some chocolate brownies in the house, so I took part in eating one of them while they were going over some lines.
With the near-three hours we spent on it, we only got through six songs (Act I). A little after 5:30 PM I called my mom to pick me up. In the time it took her to get there, Will and I ran over a few more things in different songs and packed up my digital piano. I got home and had it all set up again around 6:30 PM. (On the way home we stopped at Little Caesar's for two large pizzas - $10.)
At about seven o'clock I listened to the CD that Mrs. Stuart had recorded of the majority of the musical--sight reading it for the first time. It's pretty amazing that she is such a good sight reader, being able to play it probably 90% flawlessly the very first time--no joke, it's insane. Listening to that CD helped me to understand certain parts I was uneasy about at first, and from abotu 7:30 - 8:15 PM I practiced various parts of the musical score.
Then I just layed down on my bed for about half an hour, not listening to music or anything, just relaxing. I soon dozed off after that, and didn't wake up until nine o'clock this morning. Was it really necessary for my body to endure over twelve hours of rest? Apparently so. Hopefully rest can stick with you for awhile, so that if I get a ton of rest during this Christmas break, it'll save up and expell itself throughout the months of January and February while a whole ton of things in my life occur.
Musicals are a whole ton of fun, I'm realizing (not that I didn't already know that). I'm hoping to do countless amounts of musicals in my lifetime, even though I've only completely one so far, and that was a big step. On the piano, for every musical that you sight read and learn the music for, it will continually boost you to become a better sight reader and performer; that's my main focus for these musicals. We'll see how "Urinetown" turns out, and in January/February, how "The Wiz" turns out.
~Chris
Right as I was going to call him, he calls me and asks if I'm still going to the rehearsal. I told him, "Well, I didn't have a lot of time to practice, I don't know..." But he said that they wanted to do a full run-thru, and everyone had been there since nine o'clock in the morning, working on the set, so it'd be great if I could help out. I caved in and thought, "It's the least I can do."
Nearing two o'clock--when he wanted me to be there--I packed my digital piano up, stuck it in the car, and headed over to the rental home where everyone was rehearsing. Everyone was outside working on the set, which was mainly just a backdrop made out of wood. I brought everything in and set it up. Once they all had changed into their costumes and we were all ready, we started reading through the songs.
Will gave me all sorts of cues, when to vamp, when to tremolo a note, and all sorts of things like that. I had a nice set up: it was spacious, the sound was conveniently heard by everyone, and I had a lot of light from a lamp that was to the right of me. They had some chocolate brownies in the house, so I took part in eating one of them while they were going over some lines.
With the near-three hours we spent on it, we only got through six songs (Act I). A little after 5:30 PM I called my mom to pick me up. In the time it took her to get there, Will and I ran over a few more things in different songs and packed up my digital piano. I got home and had it all set up again around 6:30 PM. (On the way home we stopped at Little Caesar's for two large pizzas - $10.)
At about seven o'clock I listened to the CD that Mrs. Stuart had recorded of the majority of the musical--sight reading it for the first time. It's pretty amazing that she is such a good sight reader, being able to play it probably 90% flawlessly the very first time--no joke, it's insane. Listening to that CD helped me to understand certain parts I was uneasy about at first, and from abotu 7:30 - 8:15 PM I practiced various parts of the musical score.
Then I just layed down on my bed for about half an hour, not listening to music or anything, just relaxing. I soon dozed off after that, and didn't wake up until nine o'clock this morning. Was it really necessary for my body to endure over twelve hours of rest? Apparently so. Hopefully rest can stick with you for awhile, so that if I get a ton of rest during this Christmas break, it'll save up and expell itself throughout the months of January and February while a whole ton of things in my life occur.
Musicals are a whole ton of fun, I'm realizing (not that I didn't already know that). I'm hoping to do countless amounts of musicals in my lifetime, even though I've only completely one so far, and that was a big step. On the piano, for every musical that you sight read and learn the music for, it will continually boost you to become a better sight reader and performer; that's my main focus for these musicals. We'll see how "Urinetown" turns out, and in January/February, how "The Wiz" turns out.
~Chris