Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a Second City music director? If you think playing the piano, writing and teaching songs, underscoring scenes, and improvising music sounds like fun (it is), you might make a great music director.
Clear, friendly explanations and recorded examples introduce each musical principle and encourage individual creativity. Masteryear Publishing is proud to present this guide to musical skills long considered mysterious and practically unteachable.
Step by step, author Michael Pollock explains the thinking process behind comedy accompaniment and musical direction in clear, simple language. Each concept is illustrated by [...]
This performance is perfect. Jenny applies every trick in the book to improvise a funny song, and takes complete possession of the audience. She begins with “Won’t you be my ?” and here comes the romantic power ballad.
This is an example of excitingly organic musical improv expertly tempered with solid technique to create a well-organized, theatrical piece. The sections are very clear:
You need something to sing about, something to launch a song. The audience is going to give it to you. Here are sample question you can use to get suggestions from them:
Imagine a train coming into the station-the engine is pulling a lot of cars, a lot of weight. It takes awhile for the train to come to a halt; it has to “start stopping” a certain amount of time before it actually does. This is analogous to the ending of a song. In order to bring a song comfortably and satisfyingly to a close, we need to do it gradually.
