Last week's practices were somewhat affected by the sad news of the demise of our Music Director's grandma. Here I was, going there to look for her so that I could wish her "Happy Birthday", only to be informed by our pianist Elena that Tracy wouldn't be coming that day.
Still, the show(or rather, the practice) must go on and Lex atarted with us again before Elena took over with the singing. The singing focus was to get the phrasing accurate. With Lex, we have begun dancing to the song as well.
We welcomed Tracy back on Wednesday and we started with her instead. I guess it was so that she could leave early for her grandma's wake, since she didn't stay back till the very end. We sang the first song and she has a new song for us to learn. It's so different from the first song. The first song was Broadway-ish, while this song is err... sound a bit Ah-Beng-ish:) Not as catchy as the first song, but still fun to learn because unlike the first song which has only 2 parts for harmonizing ,this one has 4. With 4 parts, the song seem to sound "rounder" compared to the first one. we all had to learn the chorus where we sang "pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa.... ya!" in 4 parts I thougth they(musical notes) we simple though it has an off-beat feel.
Again, Lex added a few more layers to the choreography we learned the night before, which was quite simple to follow. I can almost see how we would look at the Actors' Studio!
Friday night, I was thinking of taking pictures of the production team but unfortunately, Joe, Dato' Faridah & Rosheen were not around. We had Aple, our 2nd stage manager, in charge, together with Lex & Tracy.
Lex taught us the last bit of the choreography for our first song. It's beginning to appear that the guys would not be on stage for this song, since the moves are quite feminine... Either that, or we would need to cross dress for the song:)
I was looking forward to learn the 2nd song because earlier I had already looked at the music sheets and learn how the notes sound. Actually for baritone, I got arguably the easier part, compared with the tenors. It's like we only need to sing around 4-5 notes which were repetitive.
Tracy got us all to learn the song and by the end,we were enjoying ourselves because of the funny lyrics. I felt weird singing the line "Before they come between my thighs"... not going to tell you what the title is and what it's about. You will need to buy the tickets and watch the show!
Anyhow, we managed to get the gist of the song and Aple asked us to know the song by heart for the coming week's practice. So far I've got 80-90% sorted out. I should be 100% by Monday night.
Hopefully get to take pics of the team this week. Maybe will take pics of the cast as well for the following week.
Where work, passion & life collide
Monday, February 08, 2010
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Adam The Musical Week 1
And so, last Tuesday we started our practice for Adam the Musical.
I was a bit kiasu - I took the day off(part of my plan to clear my 2009 annual leave). I even left home to KLPAC at about 5.15pm. Reached Jalan Ipoh and had dinner at one of the stalls around 6pm. Still got lots of time left, and ended up going for round 2(dim sum) & round 3(Old Time White Coffee).
Nowadays, it's better to be very early then 5 mins late, no?
Almost all was on time - I guess nobody wanted a tongue lashing from our director Joe Hasham.
I managed to talk to a few people, including one Michael Chen who was recently in the show "The Swimmning Instructor". Incidently, Michael is now training Janis @ TNT Kickboxing.
First day wasn't much of a practice - we got the script for the show and did the reading. Took quite some time to finish but it did give us an idea how the show is going to be like.
Again, before we ended the night, we were reminded by Joe again that "There is only 1 director and nothing is more important than the production".
Wednesday was more interesting as we started with something I didn't expect to happen so quick - learning my first dance!
Stage manager Rosheen & Executive Producer Dato' Faridah Merican
We did some streching which included the Sun Salutation. Though I have never really done yoga before(the closest thing I ever did was BODYBALANCE), it was quite easy to follow our choreographer Lex since I've seen the moves so many times in our class audit(QCC).
Waiting for the practice to start
We then proceed to learn quite basic moves from Lex. The moves involves a bit of shoulder isolations(which took me 2 days to understand how to do them better). Thankfully, Lex did the mirror image method:)
More waiting
After we got the moves right, Lex then put in the CD and out comes Spice Girls' "Who Do You Think You Are" and we had to dance to the music!
Preparing to shake our booties!
I wasn't feeling confident about dancing again, and I began to wonder if I could pull it off.
Rolling the shoulders out, together with the arms
I started with quite few mistakes.
What have I gotten myself into?
That's Michael on the left
After doing it a few time, though, I began to adjust to the moves and eventually I was moveing rather well(or at least, I thought so). In fact, I was beginning to enjoy it:)
Lex looking pleased with the progress, apparently
After doing them a few times, Lex handed us over to Tracy our Music Director and we received our first song to learn. It's quite a Broadway-ish number and rather catchy too. In fact, I'm quite proud that a local song writer could do such a high quality number.
The practice was made simple with Tracy singing the melody for us. She was fantastic! The catchy tune is very easy to learn, but getting the phrasing correct is another challenge. Not to mention, we have to sing in parts to support the main singer Sandra.
Again I took leave on Friday. The practice started the same way with the warm ups and we had to do the dance again. This time, Lex added a few move arm/leg movements to the dance steps that we've learned on Wednesday(sort of like BODYJAM's layering, methinks). It wasn't that difficult to learn the additional moves once I've got Wednesday's moves right.
And again, we had to dance to "Who Do You Think You Are".... man, I feel like a Spice Boy!
Day 3 dance
Basically we've managed to learn the entire choreography for the first dance that night... unless Lex has something to add on to this week.
Tracy took over after that and we were divided into soprano, alto, tenor, bartione. Not surprisingly, I was in baritone. The good news was the guys got to sing the melody till the very end, where we sang the harmonizing part.
A few of us, including me, was still struggling with the phrasing but I am thankful that I could read the notes. Otherwise, it would be difficult to learn at home- so mom & dad did the right thing to send me to Yamaha Music School, despite me not keen on learning organ.
By the end of the night, Joe gave his pep talk again. He wanted us to learn the song over the weekend so that the next practice(today) we could do it without looking at the sheets.
Anyhow, I did my homework over the weekend and I can tell you that wifey can hum the tune already:)
Tonight we'll be practising again - hopefully I will not forget my phrasing and hopefully, I can impress Tracy and make her feel proud, coz today is her birthday!
I was a bit kiasu - I took the day off(part of my plan to clear my 2009 annual leave). I even left home to KLPAC at about 5.15pm. Reached Jalan Ipoh and had dinner at one of the stalls around 6pm. Still got lots of time left, and ended up going for round 2(dim sum) & round 3(Old Time White Coffee).
Nowadays, it's better to be very early then 5 mins late, no?
Almost all was on time - I guess nobody wanted a tongue lashing from our director Joe Hasham.
I managed to talk to a few people, including one Michael Chen who was recently in the show "The Swimmning Instructor". Incidently, Michael is now training Janis @ TNT Kickboxing.
First day wasn't much of a practice - we got the script for the show and did the reading. Took quite some time to finish but it did give us an idea how the show is going to be like.
Again, before we ended the night, we were reminded by Joe again that "There is only 1 director and nothing is more important than the production".
Wednesday was more interesting as we started with something I didn't expect to happen so quick - learning my first dance!
We did some streching which included the Sun Salutation. Though I have never really done yoga before(the closest thing I ever did was BODYBALANCE), it was quite easy to follow our choreographer Lex since I've seen the moves so many times in our class audit(QCC).
We then proceed to learn quite basic moves from Lex. The moves involves a bit of shoulder isolations(which took me 2 days to understand how to do them better). Thankfully, Lex did the mirror image method:)
After we got the moves right, Lex then put in the CD and out comes Spice Girls' "Who Do You Think You Are" and we had to dance to the music!
I wasn't feeling confident about dancing again, and I began to wonder if I could pull it off.
I started with quite few mistakes.
After doing it a few time, though, I began to adjust to the moves and eventually I was moveing rather well(or at least, I thought so). In fact, I was beginning to enjoy it:)
After doing them a few times, Lex handed us over to Tracy our Music Director and we received our first song to learn. It's quite a Broadway-ish number and rather catchy too. In fact, I'm quite proud that a local song writer could do such a high quality number.
The practice was made simple with Tracy singing the melody for us. She was fantastic! The catchy tune is very easy to learn, but getting the phrasing correct is another challenge. Not to mention, we have to sing in parts to support the main singer Sandra.
Again I took leave on Friday. The practice started the same way with the warm ups and we had to do the dance again. This time, Lex added a few move arm/leg movements to the dance steps that we've learned on Wednesday(sort of like BODYJAM's layering, methinks). It wasn't that difficult to learn the additional moves once I've got Wednesday's moves right.
And again, we had to dance to "Who Do You Think You Are".... man, I feel like a Spice Boy!
Basically we've managed to learn the entire choreography for the first dance that night... unless Lex has something to add on to this week.
Tracy took over after that and we were divided into soprano, alto, tenor, bartione. Not surprisingly, I was in baritone. The good news was the guys got to sing the melody till the very end, where we sang the harmonizing part.
A few of us, including me, was still struggling with the phrasing but I am thankful that I could read the notes. Otherwise, it would be difficult to learn at home- so mom & dad did the right thing to send me to Yamaha Music School, despite me not keen on learning organ.
By the end of the night, Joe gave his pep talk again. He wanted us to learn the song over the weekend so that the next practice(today) we could do it without looking at the sheets.
Anyhow, I did my homework over the weekend and I can tell you that wifey can hum the tune already:)
Tonight we'll be practising again - hopefully I will not forget my phrasing and hopefully, I can impress Tracy and make her feel proud, coz today is her birthday!
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