How Do You Write Music for a Musical?

Hoe schrijf je musical-muziek?

Ever considered penning your own original music for a musical? Then you’ve probably already noticed what a challenge it really is. In this blog, we take a look at how show tunes are put together and what separates a musical number from your average pop song or film score. Fix yourself a drink, sit back, relax, and allow the Bax Music theatre to take all you ambitious composers and curious musical-lovers on a tour of how musical music happens.

What’s a Musical?

A musical is essentially a story played out in action and dialogue as well as singing and dancing. If you’re watching a show where almost every word of the dialogue is also sung, then you’re probably watching an opera, however there are some light crossovers, of which The Phantom of the Opera is a very well-known example. To really capture that traditional Broadway musical style, you need to really know your stuff, but we’ll try to take a snapshot of the whole deal. Before we go on, let it be known: there are a tonne of musicals out there, and the boundaries of what make a musical a musical are actually quite fluid, so to make things easier to digest, I’ll start by condensing a couple of the details to help simplify everything.

The Genres

When you really know about musicals, you realise that every musical is, in fact, its own genre but if you view them all in broader terms, you can define a few different musical genres. While nothing is simply black and white in the world of musicals, most productions fall somewhere between the following two extremes:

Broadway

By far the most well-known form is the Broadway musical, which always involves a big, theatrical production with a full orchestra and a collection of big and ostentatious, often very filmic songs. Some of the best known Broadway musical titles include The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. Then you have the lesser-known but just as good titles like The Secret Garden. Looking mainly at popularity, The Phantom of the Opera also falls into this category, even though it does famously feature very little pure dialogue. Then you have the more poppy productions like Chess which featured music penned by ABBA, and also sits under the Broadway umbrella (even though it includes cinematic score and the songs are heavily laden with synthesizers). Then there are the animated musicals, like a lot of Disney films including Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King etc. which also all have the style of Broadway musicals (hence the later stage production of The Lion King).

Pop

The second main genre has less of the theatricality of the Broadway musical. ‘Pop’ musicals have a more modern edge and feature songs that have a clear, fully-baked modern feel to them. Great examples are Mamma Mia (also featuring the earlier work of ABBA) and Avenue Q, which are both written around existing pop songs, or songs that are either only lightly inspired by or completely side-step the more theatrical Broadway tradition.

Broadway vs. Pop

The first of our two genres, which I will definitively name Broadway for ease, is a pretty tough one. To really tackle it, you’re going to need some extensive knowledge of orchestration and film music. You also need to already have a feel for and ability to shift between harmonies and styles. Our second genre, which we’ve condensed down to ‘pop’, is a little ‘easier’ because it deals with simply writing songs within the context of popular music. For many composers, this will be a bit more feasible because you can essentially write for any group of instruments: synthesizers, guitars, drums and the like. However, Broadway and pop are our two extremes, so before we go any further, allow me to attempt to point out the difference between a standard musical number and a pop song.

Stillness Or Progression?

Whether the music is signalling ‘stillness’ or ‘progression’ are choices that fall on the writer as well as the composer, but they’re interesting points to raise. The question is: what’s happening in your musical the moment that the song starts? Is the story within a progression phase or is everything standing still so the audience can take stock of the action that’s just occurred? In a musical, you’re often balancing still-songs and progression-songs. If you’re marking an event within the musical that really moves the story along, then something cinematic and vocal is required and this kind of song requires the composer to put on a different hat than they would when writing a thoughtful song that marks a moment of stillness and reflection.

What is a ‘Progression Song’?

The perfect illustration of a song that aids the progression of the story is to see it as a journey – sometimes a literal journey, where the central character or characters travel from one place to another and experience new things, all of which can be incorporated into your song. I Have Confidence from The Sound of Music is such a ‘progression song’ but you can also see the ‘journey’ as some kind of change or evolution, and a clear example of a song like this is A Man Has Dreams from Mary Poppins, in which the perspective of George Banks is transformed during the course of the song.

What is a ‘Stillness Song’?

A ‘stillness song’ can either mark a thoughtful moment of reflection, or simply a fun interlude that expands on the relationships and characters in the story. An excellent example of this is another Mary Poppins classic, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. This is a typical song that serves more as decoration and doesn’t necessarily progress the story or change the characters in any meaningful way.

The Difference Between a Musical Number and a Pop Song

As I’ve already mentioned, some musicals feature pure pop songs, but a song is always a song, right? Actually, no. There’s a big difference between your typical musical number and a standard pop song, and while those differences are big, don’t forget that when it comes to writing your musical soundtrack, you can go anywhere between the two extremes.

Dynamics

The dynamics of most pop songs don’t usually move around all that much. This isn’t a criticism, it’s simply a fact that’s dictated by the way we listen to music. Generally, pop songs need to be able to serve as background music, so they actually need to maintain a fairly consistent volume level. If you’ve ever tried to listen to a piece of classical music in the car, you’ll notice that the dynamics can get so quiet, you might forget the radio is even switched on, which is why pop music is the perfect soundtrack for a road trip. Traditionally, musical songs are performed in a theatre, where every member of the audience is fully focussed on the music, so there are no distractions – exactly the kind of place where you can perform music with a lot of rising and falling dynamics.

Complexity

Pop songs also tend to be fairly straightforward and often include predictable chord progressions made up of just a few chords. Again, I’m not trying to criticise pop music. Far from it. You can do a lot with just a few chords and, it’s exactly the simplicity of pop that not only makes it work as good radio and background music, but also makes it irresistible. But when it comes to writing the songs for a musical, your audience is likely to expect more complexity, like a more layered production and also a bit more more than just a familiar chord progression. The structure can also be more extensive, so you’re free to break away from the standard ‘V, V, C, R, B, C’ formula (Verse, Chorus, Break). Musical songs can also feature lavish instrumental sections, marking the moments when, for example, the actors are too busy dancing, fighting, running back and forth across the stage, or kissing to be doing any singing.

Decoration

Continuing on from the point above: there’s less space for complexly layered instrumentation and extra frills in pop music. This is largely dictated by the target audience that the music has been written for. Pop music also grew up in the small band tradition, where the only instrumentation you had to work with was maybe two guitars, a bass, drum and vocals, so the focus is on the essentials rather than on embellishments. In musicals, because it’s basically a vocal version of film music, you have plenty of room to add decorative elements, and orchestras are the ideal medium for exactly the kind of decoration you’re likely to need. For example: an accent added by flutes or a piccolo; a violin solo; and extra low-pitched double bass and trombone swells, heralding the start of a chorus. It’s these kinds of details that will give the music something special and let the audience know that they’re experiencing something extraordinary – in the truest sense of the word. As the composer, you can even approach compositions for a musical in the same way as you would orchestral music. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re forced to stick to the traditionals of classical music. The song Music by John Miles is largely orchestral and yet you’ll still regularly hear it on the radio.

Vocal Quality

I’m in no way looking down on pop, but it’s a known fact that a lot of pop artists sound as good as they do on record because of the magic tricks you can perform in recording studios. On stage, some artists even lip-synch with nothing more than backing tracks and dancers. The bottom line is that you can’t expect the earth from some pop artists when performing live. Because theatre musicals are generally performed live as a rule, their success is dependent on singers who are able to deliver a consistent performance – often more than once a day. While backing tracks are now technically possible, the advantage of performing with a live orchestra is that they can respond musically to unforeseen situations. For example, the conductor is able to slow or speed up the tempo if necessary. The complexity and diversity of musical music is also broader: you can expect a musical vocalist to have a wider vocal range simply because they are more likely to have undergone formal training. Listen to A Piece of Sky from Yentle from beginning to end and ask yourself how many pop singers would be able to perform it as well as Barbra does here? In other words, when you’re writing for a musical, you can expect a lot from your vocalists, so you can make things challenging! Go nuts!

Vocal Interaction

In pop songs, there is often just a single voice, so everything is made very clear. You do get the occasional duet, but as a general rule, both voices sing the same lyrics with some harmony variations. The same does apply to musicals, but because the story is generally about more than one person, there are also a lot of songs that are performed by an ensemble of voices. A number of actors/vocalists, maybe supported by a choir, often sing together or one after the other – or even both within one song. There can also be instances where different voices are singing different lyrics at the same time. This is the art, which can make it quite a challenge to arrange a song in such a way that the focus of the audience is exactly where you want it to be. You can pull it off by directing one group to repeat an earlier passage (the chorus, for example) while the other groups sing something new, which sort of forces the audience to focus on the new addition to the piece while ignoring the rest. Another option is to hold a sung word for a long time, with no specific closure to it (and by ‘no specific closure’ I mean the word itself, so a word like ‘sea’ will work better than a word like ‘seat’). So one singer or group can draw out a long note, holding it for a couple of bars while another singer or group sings a different passage. A great example of this kind of vocal interaction is in the song I Heard Someone Crying from The Secret Garden, which includes vocals sung in series (one after the other) and in parallel (at the same time).

The Difference Between Musical Music & Film Music

The biggest and probably the most obvious difference between film music and musical music is that film music plays a more supporting, background role. The fact that you’re unlikely to leave the cinema whistling the soundtrack isn’t a failure of the film you just saw. This is partly because the structure of film music isn’t always that clear. Film music has an atmospheric function that rarely features the earworms of pop and musical numbers and, while this kind of background music can still happen in musicals (maybe during a passage that serves as an overview, when the scene is being set, or during a piece of dialogue or a voice-over) most musical music has a recognisable song structure. The huge advantage of this is that, if the songs are good, then it’s likely that the background music is also good because the instrumental passages can be based on the songs, making them fade less into the background.

An Example from Les Misérables

Below, you can see a performance of the song Bring Him Home from Les Misérables and below that, a part of The Sewers scene from the same musical which features an instrumental piece based on the same song.

An Example from Mary Poppins

The various songs that feature in a musical can also be reworked and used as the overture, just like in the opening of Mary Poppins:

The Disney Formula

The proven method of using songs to propel a story and basing an entire film soundtrack on the songs is essentially the Disney formula. Films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas (just pick a Disney title) all work like this. Disney soundtracks, however, aren’t penned by giants like John Williams or Hans Zimmer. Right now, the biggest Disney composer is Alan Menken. He also currently has the most Academy Awards to his name, for both his score and his songwriting.

Tips for Writing Your Own Musical Music

It all sounds pretty interesting, right? So, in practice, is it something you think you can take on? Since it’s a little unlikely that you’ll be immediately snapped up by the Really Useful Group (Andrew Lloyd Webber’s company) or recruited to write the soundtrack for the next big Disney production, if you want to start writing music for musicals, you’re likely to be starting small. Maybe there’s a local musical theatre company in your area who would be interested in putting together an original production. In any case, if you are embarking on a journey into the musical composition realm, then here are a few points worth considering:

Any new musical and the music it will feature always starts with the writer and director. Together, you can figure out where in the story you’ll need background music, when the songs will happen and determine which scene demands a ‘still’ song or a ‘progression’ song. If you’re looking at a ‘progression’ song, then you’ll need some more details, such as what’s going to be happening on stage and maybe details about the choreography,
Who writes the lyrics? If it’s someone else’s job, then make a clear agreement about whether the music will be written for the lyrics or if the lyrics will be written for the music. One of the best ways to write is to simply sit at the piano together and make some sketches of your arrangements so that the lyrics and music are written in tandem. You can work out the bigger orchestral arrangement later.
It’s strongly recommended to first write your songs as if they’re standard pop songs. Make your songs complete, with verses, choruses, bridges and other ideas and, once your material is written, you can adapt your songs to the script with relative ease. If a chorus doesn’t need to start for another two bars, you can just insert an instrumental build up to make everything work. You can also transpose the music to match the range of the lead vocalist. Why not write the music to fit the script first rather than spending extra time re-building your songs? This is because of one of the traps that a lot of composers fall into and the fact that one of the most difficult jobs of any composer is answering the question: “What comes next?” You need to have a certain creative drive in order to finish a song. The song itself can supply this drive for you, so it’s important the creative process remains uninterrupted and unhindered by the addition of sudden stage directions and so on. Things like this can really tamper with the progression of the music. Really, the best approach is to always complete a song as a piece of music in itself, this really will make adapting it to suit the script much easier later on.
How is a musical song structured? In principle, you can look to standard song structures, but while pop music is usually very tight and dependent on continuity, your musical songs can be much more varied. It can, for example, be really interesting if the lyricist places lines here and there that don’t fall perfectly in the meter. At these moments, the composer could insert a sort of intermezzo – something that would never happen in your average pop song. It’s exactly these kinds of details that make musical songs more distinct. So if a few lines of the lyrics are not in meter, you should see it as an opportunity!
What’s the best way to make all of your various songs hang together as a uniform whole? The answer is actually simple, but in practice it’s maybe not that easy. The simplest solution is to integrate a portion of one song into another. Another good trick is to take a counter-melody or decorative instrumental frill from one song and expand on it, turning into a standalone theme. The film composer Jerry Goldsmith is known for reusing pieces of one theme and weaving them into other themes within the same film. In this way, a clear yet largely unconscious thread emerges for the listener.
What’s the best way to adapt a song so that it follows the story? The first, and maybe the most important thing, is to feel out and sense which chords and movements best iterate the emotion within the story – luckily a lot of composers will have a natural knack for this. Put simply, a major chord is a happy chord and a minor chord is a sad chord. A minor-seventh chord sounds angry and a major-seventh chord sounds relaxed, so it’s relatively easy to match a chord to a mood. If a song begins in a minor key but something miraculous happens halfway through, then the song can be shifted into the major key at just the right moment. If you’re writing a song for a really fast-paced scene, then you can also speed up a specific passage, not just by increasing the tempo – musically speaking, this won’t always work – but by decorating the vocal arrangements and instrumentation with rapid movements.

Are you a bit musical-minded? Which musical do you think is the ‘one to rule them all’? Les Mis? The Phantom? Let us know in the comments!