I’m back in the land of pink and the sound of high-school cheers. That’s right, another production of Legally Blonde, the Musical. I’m playing drums again and, luckily, I saved my setup from last time (rig rundown here).
We have a great cast and orchestra at the Hillbarn Theatre. Come see the show, it runs Aug 25th – Sep 18.
It seems that my rig gets more complicated with each show and preparing for the PYT production of Legally Blonde was no exception. We did not have a percussionist for the show, so in addition to drums, I doubled the percussion part where possible. This involved adding parts for triangle, tambourine, crotale, mark tree (a.k.a. the “broken glass” patch), bodhran and timpani in various tunings throughout the show.
Covering the additional percussion parts resulted in 82 program changes throughout the show and over 50 custom kits that needed to be programmed.
Legally Blonde called for a number of slow shakers and the Roland TD-30 “one shot” style sample wasn’t cutting it. So, I thought I’d take the opportunity to try creating my own shakers with items from around the house and sample them.
Here are a few things I learned in the process:
OMG – I’m positively looking forward to playing for PYT’s summer’s run of Legally Blonde! The upbeat soundtrack has a dynamic drum score covering a variety of styles. The music is sure to keep me on my toes and, hopefully, the audience tapping theirs.
The show is presented by Peninsula Youth Theater and is featuring their age 13-18 performers. More info on the show can be found here.
You can find the soundtrack on iTunes. I recommend this version:
I thought I had just brought (and delivered) the funk, when I saw this:
This is a good example of the sometimes amusing twists I see in broadway musical charts. Not only do these guys have an undeniable sense of humor, they really mean it. So, every night, I’m challenged to convincingly deliver an ever increasing amount of funk over a mere 12 beats. It’s like a funk creschendo, or maybe, funkschendo?
This is what makes these shows fun to play and keeps the creative juices flowing every night.
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