I'm definitely a fan of Into the Woods, and especially Sunday in the Park with George. Both have DVDs of their original productions, and for me at least, seeing the actual performance makes a big difference, especially for Sunday.

Read the lyrics to the overture.

/collapses laughing/

"Sweeney was quick, Sweeney was subtle,
Sweeny would blink, and rats would scuttle."

Brilliant....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

House, does that mean you got away with it at least once?
WOW. I wish I was there for that! Sounds wonderful!

Wow.... I was obviously not thinking about the words I was reading on the screen. Dodecaphonics. clever. I get it. That was my moron moment for the day/week/hour (depends on how bad this week's gonna be).

Does a prepared piano have to be a grand? Can you do it with an upright? I think if you had to use a grand, the words "getting away with it" would have the meaning of "escaping with your skin attached to your body and your bones intact." The piano department scares me.

So is this musical the version with the theme that goes "The Demon Barber of Fleet...[ultra-long pause]...Street"? I've seen that one in a student production, which was OK, but not entirely my cup of tea.

It works in uprights as long as the objects are attached carefully enough so the reverberations don't cause them to fall off. We never used the performance-ready pianos as I think that would be a beheading offence, but some of the woebegone ones in the practise studios served fairly well. It didn't hurt that we had a prof on hand to demonstrate -- we just took it to the next level. It really is worth a try (on someone else's instrument or right before you get yours tuned). I'm sure there must be prepared piano recordings on-line. It can be hard to guess what is being played, or even how many instruments are being used because it so completely alters the sound -- erasers create the sound of bongo drums and wax paper buzzes like a kazoo.

*cough* bag of cats *cough*

;)

I was thinking the same.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Bag of cats? Awfully difficult to thread through the strings of a piano, but in keeping with the promotion of non-PC postings, I'll wish you a Happy Columbus Day and best of luck with your feline / piano hybrid.

LeonardQuirm, yes, that is the show we're referring to.

Considering that my school just refurbished its entire music department and got brand-new pianos, it's probably not a good idea to try that kind of music here. Also, many of the practice rooms with pianos have now been replaced with a fancy-schmancy room full of brand-new Macs with Soundtrack and nice keyboards attached. Very high-tech, but it does somewhat limit the enterprising student's ability to get creative with wax paper, erasers, and felines.

What about cat-gut? Do they still use that for strings? Did they ever?

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Yes. But there's no cat in it.

MartinB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What about cat-gut? Do they still use that for
> strings? Did they ever?

Don't worry, Martin. Although catgut is used, it is not made from cats!

(Veggies may not wish to change the colour to reveal the following line)

It is made from intestines of (usually) sheep

True!

<hides>

How do you change the color?

Just highlight it. ie: select the text.

Thanks Skid. Thought it would be something like that.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Invisible messages!?! I love this fforum.

*Sweeney thread is treated to the obligatory organ toccatta as it rises from the grave*

K, I'm getting pretty excited about this movie. They've updated the official website from the bare-bones p.o.s. that it was before. Now they have music clips of almost every song from the production, and I have to say that Helena Bonham Carter worries me. I don't hear any inflection in her voice. It sounds spookily computer-generated. (It actually reminds me of this song, you might know it if you've played Portal) I'm banking on her actual acting making up for the lack of inflection. Perhaps they've totally re-imagined Mrs. Lovett from Angela Lansbury's version. We'll have to see.

But I'm pretty excited about all the rest of them. Even Depp. And Alan Rickman will be an AMAZING Turpin. (I wonder if actors are ever offended by people telling them that they make amazing sleazebags on screen? If one of you is Alan Rickman, incognito, you should let us know. Then send me an autograph.)

P.S. This post took about 5 minutes to type due to typos caused by over-excitedness

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You kids with your long hair and Baroque music...

Silly me, here's the movie site if you haven't seen it already.

And after listening again to the clips, I think I was a bit hard on Helena Bonham Carter. After only ever hearing Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone, she does a very different Mrs. Lovett. I'm 65% sure that it's just a different conception of the character.

I'm still hoping that it's a different conception of the character.

Regardless, at least she's got a nice sounding voice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You kids with your long hair and Baroque music...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2007 03:21AM by Tari.

When is it out? I wants to see it too....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland