Know the music so well you can play it backwards

This post will be a short story about a show I played a while ago.

I was music directing an elementary school version of Alice in Wonderland Jr. a while ago. It was one of the first shows I’d ever music directed on piano. I just got a new job at a youth theatre program as one of the music directors and was MDing this show and Grease.

We had a number of weeks for rehearsals and to get everything together and they mostly went smoothly. The music in Alice in Wonderland Jr. was a little difficult for me to play on the piano so I had to practice a good bit and simplify some of the sections to make them easier for me to play. But other than that there weren’t a whole lot of problems.

During rehearsals we went through the lyrics for all of the songs and how to sing them and it mostly went well, though some of the students had trouble remembering some of the lyrics.

There were two songs that always gave the students trouble. The songs were “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You)” and “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You) Reprise.” They were close in form and in musical content so the students often got them mixed up. Sometimes when singing one song they’d get confused and start singing the other song.

This happened during the performance.

In the middle of one of our performances they started singing the first song, “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You)” and halfway through they skipped to the middle of the other version, “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You) Reprise”, and then skipped BACK to the original song, “A Very Merry Unbirthday (To You).”

Luckily I knew the music well and followed them through all of this on piano creating an impromptu arrangement of both songs together. I didn’t turn any pages and just started playing from memory because there was no way I’d be able to find the correct page at the end of the show. I was able to do it all from memory. Luckily the songs were similar and had similar piano parts, but they were in different keys so I had to transpose some of the reprise to the original key. I also had to follow them through the rest of the song because after they skipped to the reprise I wasn’t sure if they would sing the ending of the reprise or the ending of the original.

I impressed myself honestly.

And the director and assistant director of the show noticed this too. They came up to me after the performance and told me, “Good job on following them all over the place during ‘A Very Merry Unbirthday.'”

The reason I mention all of this isn’t just to brag, though it did feel good to be able to do that. It’s to emphasize how important it is to know the music as well as you can. Know the music so well you could imagine it and play it backwards. Know the music so well that you know when someone is accidentally singing the second verse of the reprise rather than the second verse of the original song. Know it so well that you could make a new arrangement of both pieces on the spot.

It doesn’t have to be a perfect arrangement, my impromptu arrangement definitely wasn’t perfect, but the fact that I could make one is the point I’m trying to make. Knowing the music well and paying attention while you’re playing so that you can change the arrangement on the spot if you need to is incredibly important.

And there will be situations in which you’ll be happy you know the music well.

ISJ