How to learn a whole musical

Start from the beginning and look through the whole book like a magazine. This might take a while, but make sure you look through the whole thing in one sitting at least once.

Notice everything you can about the music. Notice the keys and generally how the songs are. Notice the tempos and time signatures.

Make a mental note of whether it’s an upbeat song or a slow ballad. Whether it’s a solo number or an ensemble number.

Make notes of what songs will be easy to play and what songs will take some practice.

If there are any songs that you’ll be able to sight read, then you likely don’t need to practice them as much as the more difficult songs.

Once you’ve done a broad overview then start learning the songs. This will likely be the most time consuming part but keep learning them until you’ve gone through all of the songs.

After learning all of the songs, look through the whole book like a magazine again. This will help you to look at the show as a whole and imagine the entire show in your head so you have an idea of the flow of the whole show.

It might not be difficult, but it will be time consuming.

ISJ