This post is more video than writing. I feel that the video covers everything I want to say, plus cover musical things that are easier to show on a video than to describe in a paragraph. Here is the explanation video:
My little daughter interrupted me as I was filming, so here is take 2 (actually take 3 or 4) of the end of the video:
And finally, here is the song itself:
One of the most important steps in writing a musical is putting everything down in a legible form. You've seen my scribbly notes (in a previous blog post). No one is able to interpret that except me.
So once I have the script and music in a state that I'm happy with, I start typing up the words and entering the music on Musescore. This is not very exciting (believe me) but doing this also helps me see with better clarity and make decisions on the details, like the piano part and harmonies. (Sometimes, my favorite thing to do is to just sit at a piano and sing and play, and not worry about every little note!)
To show you what this all looks like...
Our children are growing up in a world where AI cannot be avoided (well, if you lived completely off the grid, maybe you could...) People argue that AI has its uses, but the problem I see is that we can no longer trust what we see, read, or hear on the internet. I would be watching a video of an animal, and my son walks by, takes one look, and says, "That's AI."
As an artist, I lament that people are relying more and more on AI to generate art, music, and even the written word. Again, AI has its uses, but what AI cannot ever do is replace human interaction.
Which is why the antidote to AI is COMMUNITY and COLLABORATION.
You can "observe" animals on websites. Or you can go to the park or the zoo.
You can "travel" the world thru the internet. Or you can get out and experience the world around you.
You can "make" art by yourself at the computer. Or you can collaborate with other artists and go see live performances.
The more we do with other people, the more we are rooted in what is real.
This all hit me yesterday, as my family went from one activity to another.
We started off with rehearsal for my kids who are involved in the CYT Tri-Valley production of Frozen. I am on the set committee for this show (I get to paint!) and so I joined other set parents at our rented warehouse space and organized the paint supplies and old cans of paint while the kids sang, danced, and acted.
Meanwhile, my husband went to a café near us to meet with local artists. They chatted and shared their art and ideas, and one painter invited my husband to an art show and reception that afternoon at the library.
So in the afternoon, my husband and I took our youngest child to the library and admired the beautiful floral art done in glass, textiles, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, acrylic, and oil. The artists were present and shared a bit about their processes and their inspirations. Then they held a raffle and I won a set of cards from one of the artists!
But we were still not done. In the evening, I took two of my girls to see my friend's professional ballet company perform in town. My other friend had choreographed one of the dances. As I watched, I marveled at their graceful movements set to the music. That night, I worked on a piano piece that I hope will be part of their performance someday.
Sprinkled in between all this activity was a guitar lesson between my husband and son, kids making birthday presents, and baking in the kitchen.
It was a full day, and I loved all the artistic things my family got to experience. My husband and I want to work more on "getting out there" and interacting with our community. That might be as simple as going downtown and listening to a band perform at the park. It might be as elaborate as becoming a part of the art association and helping with the next Comic Con in our town. Or in my case, workshopping a musical and performing it at the local theater!
Your family may or may not be artistic, but that's not what matters. Keep putting in the effort to connect with people, whether at home, at school, at work, or beyond!
In the video on my last blog post, I noticed two mistakes.
1) I forgot to tell you the working title of the new musical! For now, I call it "In Miss Potter's Garden."
2) I said that I finished the musical this past summer. Really, what I should have said was that a shareable version of the musical was finished this past summer. I'm feeling good about the script and the songs, but this doesn't mean that the musical is finished! My next step is workshopping, which is when I get a group of actors to read through the script. I also play them the songs and ask them for honest feedback.
Every time I've workshopped a show, I've heard lines that needed tweaking, or scenes that could be smoother, or songs that sounded too short (or too long). The actors always had some very important and helpful feedback to give as they were in the dual roles of both audience and players. After hearing their thoughts, I would go home excited to add to a scene or a song.
So I expect to do more rewriting. Writing is really about rewriting, and rewriting, and rewriting. I know that this musical will go through several versions before it is truly done, so I try my best not to hold on to any part of it too tightly (which is easier said than done!) And just so you can "see" what my writing process looks like, I'm sharing with you the pages of my notebook in a video.
(Background story: I used to write notes on random pieces of paper, and clip them together, which meant that my notes didn't always stay together. Then my friend "KW"– the director of my first musical– gave me a Christmas present of a set of small notebooks. I decided that I would use one whenever I started a new musical. And now all my scribbly notes are in one place!)
In 2022, I had written my first musical, Five Children and It, and blogged about it in a series titled "A Musical is Born!" The blog posts cover much of the production of the show, but very little of the writing process before that.
Since then, I've written a second musical and started two more. With high hopes of getting these musicals on stage, I decided to start sharing more about my writing process, before the musical is fully finished. A nerve-wrecking task, being the perfectionist that I am, but I'm pushing myself to do this. And to make me even more nervous, I'll be incorporating video, which is also a very new thing for me. (I'm a writer, not a videographer.) But with help from my adult children, I am now on Instagram and will be able to share songs through that medium (and also post the videos here!)
So, watch the video below to hear about what I'm working on right now!
