ВВЕДЕНИЕ

Настоящее пособие ограничено узко педагогическими задачами. Основы композиции —самая сущность музыкального творчества — трактуются лишь с точки зрения технологии музыкального искусства». Ввиду того, что пособие предназначается для начинающих, особый акцент делается на элементарные (первичные) формообразования.

Каждый вид искусства характеризуется определенным комплексом технических приемов, усвоение которых необходимо для творческой работы. Музыка— один из самых трудоемких видов искусства— особенно нуждается в технической оснащенности.

В связи с этим композитору следует изучить целый ряд специальных дисциплин, без знания которых немыслима его деятельность как профессионала. К таким дисциплинам относятся-:

сольфеджио — чисто практический курс, развивающий музыкальный слух;
элементарная теория, знакомящая с основными элементами музыкальной речи;
гармония, сообщающая сведения о строении аккордов, их взаимоотношениях и связи с мелодией;
полифония, назначение которой сводится к изложению приемов контрапунктического многоголосия;
курс анализа посвященный архитектонике музыкальных произведений;
инструментовка, дающая знания о музыкальных инструментах и понятие о том, как нужно писать для оркестра.

Кроме тога начинающему композитору совершенно необходимо овладеть игрой на фортепиано и чтением с листа, связанным с этим инструментом. Молодые люди, слабо одаренные в слуховом отношении, но обладающие творческой фантазией и пытающиеся сочинять, особое внимание должны уделять культуре внутреннего слуха, чтобы достичь такой степени представляемое, при которой любая нотная запись сразу вызывает соответствующее слуховое ощущение.

Усвоение специальных теоретических дисциплин и игра на фортепиано не только познакомят учащихся с технологией музыкального искусства, но и в значительной мере отшлифуют их звуковое мышление. Тем не менее в обучении композиции остается еще большая область чисто эстетических проблем, для разрешения которых нужные навыки приобретаются благодаря собственному творческому опыту и критическим указаниям старших товарищей.
Вопросы, касающиеся взаимоотношений формы и содержания— как оформить тот или иной звуковой образ, какой выбрать мелодический или гармонический материал, как фактурно его изложить, найти ту или иную структурную схему, распланировать все произведение в соответствующих размерах—еще недостаточно освещены в методической литературе. Ответы на них мы находим либо в отдельных музыковедческих статьях, либо в мемуарах и переписке самих композиторов, а чаще всего в устной передаче преподавателей классов сочинения в музыкальных учебных заведениях. Содержание настоящего пособия строю ограничено грамматикой музыкальной речи гомофонного стиля; но в то же время автор стремился дать и посильные ответы ка вопросы, которые нередко возникают у молодого музыканта, заочно или самостоятельно изучающего композицию.

В некоторых отношениях предлагаемое пособие составлено а виде хрестоматии; весь текст изгаляется в минимальном количестве и очень часто даже конспективно. Одним из лучших способов обучения композиции является инициативное ознакомление с выдающимися и разнообразными примерами музыкальной литературы. Инициативно-творческому изучению музыкальных произведений посвящаются конкретные указания.
В пособии приводятся самые необходимые сведения об эволюция музыкальной формы, что очень важно для обоснования правил музыкальной грамматики.

Отступления в область истории, которые делает автор (как показывает педагогическая практика), не только не мешают усвоению учебного материала, но, наоборот, вооружают начинающего композитора идейно и будят а нем творческую мысль. Кроме того, изучение различных стилей в их исторической преемственности способствует правильному отбору музыкально-выразительных средств для оформления художественных образов современности.
Примеры в подавляющем большинстве случае заимствованы из произведений композиторов-классиков. Особое внимание в них уделяется структурно-функциональному строению музыкальной речи. Масштабные схемы использованы довольно широко, так как цифровые данные дают наглядное представление в структуре художественной формы.

Образцам народного творчества отводится значительное место; здесь представлены преимущественно несенные жанры, которые служат и, очевидно, всегда будут служить лучшим доказательством правдивого развития музыкальной мысли.

Тесная связь композиторов--профессионалов е народным творчеством, как это наблюдалось в различных стилях и в разные- эпохи, являлась прекрасной профилактикой против всякого рода формалистических извращений и содействовала утверждению здоровых жизненных начал, оптимизма и веры в свои силы.

Для подтверждения личных взглядов автора в пособии помещаются высказывания известных композиторов и искусствоведов, а также проводятся параллели с другими видами искусства.

Как не раз отмечалось музыкантами (Римским-Корсаковым, Праутом). Никакая теория не может научить творчеству. Чтобы стать композитором или писателем, нужно обладать образным мышлением и быть одаренным в своей области. Всякий же учебник может служить лишь очередной ступенью к овладению мастерством, но не заменить талант.

По мнению автора, ни теория, ни руководство нс могут также предусмотреть всех необходимых для творческой практики правил и предписать ту или иную последовательность в работе, да в этом и нет особой надобности, поскольку творческий процесс не является только ремесленным заполнением какого-то графика. У талантливого человека зачастую возникают удачные творческие мысля совершенно неожиданно, и его нужно поощрить, если по личной инициативе стремится найти собственные средства выражения. Овладеть художественным мастерством можно лишь в результате целеустремленной работы, и первые шаги в этом направлении очень ответственны. Исходя из характера одаренности учащегося, при обучения композиции следует применять индивидуально-различную методику; одному можно предложить заняться одноголосной песней, чтобы выправить отстающую мелодичность; внимание другого—направить на фактуру и начать обучение с прелюдий или вариаций. Но важно отметить, что свободное владение основными элементами музыкальной формы необходимо для каждой творческой индивидуальности.

Пренебрежение школьной техникой ведет к дилетантизму, и наоборот, увлечение голой техникой (что, как ни странно, встречается среди начинающих) — к сухости, лишающей музыку выразительности и эмоциональной силы. Поэтому, работая над художественной формой любого произведения, учащийся всегда должен помнить о соответствии идейно-образного содержания с техническим умением. Это правило относится ко всем видам искусства, к музыке же — особенно. Если без идейного замысла даже мастерское оформление — ничто, то и без соответствующего технического мастерства даже самый значительный по содержанию замысел теряет свою силу.

Свободное владение основными элементами формы помотает композитору выбирать подходящие для него средства. Фортепианная соната или симфония, конечно, могут быть написаны очень одаренным человеком без необходимых навыков, но на эту работу потребуется гораздо меньше усилий и времени, если предварительно иы будут приобретены нужные навыки и знания.

К постоянно встречающимся творческим просчетам у начинающих композиторов следует отнести излишнее тематическое многословие у одних и тематическую недоразвитость у других, а также почти у всех неточное функциональной стороны отдельных разделов и формы в целом. Эти недостатки, губящие подчас хорошие музыкальные мысли, при овладении основными элементами формы и приемами их развития устраняются сами собой.
Весь материал пособия изложен таким образом, чтобы он был пригоден для любой индивидуальности. Тем ученикам, которые пожелают усвоить его самостоятельно и в учебно-методическом порядке, указывается поурочно проработка материала в виде определенных заданий.

Такие задания учащийся должен выполнять, начиная с седьмой главы Мелодия. К этому времени начинающий композитор приобретет необходимый для творческой работы комплекс сведений. Задания даются с тем расчетом, чтобы не связывать ученика узкими рамками методических правил.

Художественное творчество, как известно, подразумевает свободу в использовании выразительных средств, которые при соблюдении соответствующих технологических правил делают его понятным. Усвоение технологии музыкального искусства не должно носить отпечатка догматического обучения, которое в лучшем случае не приносит никакой пользы, а в худшем случае калечит талантливого ученика.

Исходя из этих соображений, аитор стремился сохранить необходимую последовательность для свободного, но а то же время не дилетантского, а организованного, профессионального усвоения творческих навыков.

Так. например, задания на мелодию (см. седьмую главу) сначала ограничиваются общими пожеланиями, и только после сочинения ряда мелодий предлагается ввести их в известные структурные рамки. Перед тем как приступить, к изучению классических форм (см. двенадцатую главу), учащийся практически усваивает по заданиям предыдущей главы несложные структуры небольших законченных пьес. Это в дальнейшем должно облегчить ему это и со строгими классическими формами. Аналогично автор поступает и во всех других случаях.

Задания иллюстрируются эскизной и экспериментальной работой опытных мастеров, образцы которой заимствованы из музейных архивов. На таких примерах учащийся получает представление о том, как происходила и может происходить творческая работа композитора. Эти сведения приводятся главным образом, для обучающихся самостоятельно, то есть для тех. которые не пользуются непосредственно советами педагога. Если же занятиями учащегося руководит старший по искусству товарищ, то последний может варьировать не только задании, но и порядок усвоения всего учебного материала. При самостоятельном изучении пособия рекомендуется, чтобы ученик не отступал от предлагаемых системы и заданий. Число часов для выполнения заданий по каждой главе и по каждой теме не указывается. Но автор считает, что для самостоятельного прохождении всего курса в среднем потребуется не менее трех лет. При занятиях с преподавателем продолжительность курса и часы по учебным темам определяются педагогом, исходя из существующей программы курса сочинения того или иного учебного заведения.

Учащийся, имеющий руководителя, может пользоваться данным пособием при знании одной элементарной теории музыки, дополненной сведениями, изложенными во Введении в гармонию (см Бригадный учебник гармонии1). Трудность усвоения пособия без знания курсов гармонии и полифонии может быть восполнена и облегчена разъяснениями опытного преподавателя. Учащийся, запинающийся самостоятельно, должен иметь предварительную подготовку в объеме курса теоретического отделения музыкального училища.

Автор также считает, что занятия будут более продуктивными, если учащийся сначала ознакомится с содержанием всех глав, включая последнюю — пятнадцатую («Творческий труд), а затем снова вернется к седьмой главе, в которой даются первые задания, и после этого начнет практическую проработку учебного материала.

«Техника моего музыкального языка» является основополагающим теоретическим трудом одного из крупнейших композиторов нашего столетия - Оливье Мессиана (1908 — 1992). Эта работа раскрывает принципы эстетического и музыкального мышления композитора, особенности его ладо-гармонической системы, ритмики, образования музыкальных форм. `Написанная в 1942 году, «Техника моего музыкального языка» не утратила своей актуальности и сегодня: многие принципы музыкального языка и формообразования в творчестве Мессмана (ладовая система, основанная на ладах ограниченной транспозиции; изрощенная ритмика, базирующаяся: на принципе добавочной длительности и идее необратимых ритмов, а также связанная с претвореняем индийских мотивов; формы три- торивиского хорала и др.) являются едиными для всего стиля, Религиозное мировоззрение композитора, являвшееся источником его вдохновения на протяжении всей его жизни; находит свое яркое выражение и в этой теоритической работе, объясняя и помогая лучше понять многие особенности его музыкального стиля, языка и формы.

С другой стороны, этот теоретический труд, написанный Французским композитором, предлагает нашему вниманию систему мышления, характерную для французской музыкальной науки, или, по крайней мере, для одного из направлений, — во многом отличную от нашей и сравнительно мало у нас известную. Обращая на себя внимание расстановка акцентов в выборе его формообразующих факторов. Едва ли не, большее внимание здесь уделяется мелодия — мелодическим рисункам, мелодическому развитию, что включает и интонационный, я ритмический аспект. При этом гармонии отводится, скорее, красочно-колористическая роль, Теория такого типа часто рассматривает музыкальную форму с точки зрения тематических связей и количества составляющих ее разделов, Мы не задаемся целью специально изучать методологию A категории французской музыкальной науки, однако, мы обязаны были учитывать их особенности при переводе, Разница. категорий и терминов, а также стремление к более ясному и точному пониманию.

Изучение художественного наследия Н. К. Метнера, одного крупнейших русских композиторов первой половины. ХХ века, современника Скрябина и Рахманинова, как и они, «властителя дум» музыкальной среды того времени, еще: только начинается.

В настоящее время происходит, можно сказать, «второе: рождение» Метнера. Вновь пробудился интерес к его музыке, вновь зазвучали его произведения в живом исполнении и в записи на пластинках. Высокое признание его творчества ознаменовалось, наконец, академическим изданием полного собрания сочинений, а это говорит само за себя, ибо из композиторов ХХ века такой чести удостоился еще только Прокофьев. Все свидетельствует о том, что творчество Метнера выдержало и в дальнейшем выдержит «испытание временем» и интерес к нему будет возрастать.

Многие произведения Метнера пленяют своей красотой,. поэтичностью, своей выразительной силой. Однако надо признать, что он принадлежит к тому типу композиторов, творчество которых не сразу раскрывается во всей своей художественной ценности. Его музыка не обладает свойственной Скрябину и Рахманинову непосредственной, «открытой» эмоциональностью, привлекающей сердца слушателей. Творчество Метнера более замкнуто, сурово и сдержанно в своих порывах. Но чем пристальнее сосредоточиваешь на нем внимание, чем глубже в него вникаешь, тeм больше открывается сокровенное, неувядаемое и близкое нам художественное содержание. Музыка Метнера не столько захватывает своей непосредственной эмоциональностью, сколько постигается как бы «изнутри». Ее можно сравнить с умной, глубокой, но не во всем легкой для понимания книгой, K которой надо порой возвращаться, которую надо перечитывать, чтобы до конца постигнуть затаенные в ней мысли.

Своеобразие творческого почерка Метнера сказывается во всем — в мелодике, гармонии, ритмике, в фортепианной фактуре. Он принадлежит к тем крупным композиторам, музыка которых узнается по отрывкам, но объяснить это своеобразие,

Acomprehensive history of stage musicals from the 1840s all the way up to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Broadway as it we know it today.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It would be impossible for me to thank all the people who have inspired, assisted, and cajoled me in the process of creating this book, but a few curtain calls are in order. My first thanks goes to Hilary Cohen, whose eagle eye averted many a grammatical and factual disaster. Heaven be praised for Marty Jacobs, curator of the theatre collection at the Museum of the City of New York, who welcomed my offer to catalog George M. Cohan’s eclectic archive. He then set me to work on the archives of Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, and so many others. Oh those joyous, dusty hours uncovering history! I am equally thankful for the existence of the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts, which has been my home away from home since high school. I particularly thank Bruce Levy, whose friendship is even more priceless than his vast private collection of musical theatre recordings and memorabilia. Thanks also to those colleagues who have encouraged my efforts over the years, including Peter Filichia, Miles Kreuger, Kurt Ganzl, and Professor Meg Bussert.

A thousand thanks to the folks at Continuum Publishing for deciding that it was time for a new book on this subject, to the always elegant Ken Giniger for pursuing the idea, and to the York Theatre’s dedicated and brilliant artistic director Jim Morgan for suggesting that these good people talk to me. The York is one of the true hopes for the future of musical theatre, and I am proud to be a friend and cheerleader for that resourceful company. I also thank my students at New York University’s Steinhardt School and at Marymount Manhat- tan College. Their questions and enthusiasm made teaching a joy and helped to shape every chapter of this volume. It is not a very ancient saying, but it is a true and honest thought that “when you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.” I can only pray that they learned half as much from me as I did from them.

All of the photos in this book come from materials in my personal archive, and every effort has been made to give proper accreditation. And just in case it needs to be said, as author, I take full responsibil- ity for the contents of this book. Any questions or comments can be directed to me via my website, www.musicals101.com.

Introduction: “Let’s Start at the Very Beginning ...”

. . . a very good place to start.

When I was a teenager, aging theatre buffs insisted that the Broadway musical’s “golden age” ended in the 1950s. Recent books and documentaries speak of that era extending into the mid 1960s, and an upcoming generation of writers is pushing that “golden age” into the 1970s. Within a decade, someone will push it further, always pretending that the really good stuff happened about thirty years ago. Theatre is very much an art form of the now, here one moment and gone the next, so it is no surprise that many fans and professionals seem to think that the only theatrical events of any importance are those that have occurred within their theatregoing lifetime.

Musical Theatre: A History is an attempt to sidestep this trend. The fact is that musical theatre has enjoyed several golden ages, stretching back more than two thousand years to well before the time of Christ. Those golden ages are not relegated to the distant past, and the odds are that more are to come—why, a new one may be starting already. Each of these creative surges occurred under special conditions. History shows us that musicals thrive in cities that are the “happening place” at a given moment. These communities must meet four essential criteria:

1. A population large and prosperous enough to support an active theatrical culture.
2. Athrivingartisticcommunitythatnurturessuccessivegenerations of creative and performing talent.
3. A shared sense of optimism in regards to the community and its future.
4. Freedom from extensive government censorship and/or political oppression.

This book traces the way that musical theatre’s golden ages have taken it from place to place over the centuries in search of such environments, by examining how each of its hometowns has placed a unique stamp on the art form.

As an art form of the now, theatre defies second-hand appreciation. Photographs, films, videos, and sound recordings can preserve elements of a performance, but nothing yet invented fully captures the excitement, the visceral impact of live theatre. It is in the room with the audience, and each performance is unique—you are either there to share in it, or the opportunity is lost forever so that you can “do no more than guess” what it was like. In these pages, I cannot hope to bring long-lost performances back to life. If only there were some magical phrase that would allow us to whisk through time and attend the opening nights of Offenbach’s Les Brigands, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, or Lerner and Loew’s My Fair Lady! But we can go beyond cataloging the usual statistics and plot summations by actively examining the people and environments that gave birth to the great musicals of the past. With such knowledge, we can better appreciate what has led up to the musical theatre of our own time and make some educated guesses about the future of this powerful art form.

Theatrical history is littered with publicity and other forms of creative thinking that have gradually become accepted as fact through repetition and the passage of time. From Ziegfeld to David Merrick and beyond, denizens of the musical theatre have done much to revise and reshape reality. One of the Broadway producers for whom I worked made a point of revising his bio every few months, saying, “No one in this business can resist revising a script.” Songwriter Jerry Herman explained this tendency when he had two of the characters in Dear World (1969) sing that when you wear false pearls, “little by little the pearls become real ... and isn’t it the same with memories?” As much as possible, this book will stick to verifiable facts. Whenever a “pearl” is even slightly open to question but too interesting to over- look, this book classifies it as either legend or rumor.

What to Expect in the Pages Ahead

Although this book covers some topics found on my popular educational website Musicals101.com, this text is new and more detailed. It examines the artistic, business, and social forces in various cities and countries that helped to forge important new ideas and trends—a process that continues today in New York, London, and elsewhere.

The journey begins with a brief look at ancient Greece, where drama began as a form of musical theatre. The Romans later borrowed most of their theatrical conventions from the Greeks, adding a few tricks of their own, including the first tap shoes for dancers. The Middle Ages brought musical dramatizations of Bible stories and fables, which had been designed to make Church teachings readily accessible to a mostly illiterate populace. In time, these works led into a tradition of lighthearted pantomimes and comic operas that stayed popular across most of Europe for several centuries. By the time grand opera appeared in the 1700s, a separately evolved popular musical the- atre was already thriving in much of Europe.

The musical as we know it first appeared in Paris during the 1840s, where composer Jacques Offenbach and a variety of collaborators turned operetta into an international sensation. After some developments in Vienna, the British revamped the form with the ingenious comic creations of playwright William Gilbert and classical musician Arthur Sullivan. Meanwhile, the United States developed its own slapdash but popular homegrown forms of musical theatre, as blackface minstrel shows were joined by such Broadway inventions as extravaganza. The rise of British music halls, vaudeville in the United States, and burlesque all contributed special elements to a form that England and America would both lay claim to—the musical comedy.

After some years of British dominance in the field, American musicals gained worldwide popularity in the twentieth century. The groundwork laid by George M. Cohan, Victor Herbert, and Jerome Kern made it possible for a succession of gifted songwriters and librettists to turn New York’s Broadway into the world’s primary source of musical entertainment. Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and the team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart brought musical comedy to new creative heights. Then Rodgers teamed with the gifted Oscar Hammerstein II to create the organically integrated musical play, a variation that enjoyed worldwide acclaim for several decades. Now acclaimed by many sources as “the golden age of the Broadway musical,” this era came to an end with the rise of hard rock music in the 1960s. Before anyone realized what was happening, Broadway became a minor side street of popular culture—still profitable, but rarely noticed by an increasing percentage of the general population. Despite this dip in its fortunes, the musical theatre continues to thrive, on Broadway and beyond. The twenty-first century has brought a fresh wave of musical comedies and so-called Pop-sicals (musicals using already established pop songs), attracting new audiences to the theatre. For better or worse, public taste continues to change, and musicals must do so too.

This book discusses a few hundred essential works. If some of your favorite musicals are missing, my apologies; a chronicle of 2,500 years must of necessity be selective. My goal is to be informative, not exhaustive. For each musical discussed on the text, you will find the year of its premiere and the number of performances listed in parenthesis. Where necessary, I have also specified the city of origin.

What Is a Musical?

This is as good a time as any to clarify a few essential terms. Let’s start off with a definition you will not find in any dictionary:

Musical (noun): a stage, television, or film production utilizing popular style songs to either tell a story or to showcase the talents of writers and/or performers, with dialogue optional.

As with any other literary form, the primary job of a musical is to tell a story—or, in the case of a revue, to tell a number of brief stories via songs and skits. When all goes well, a musical’s blend of song, dance, and the visual arts entertains, evoking an intellectual as well as an emotional response, but in order for any of those elements to matter, a musical must tell a compelling story in a compelling way.

An art form requires an artist, a medium, and eventually (one hopes) an audience. A popular or commercial art form requires the same trinity, with one crucial difference: there must be a paying audi- ence that makes the act of expression profitable for the artist. When the art form is a collaborative, multidisciplinary one like musical theatre, it must also be profitable for all the auxiliary talents that help to bring an artist’s conception to life (producers, director, designers, actors, investors, etc.—and, yes, intelligent investing is a talent). As in any commercial endeavor, the taste and attitude of the audience play a clear role in determining the development of the product; since sup- pliers must meet consumer demand, the demand helps to shape the supply.

As a commercial art form, musical theatre has reshaped itself continually over the centuries to meet ongoing changes in popular taste. In the last few decades, those changes have ranged from the superficial (electronic amplification, hydraulic sets, etc.) to the essential (recycled songs). While such innovations may or may not be motivated by a desire to reap greater financial profits, commercial successes are what spawn new trends and styles. Who in their right mind would emulate a financial failure?

Elements of a Musical

From a purely technical point of view, all musicals consist of certain key elements:

• Musicandlyrics—Thesongs
• Book/Libretto—Theconnectivestoryexpressedinscriptor
  dialogue
• Choreography—Thedance
• Staging—Allstagemovement
• Physical production—The sets, costumes, and technical aspects
  Over the centuries, a great deal of creative energy has been spent in integrating these elements, making them all smooth-flowing parts of the storytelling process. Sung-through musicals (The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables) have led to all of the words—lyrics included—being referred to as the book or libretto. In dance-based musicals (Contact, Movin’ Out), choreography and staging become synonymous.

But in defining the essential elements of a great musical, I gratefully borrow some imagery from MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. Any great musical must have:

• Brains—Intelligence
• Heart—Emotionalcontentandappeal
• Courage—The guts to do something in a fresh, new way

From The Mikado to Oklahoma! to My Fair Lady to Crazy for You, the best musicals—which do not always mean the biggest hits—all have these three qualities, and they must combine to generate a fourth key element: audience excitement.
It is not critics or awards that make a musical great. Even though the New York Times review is considered the holy grail for commercial success, condescending or blatantly negative Times reviews for Cats, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, and The Lion King did not prevent those shows from achieving decade-plus Broadway runs. Since Man of La Mancha debuted in 1966, most critics have dismissed that play as an oversimplified bowdlerization of Cervantes’s Don Quixote. How ever, the general public (which, by and large, has not read the original novel) has consistently cheered for this show, embracing its call to “reach the unreachable star.” As of this writing, Man of La Mancha has returned to Broadway four times, the same number of revivals achieved by such mid-1960s critical darlings as Hello, Dolly! and Fiddler on the Roof. The intelligentsia may carp, but millions of theatregoers consider Man of La Mancha a great musical—and so, it is.

Great musicals enjoy the lasting acceptance of the ticket-buying public, and that popularity can last long after an original production is history. Several dozen musicals premiered on Broadway in 1927, but of them all, only Show Boat is still performed today. Of all the new musicals produced on Broadway in the “golden age” year of 1955, only Damn Yankees is still done. Two very different musicals, but by long-standing popular acclamation, they are among the greats. Am I suggesting that a flop cannot be great? Well, yes. A show without a large audience cannot have any tangible commercial or artistic impact. In rare cases, a musical that was ahead of its time has been revived years later with fresh energy, finally finding its audience—Bernstein’s Candide died swiftly in 1956, but enjoyed a long run when creatively revived in 1974. Far more common are the old hits that are revived to shrugging ovations, making critics with short memories question how these shows ever impressed anyone in the first place.

Rich in stories of great shows and the people who made them happen, Musical Theatre: A History is a celebration of musical theatre, designed to delight new fans and veteran aficionados alike, a joyous book about a joyous form of entertainment. So curtain up and light the lights. We’ll begin our story in an era when stage musicals were done without curtains or lights.

This enlightening book reframes the history of hip-hop—and this time, women are given credit for all their trailblazing achievements that have left an undeniable impact on music.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, hip-hop is not just the music, and women have played a big role in shaping the way it looks today. FIRST THINGS FIRST takes readers on a journey through some notable firsts by women in hip-hop history and their importance. Factual firsts like Queen Latifah becoming the first rapper to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lauryn Hill making history as the first rapper to win the coveted Album of the Year Award at the GRAMMYs, April Walkerbeing the first woman to dominate in the hip-hop fashion game, and Da Brat being the first solo woman rapper to have an album go platinum, and metaphorical firsts like Missy Elliott being the first woman rapper to go to the future. (Trust me, she really did.)

There are chapters on music legends like Nicki Minaj, Lil’ Kim and Mary J. Blige, tv and radio hosts like Big Lez and Angie Martinez, and so many more ladies I would name but I don’t want to spoil the book! There are games, charts and some fire images, too.

Altogether, FIRST THINGS FIRST is a celebration of the achievements of women in hip-hop who broke down barriers and broke the mold. So the next time someone doesn’t have their facts straight on the ladies in hip-hop, you can hit them with “first things first”…

INTRO

If you knew how many times I rewrote this introduction you wouldn’t believe me. In fact, I rewrote it so many times I can’t even give you an exact number—somewhere around fifty feels pretty close, though. What I do know for certain is that this intro was the very first thing I wrote for this book and the very last thing I edited for this book. Each time I came back to this point I knew I had to make two things clear: 1) just how important women in hip-hop are to me, and 2) just how important women are to hip-hop. So I guess I’ll start with that first part.

In 2018 I created The Gumbo, a social club and media platform designed to celebrate and center the experiences of Black women in hip-hop. I struggled to come up with a name for the platform for months because hip-hop is not just about the music, it’s a culture defined by distinct elements and a myriad of professions, power players and personalities, of which rap is just one component. To me, the fashion designers who dress the rappers are just as important as the rappers themselves, as are the producers, sound engineers, videographers, directors, journalists, editors, actors, comedians, creative directors, graphic designers, staffers at the label, breakdancers, graffiti artists, and whoever else touches this beautiful thing we call hip-hop.

That’s how I came up with the name The Gumbo. Or better yet, that’s how the name came to me one night in a dream. “What’s a word that best describes a bunch of different things coming together to make something good?” Gumbo. Gumbo was the word. So, I went with that. My decision was affirmed in 2020 when Lil’ Kim did an interview with Genius and stated, “We always gotta put what each girl does [sic] in the pot, and we gotta make gumbo.” Exactly, Kim.

Long before the inception of The Gumbo, though, I was just a little girl accompanying my parents on their trips to now-extinct music stores like Sam Goody, whose shelves were filled to the brim with CDs by the latest artists to drop and musicians long-battling in the game. I remember purchasing one of my very first CDs, Afrodisiac by Brandy, and sitting in the living room for hours with the album playing on loop. I read the album booklet front to back, taking breaks in between pages to practice my dance moves in the mirror.

When I would put my CDs away on my little section of the CD tower that housed all of the discs in our home, I couldn’t help but look through the other ones. I was already listening to hip-hop because my parents were. I was born a fan. But there was something about going through the album booklets of Lil Kim’s Hard Core, Foxy Brown’s Ill Na Na, and Eve’sScorpion that sent my love to another level. Through the photos, liner notes, thank-yous, and sometimes advertisements for merch that serve as memorials for a very specific time in the past, I got to know the artists and understand their process as well as the importance of all the people who helped make it happen. There’s that gumbo again.

I also recall joining my dad on trips to different showrooms in New York City, where we would get an up-close and personal look at the latest releases from brands like Rocawear, Baby Phat, Sean John, Mecca, and FUBU, to name a few. He owned a clothing store that sold various hip-hop fashion brands—often referred to as “urban wear” or “streetwear”—and these trips helped him decide which items he wanted to add to his stock. And while I can’t remember their names or even their faces, I remember the women in these showrooms and how nice they were. How much they knew. And how much it seemed like they had to do. To put it simply, I thought they were so cool.

Fast-forward to my middle school years, when much of my time was spent seated at the computer chair in my parents’ office—or any office I could find, in fact—downloading music from Limewire, and then Frostwire until it burned out the hard drive. And don’t get me started on the amount of time I spent discovering new artists and mixtapes on platforms like DatPiff, DD172, 2DopeBoyz, and any other blog site I could access. Funnily enough, I wasn’t alone. My parents are music heads too, and my dad and I would exchange a lot of music with one another. Often it was a race with my dad—who was going to hear the new Curren$y tape first. (Spoiler alert: he almost always did, lol.) Now that I think about it, the computer didn’t break because of me. My parents were downloading mad music too!

The music that I downloaded made it onto this little bean-shaped MP3 player that I had. I don’t remember the name of that thing, but it was the first MP3 player I had before my parents upgraded me to an iPod shuffle a few years later. A SHUFFLE! Do you remember that?!

What made the MP3 experience so different from previous years, for me, is that music became just as much of a singular experience as it had been a communal one. Up until then, there was really no way for me to listen to music alone. I couldn’t drive yet, so there was no space for loud car rides by myself blasting music that I’ve grown to love. If I popped a CD into my player, everyone could hear it. I had a Walkman, but I rarely used it, for two reasons. The first is that I never wanted to take my CDs out of the house because I’d be constantly worried about breaking or losing them. The second reason was that CDs were just a lot for me to carry. So the bean-shaped thing was where it was at. I could put my headphones in and listen to music by myself while curating my own listening experience with no one watching me replace a CD on my Walkman or, potentially, making remarks about whether or not they liked the artist or their singles or their project. I even remember the first song I put on my iPod when I got it: “Pussycat” by Missy Elliott. Stop right now and go listen to it. I’ll wait.

As the movie and music industries have changed, film scoring has become an overwhelmingly independent process. Film composers have more responsibilities than ever before, and they must fulfill them with smaller budgets and shorter schedules. As a result, composers are increasingly becoming armies of one.

In Guerrilla Film Scoring: Practical Advice from Hollywood Composers, Jeremy Borum provides valuable guidance on how to make a good film score both quickly and inexpensively. This handbook encompasses the entire film scoring process including education, preparation, writing and recording a score, editing, mixing and mastering, finding work, career development, and sample contracts. Offering strategic tools and techniques, this insider’s guide draws on the expertise from a number of prominent composers in movies, television, and video gaming, including Stewart Copeland, Bruce Broughton, and Jack Wall.

A straightforward do-it-yourself manual, this book will help composers at all levels create the best-sounding scores quickly and cost effectively—without jeopardizing their art. With access to rare and extremely useful input from the best in the business, Guerrilla Film Scoring will benefit not only students but also professionals looking to update their game.

INTRODUCTION: THE NEW SCORING LANDSCAPE

WHY ANOTHER BOOK?

THERE IS A REAL need for taking a fresh look at the modern-day scoring process. From the very beginning, music has been used in movies, television, video games, and advertisements, and all the while, the film and music industries have been in a constant state of change. Because of shifts in styles and innovations in technology, scoring today is completely different from the way it was twenty or even ten years ago. The art and craft of scoring needs to be reevaluated and reexamined, since, like all forms of art, it is a living thing that grows and evolves.

In the last decade there have been major and irreversible changes in the music industry. Adaptation and rapid learning are required when industries go through radical change. Companies and individuals that can’t adapt fall away and are replaced. Those who fight to keep things the same usually lose. Composers need to adapt to this new environment and learn new skills.


The film and music industries have both made a dramatic shift toward independent productions with smaller budgets. Indie films, labels, and game productions used to be only for beginners, but those days are now history. Independent artists are increasingly respected, artful, productive, and profitable. Despite that fact, to date there are very few books, university courses, or trade schools that focus specifically on creating high-quality professional scores on a limited budget. Limited-, low-, or no-budget scores are the norm, and a field manual of guerrilla film scoring techniques is greatly needed.

The vast majority of books and university film scoring programs focus almost exclusively on the well-funded Hollywood machine—and for good reason. It is the established and traditional method of creating commercial music for film and television. The structure of studios, unions, contractors, players, and careful division of labor is well known and well documented. Teaching a composer about that system can be likened to teaching a performer classical music. It is the foundation out of which other things arise. It is a shrinking system, however, and newer methods are replacing it.

As with all things academic and theoretical, these same books and programs talk about film scoring in idealized ways. It is almost always assumed that budgets are adequate, schedules are reasonable, resources are available, players are good, studio equipment functions as expected, and the composer is artistically fulfilled. These things rarely happen at once, and many projects provide none of them. Although a study of the Hollywood machine is interesting, it’s ultimately not very useful. A skeleton of the Hollywood music machine still exists, but the once-pervasive model now only applies to big-budget productions. In today’s industry the composer is the whole machine. Studying the Hollywood machine is like studying frictionless surfaces in physics. It is valuable as a learning tool but doesn’t apply directly to the real world.

This is a major indictment against the available learning resources. Most talk about an industry model that is increasingly obsolete, and they discuss it in theoretical terms that are impossible to apply in a direct manner. The massive transition toward independent productions and smaller budgets is quite recent, so the myriad problems and solutions have yet to be thoroughly explored or codified. Composition students are basically trained in formal combat and then sent into the music industry to do battle guerrilla-style.

A more realistic model involves independent productions, limited money, short schedules, minimal resources, malfunctioning equipment, high expectations, and artistic conflict or frustration. Budgets that are too small for comfort are the rule, and well-funded music budgets are the exception. More attention must be paid to the modern, real-life constraints of film scoring and the harsh realities of the film scoring industry at large.

The traditional division of labor in the film scoring process has eroded completely. Long ago, composers were just one part of a large music machine. They put notes on paper and attended recording sessions, with few other responsibilities. Those duties have steadily increased. Today’s film composer is responsible for each step of the music team’s process, and oftentimes a guerrilla composer is the entire team. Modern composers must have a good balance of artistry, craft, and business, wearing all hats and managing many disparate tasks single-handedly.

Guerrilla Film Scoring is the first book of its kind, a practical field manual for film scoring soldiers. It is not about the art of writing music, the Hollywood music system, or the politics and interpersonal obstacles that come naturally when working in the arts. Composers everywhere and at each level need more ways to create a great film score quickly and inexpensively. This is a book for them: The craft of guerrilla film scoring.

VOICES FROM THE TRENCHES

Throughout this volume you will find advice, techniques, shortcuts, and secrets from successful composers who are in the trenches every day. They are influential pillars of the industry within their niches. Appendix B contains bios and websites for additional information on each one. This book follows the film composing time line, dividing the process by task. As you move through each step, seasoned professionals will explain how they manage to survive, meet the demands of the modern film scoring process, and excel. This book features information not available in other sources. It is not taught systematically at any university or trade school and is not mainstream knowledge. It is not intuitive. These insider tips and tricks will reveal how today’s successful composers do it with guerrilla film scoring techniques.

THE INDUSTRY HAS CHANGED

Like many other revolutions in history, the changes in the film and music industries were brought about by improvements in technology. Films and music are significantly easier to produce and distribute than they were just ten years ago. It is now possible to obtain affordable, high-quality equipment, and substantial changes in content distribution models have made self-publishing simple and accessible to everyone. Lest we forget how recent these changes are, remember that Apple’s fledgling MP3 player iTunes was first introduced in 2001, and YouTube didn’t launch until 2005. The digital revolution that gave us increased ease of production and distribution is brand new, and like a tsunami it quickly changed everything.

As a result, the number of films produced each year has skyrocketed. Between 1940 and 2000, the number of film productions roughly doubled. By 2010, only ten years later, that number had doubled yet again. Since then the rate of production has continued to accelerate. During the same time, however, the number of films made by major studios has been in decline. The industry is clearly in a state of flux, but despite its growing pains there are far more opportunities for film composers than ever before.

Music production has changed in a similar way. Studio equipment is consistently getting better and cheaper, and computers are ever more powerful. This paves the way for project studios to spring up everywhere, and it now takes only a minimal investment in equipment to get good recordings from a home studio. The number of independent bands, labels, and album releases has climbed sharply, as has the number of people doing guerrilla film scoring.

Media delivery methods are changing rapidly as well, and as new formats grow up, old ones die. As CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays wane in popularity, streaming and download formats are coming into favor. The older formats were dependent on a physical product, and the cost of a physical product was always prohibitive to smaller artists and productions. Since digital distribution is essentially free and unlimited, product scarcity no longer exists. The entire approach to distribution and delivery has changed. All artists and products are not equally visible, but they are now equally accessible.