Rehearsal #4: Need Songs

(Photo: Madrid, NM is the smallest town we've ever based Let It Snow! on, at a popluation of 149.)

This week we rehearsed at an Academy of Art University building on Townsend. Those of you familiar with San Francisco might be asking yourself “isn’t every building in SF an Academy of Art building?” While it may seem so, they don’t own the entire city just yet.

But I digress, the room was large and great for dance practice, especially waltzing. Mandy managed to confuse us all greatly by having us attempt to waltz around the room without partners, and then again by turning the waltz into a fox trot or something like that. I’m still confused. But, the point is, we danced a lot, which is good! Not only is it good practice but I’ve learned that some cast members dance better if you forcefully lead them, and others you can pretty much follow even when you’re leading. Good to have that knowledge in one’s back pocket.

After dancing, and an appropriate cooling off period, we warmed up our voices and worked on Need Songs. David Norfleet’s amp decided not to work, so instead he played the piano. Thankfully the room had a piano or we would have practiced need songs to a chorus of humming.

What’s a Need Song? Well, a Need Song is a song sung by the protagonist usually in the first scene in which the protagonist sings about what they need. Fairly self explanatory, I guess, but the whole show hangs on that need and the protagonists journey towards either getting their need or being denied it.

In addition, our director Tara would like the Need Song to be a Metaphor Song in which the need is likened to some object, situation, profession, or aspect of the town suggested by the audience. We don’t just get a town name and go from their. We get a small town that someone in the audience lived in and liked, and we ask that person a lot of questions about that town. We get as much information as we can, so that we can set the show in that town and really give it the flavor of the place. That’s, perhaps, the biggest gift of the show. If you’re fortunate enough to have your town chosen, you get to see your town really honored in the best possible light.

We had time for everyone to sing one need song. Mine was OK. I’m no longer worried about my voice or hitting notes or sounding good. I finally have confidence on that level. Now I am more concerned about the words I’m singing, in particular with metaphors. I sang a song about being in love with a watchmaker, thus setting myself up for all sorts of wonderful metaphors, but I couldn’t find any within the song to save my life.

What I learned, or what I think I learned at any rate, was that I need to free myself of the need to rhyme. It’s more important to sing what needs to be sung than to make it rhyme all pretty. I also learned that to make a metaphor song work I have to jump and justify. Rather than knowing what metaphor I’m trying to make in advance, just sing about something. Sing about a watchmaker or a watch. Sing about an ear of corn (to borrow from the song Tara sang) and don’t worry about what it means, yet. The audience will assume it means something. They will read meaning into it and so will I as I’m singing it. The meaning will come out and then I can make it clear. But at first, I’m just singing about a watch.