personal guidelines for creating a musical

i liked this post from Peter J Casey; most of his advice is about making sure form follows function, which i totally endorse. he also appears to recommend having a show planned out from first to last before the writing begins; i'm not as sure about that. i've found that writing from an outline constrains my story and characters before the writing begins; i usually don't really know who these people are or how they will act until i've written from their perspective for a period of time. i like to have a vague sense of how things start and how they will end, and maybe i'll have a few key moments envisioned, but also i like to have some freedom of movement when the actual writing is happening.

still, there are some questions that i know must be answered before too long; if i'm halfway through a draft and still don't know the answers, it's probably not going to work. here are a few, in no particular order:

musical questions

- what does the show sound like? generally, what world am i trying to create sonically? specifically, what are the instruments and what are the genres i'm using to create that world? i like to narrow in on a suite of sounds that stays consistent; after i've written a few songs, this usually comes into focus. the question of genres is tougher, but just as crucial (and i use the word "genres," plural; there had better be a wide range of genres referenced over the course of the evening, or else the songs will wash together and numb the audience with predictability). i've lately thought of it in terms of putting together a band: great bands can evoke multiple genres within the framework of their particular set of sounds and instruments. so i start to wonder - what's the band? what types of rhythms do they like? do they draw on traditional forms but use modern instruments? do they do the reverse? are there enough contrasting sounds in the band to create a wide palette -- unpitched percussive instruments (drums, straight percussion, for pure rhythmic functions), bass of some kind (bass is its own category, obviously, but has a rhythmic and a harmonic function, though normally not a melodic one), pitched percussive (like a piano, guitar or banjo, or pizz strings, to create rhythmic lines that also function as melodic or harmonic lines), and sustained-note instruments (string, brass or wind instruments, or their electronic equivalent, to create sustained harmonies and melodic lines)? those four categories need to be all covered, i've found, especially when you're writing music that is driven by rhythm, as i believe musical theater mostly needs to be (you might note that three of the four categories involve rhythm, and i've found rhythmic counterpoint should involve a minimum of 3 parts unless i want the arrangement to sound really boring).

- what does each character sound like within the world of the show? this is partly about genre, and i really try not to have only one genre happening at a time; again, it gets too predictable. what usually happens is the instruments are each suggesting a slightly different genre -- for example, maybe the piano is playing a philip glass-style ostinato, while the strings are slurring and bending notes like bluegrass fiddlers, and the bass line is on a low synth in straight quarter notes, evoking new wave or EDM, while the drums play some version of the traditional "be my baby" phil spector girl group beat. so, with those four sounds all rubbing up against one another, what is being said about the character? what information do those four genres communicate to the listener about the person and the situation? what sort of conflicts are built into those contrasts? sometimes i start with the music, and let the music tell me who the character is, and sometimes it's the opposite, depending on how the writing evolves. by about the halfway point, though, i need to have a good sense of how the character sounds musically. genres will tell us other things about the character, also -- for instance, does the character wear their heart on their sleeve? are they guarded? are they tortured by something deep? are they blissfully unaware? are they always trying to "sell" something (a car, a point of view, a religious or political doctrine)? do they only express themselves ironically? again, there should be a contrast -- some characters reveal themselves and some work to conceal, and the music should reflect those differences. i find that no one should be too simple as to be reduced to one particular genre (this guy sings springsteen anthems! this woman only sings 12-bar blues!) but should evoke several at once, preferably in ways that the audience won't really have an immediate reference for. i've seen plenty of shows in which the book is doing a ton of heavy lifting with character development, only to have the music start and tell us from the opening bars that the song is going to be like a thousand others i've heard before, obliterating any uniqueness and specificity that i'd come to associate with the character. predictable music tells me i'm watching a predictable person.

story questions

- what is the point of the show? what about the human experience is being illuminated by the show? what makes this show necessary? a musical takes years to bring to fruition, and i don't want to invest that time and energy if i can't answer the question of why this show should exist in the first place.

- am i telling the audience what they want to hear, or am i getting as close to the truth as possible? this one doesn't require much elaboration, but is a question that i am constantly posing to myself, throughout the writing process.

- why am i drawn to this story? what am i wrestling with that is working itself out on this script? i find that i need to constantly interrogate my own perspective, and be brutally honest about why i want to write a particular story. i just finished a draft of a piece that is ostensibly about slavery and the civil war, but is, on a much deeper level, about loss of historical memory. i was about three quarters done before i realized that i was being pushed along by unresolved anger at a piece of family history that was swept under the rug for a number of years and only recently came to light. this realization helped me to focus that theme and bring it out as much as i could; it became the burning emotional center of the whole show.

- what is the dialectic? this is a fancy way of saying, what are the opposing principles or points of view that battle amongst one another? this doesn't need to be intellectual; it can be as simple and fundamental as, one character believes in the interconnectedness of all things while another believes we are each ultimately alone in our existence. the dialectic should be what i think of as an unsolvable riddle; the show isn't going to present an answer or declare a winner.

practical questions

- is this show about an event that happens to a community of people? if it's not, it probably won't work as a musical. there are exceptions (Hedwig comes to mind) but normally a musical is about a group of people going through some sort of change event -- a small town in Iowa, a small town in Oklahoma, tenement residents of the west side of manhattan, tenement residents of the east village. it's rare that a show can work that doesn't involve a community dealing with some kind of disruption.

- is the story in some way archetypal? if not, it probably won't be a good musical. musicals have one foot in the real world and one foot in archetype - i can't really think of a classic show that becomes part of the repertoire that isn't telling an archetypal story. this is what's tricky; it can be hard to create an archetypal story without becoming predictable.

more questions to come as i think of them...