The Creation of a New Musical, Part 9b - Preproduction: Music Prep

The basic lead sheet may eventually be expanded to a fully arranged piano accompaniment during the rehearsal process. Then again, many composers like to go into rehearsals with a fully realized piano part. And professional copyists may be involved in any part of this process, cleaning up and making beautiful the lead sheet, piano/vocal, dance and vocal arrangements. Eventually the orchestrator will take all of this material and create full orchestral scores based on that material and any other information he's amassed (more about orchestrators when we get to them). And that's when you see the full glory of the copyist in action.

To be continued.

How many times do I have to tell you to GO SEE A SHOW!?

Look, I could go on and on about hummers as I bet a lot of you could. There's a tendency to look down on them. Many of the successful composers I dislike the most suffer from the humdrum. But remember, Irving Berlin was basically a hummer — probably the most successful hummer of all time.

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