One Bride for Seven Brothers

ImproMafia's long form musical demonstrated some great musical techniques.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of working with an amazing cast to produce the improvised show One Bride for Seven Brothers. This was ImproMafia's first long-form musical, with a first half, intermission, and second half, bringing the show to about an hour and ten minutes.

This show had the normal sort of preparation for ImproMafia long-form. Most short-form improvised shows are completely cooked up on the spot, with zero preparation and no preconceptions of character or story. For our long-forms, we spend a great deal of time considering the underlying handle of the show, and putting together a few characters and a few potential story beats. The story arcs and final character traits appear on the night, a product of audience offers and the experiences from rehearsals.

Structure

One Bride was based loosely on the classic musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. In that original musical, a family of seven brothers live in the mountains, only occasionally coming to town for supplies and such. The eldest brother comes to town one day on a mission to find a wife - and he is successful, bringing his new wife back to the house. Eventually all the brothers decide it would be good to have wives of their own, so they ride in to town, kidnap some women, and bring them back to their mountain home. By the end of winter when the mountain passes have opened, the townsfolk come in to town to retrieve them, and... well, you can watch it if you want to know what happens next.

In our production One Bride, a family of seven brothers are the sole inhabitants of a town. In a nod to the original, the brothers are named alphabetically by height, from Archie down to Golly. Each of the brothers has a job or two, and collectively they are self sufficient. (Given the lack of customers, their businesses are a little stagnant, but they cheerfully soldier on.) They have a family problem to solve (which comes from an audience offer).

Not long in to the story, Nancy Buttons arrives in town. She is either a stranger, or returning to the town after a long absence, depending on how the things pan out. Nancy has arrived with a reason you might travel to a town (again, an audience offer).

There are several elements that we expected to see develop in the story, elements you might consider standard in a musical. We expected the youngest brother Golly to fall in love with Nancy, who may eventually start to feel the same way, and some obstacle might in their way. By the end of the show, the family problem should be solved, Nancy's reason for coming to town is satisfied, and most likely Golly and Nancy are united.

Rehearsals

We ran a bunch of rehearsals leading up to the performance, where we could tune some of the elements in show (such as the offers), and experiment with different characters and their relationships.

When I watch a long form show (whether or not I'm participating in it), I tend to get quite attached to the characters, suspending my disbelief and really buying the story. So I found it completely bizarre to have a rehearsal where the characters take shape, a story comes about, there is conflict, resolution, and finally a happy ending... then it all resets for the next rehearsal, where none of that last story happened, but the characters are eerie reflections of their former selves. It's very much like a sci-fi show where someone jumps in to an alternate reality.

I found it very interesting to watch how some characters changed over the course of our preparation. In rehearsals Archie was often the father figure, the voice of reason guiding Golly to the right path; on the night, Archie was a simpleton, the dullest of all the brothers. Brett and Eric seemed to fall in to the role of comic relief for each of the shows, roles they nailed each time. The villain of the story always seemed to evolve organically, and was never the same person twice. Cain, Fudge and Dudley seemed to fall in to the roles of brothers who could turn to the dark side easily. The wide-eyed sweet youngest brother Golly was cast as the male lead, opposite Nancy Buttons, a headstrong and independent woman.

Back: Dan Beeston, Luke Allan, Luke Rimmelzwaan, Kris Anderson
Centre: Tom Dunstan, Joel Gilmore, Michael Griffin, Alex Reichart
Front: Tristan Ham, Amy Currie

Cast

The vocal director Luke Rimmelzwaan helped to guide the group as we all put together techniques and mechanisms for constructing songs. We spent a great deal of time on certain techniques - duets, separated lovers' duets, patter songs... So much so, that the cast could see the songs approaching as scenes progressed.

The director Mike Griffin put together a cast of accomplished improvisers, all with great instincts and tremendous voices. One Bride (the show and the rehearsals) is something I'm really proud of; I very much enjoyed working with everyone creating this show.

• Golly: Tristan Ham
• Nancy: Amy Currie
• Archie: Luke Rimmelzwaan
• Brett: Luke Allan
• Cain: Alex Reichart
• Dudley: Dan Beeston
• Eric: Joel Gilmore
• Fudge: Tom Dunstan

• Director: Michael Griffin
• Musical Director: Kris Anderson
• Vocal Director: Luke Rimmelzwaan

Case Study

Over the coming weeks, Musical Hotspot will feature articles by myself and Luke Rimmelzwaan, explaining some of the techniques we used and the discoveries we made. We'll use songs from the show as demonstration - it's always easier to explain something when you have an example to point to.

Thanks to Al Caeiro for permission to use her photos from the show. Al always takes wonderful pictures of ImproMafia long form shows, and I'm glad she's letting me share some of them with you.

I also want to give a big thank you to the cast for letting me use the songs on the site. I love these songs, and I hope you enjoy listening to them too. (If you subscribe to the Musical Hotspot podcast, you'll get these songs delivered to you each week.)

Photography by Al Caeiro

Oohs and Aahs

Providing backing vocals to an improvised song can be tricky. There's an easy trick you can try, and the results will impress.

Most of the time, when people put backing vocals to an improvised song, they'll sing lyrics that mirror the line that came just before. "I took a ride (took a ride) on a rocket-plane (rocket-plane)..." I think it takes a bit of practice to get good at this. You need to pick a snippet from the line that fits the rhythm of the song. You need to spot that sometimes the singer is going to sing a longer line, and hold back on those vocals. Oh yeah, and you need to hit notes that sound nice, too. No worries.

For an extra degree of difficulty, try getting two or more people to do backing vocals like this at the same time. To me this often sounds like a speaking-in-one-voice exercise, with a bit of stumbling as people pick different snippets of line to sing. It's hard to have a group mind about this stuff.

So... what's this trick that makes it all easy and impressive?

Recently we workshopped a bunch of song structures and formats ahead of our long-form improvised musical "One Bride for Seven Brothers". (You'll be hearing more about One Bride, and the things we learned, in future posts.) We experimented with using non-verbal sounds like oohs and aahs for backing vocals. And it worked really well!

When you don't have to articulate words, you are guaranteed to not clash with the rhythm of the song. You also aren't going to clobber the singer if they're singing over your backing.

The group mind thing works a lot better with aaah backing vocals - everyone chooses the same sound, and you avoid that in-one-voice stumbling-about thing.

Of course, you still have to try and pitch your singing to nicely gel with the music. Reader Jill passed on this tip commenting on On Your Mark... Get Set... Stop? a few months ago:

"Mary Cay Stone, one of the keyboard players at ComedySportz-Twin Cities quoted this to me, and it's made me so very comfortable: You're never more than half a step away from the “right” note… -Victor Wooten"

That's such an excellent tip. I find folks doing aaaah backing vocals can get away with being a half-step away from the right note - for a while they're doing something dissonant, something that gives a bit of tonal instability. The moment when someone resolves that instability is awfully nice.

Photo by owaief89

Listen and Be Changed

There is one skill, one skill alone that makes the difference between a good impro musician and a great one.

Is it longevity? Sure, that helps. Doing impro for a long time means you can get to know the people, and start to figure out how it all works. Is that the key? Nope, that's not it.

Is it technical instrument skill? As a technical pianist, I'm just ok. I would say skilled enough that the average joe thinks I can play, but not so much that I'd compare well against "real pianists". (I know a few of those real pianists, and I find them quite intimidating. You know who you are.) So piano skill isn't it either.

I'm good at playing by ear, too - I can recall songs from 30 years ago, movie and tv themes, commercials... Nothing impresses more than being able to recall the right movie theme music at the right time. Nothing's more fun than an impromptu sing-along of dorky 80's tv show themes with the cast before a show. But that's not it either.

So, what is it exactly? What is this secret key to being a great improvising musician?

Option 1: Listen and Be Changed

To me, by far the most important skill to have is the ability and willingness to really pay attention to what is going on in a scene, and to allow yourself to be changed by it.

When underscoring a scene, this comes through all the time. Underscoring an improvised scene is like riding a raft down a river; you're going somewhere, you may slow down and speed up and have jolts along the way, and you probably can't predict when those jolts are going to happen, but the river will take you there and make those changes happen. Just as a scene will take you there and ask you for the music it needs.

There was a wonderful example a few months back in Prognosis: Death, where Nurse Lottie Buble (Natalie Bochenski) and Dr Melody Carmichael (Amy Currie) were having a lighthearted chat about nothing in particular, when Melody mentioned Dr Burton Mangold (David Massingham) in passing. Mangold had only recently dumped Buble at the altar, and the mere mention of his name sent Buble reeling while Melody continued on, oblivious to her friend's momentary discomfort. The music went from bubbly-happy to wistful-bittersweet in the blink of an eye, and snapped back again almost as quickly.

In an improvised song, the singer(s) are going to lead the music somewhere using their body language, their intonation, and of course their lyrics. As the musician you may have set up a groove to sit in, but if the singer clearly wants you to take it somewhere else, you need to go with them.

We had another lovely example at Impro Gladiators a while back, with a duet featuring a girl (Kiesten McCauley) looking for love, and the boy (Stav Davidson) who watches her from afar. It was a textbook love ballad, right up until the verse where the boy reveals that he has stalked the girl outside her window every night, at which point his verse changed from touching-love-song, swelling to become melodramatic-operatic as he explored the depths of his obsession.

This works both ways, of course. A few nights ago, Impro Mafia staged a fantastic long-form musical, One Bride For Seven Brothers. Towards the end of the show, in a ballad joining the two newly-married romantic leads, Nancy Buttons (Amy Currie) was singing to her sweetheart Golly Riley (Tristan Ham) about the lovely life they were about to start. The music shifted briefly to a minor chord for one bar, and without skipping a beat, Amy filled that bar with the line "no more pain or fright". Her lyric changed to match the music. Listening. Good stuff.

Option 2: Don't listen, and stick to your plan

The alternative is to be the driver, to set the musical tone for all of your work. Don't get me wrong - strong musical offers are excellent, and a confident musician paired with perceptive and willing actors can yield excellent scenes. But someone who is unwilling to change is going to ignore offers from their fellow players. It's been a long while since I've seen a musician railroad actors, but I still can remember thinking that the musician mustn't really want to be there.

Improvising actors are taught early on not to block; when someone presents an idea on stage, you want to avoid saying "No, but let's go with my idea instead!". It's no different for musicians - if the folks on stage present an idea (a song with a key/tempo/feel/...), and you blow that away with a different (and perhaps even arguably a 'better') idea, you've blocked them and said no to the reality they were about to create.

Yes Man

We saw Yes Man a little while back, a movie featuring Jim Carrey as a man who, after a life of saying no to opportunities, commits to saying 'Yes' to every opportunity that comes his way. (As movies go, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great, as evidenced by the preceding trailers for movies we'd never heard of.) Jim's character Carl finds out that by accepting opportunities (offers from the universe), he breaks out of his monotonous, inertial life and discovers excitement and unpredictability. Each acceptance took him somewhere, and from there another new opportunity would take him somewhere else, until he ended up being blissfully happy in a situation he would never have arrived at normally.

Improv is like that. Saying yes to opportunities means tossing out the thing you thought you were going to do, and going somewhere that might be uncomfortable or unpredictable. That is so ok. More than just ok, it's the basis for everything.

Is that it?

I would say that, in an impro scene, I'm good at watching and listening, and being ready to pick up on what the scene asks for to take the music there. (My wife will read this and grin that I'm talking up my ability to listen. Hi sweetie.)

This skill, the skill of paying attention, obviously isn't reserved for musicians; the best players on stage do the same thing, accepting offers and building on them. As an improv musician, you need some musical skill, and playing by ear is always helpful, but a willingness to be present, in the moment, ready to accept the scene and go where it wants you to go, is key.

Photo by someones.life

Jingles

As a new improvising musician, should you have some preset music ready to go?

A few months back, I was talking to someone who was interested in doing music for improv theatre. They had strong classical piano training, and really enjoyed watching improv. Coming up to their first improv gig, though, they got a little nervous. For someone with traditional training, the thought of jumping in to the unknown-and-unprepared was a bit daunting.

One thing they said to me was "I have to learn a bunch of jingles."

I get what they're talking about. You want to equip yourself with tools, to make sure you're prepared to handle any situation that might show up. You might set yourself up with some prepared themes for different emotions... carousel music for happy, funeral march for desperate sadness, psycho theme music for unhinged. You also might rehearse with some handy riffs to use in between games while you're supporting the MC.

For a new improviser, these can serve as building blocks. They'll let you get out on stage and have something to use to get moving. But they don't give you any interplay with the scene. You might as well press play on a CD-player, and later on press stop when the scene has changed enough that the theme you chose no longer fits.

Relying on tools like prepared jingles should be a temporary thing, while you figure out how to create stuff out of nothing. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Play your jingle, but change it, let it grow and become something else. This putting one foot in front of the other is hard at first. You will get used to it, and it will work. I promise.

Photo by Rolf Venema