Chris Port Blog #297. Oh! What A Lovely Musical

Oh! What A Lovely Musical

Link to free live webinar on 13^th July 2011 by Songwriter on how to promote songs through social media.

Link to Facebook discussion thread at

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/SongwriterTips/posts/232506363438235?notif_t=feed_comment

Me: I just signed up for the webinar and I'd like to know are there any specific forums and/or web strategies you recommend I use to recruit composers for an experimental collaborative musical project?

For further details please see the following blog posts at Marty Gull:

#256. Back-of-a-fag-packet note to musical composers
http://martygull.blogspot.​com/2011/05/chris-port-blo​g-256-back-of-fag-packet.h​tml

#277. Songwriting Workshop
http://martygull.blogspot.​com/2011/06/chris-port-277​-songwriting-workshop.html

Thanks

Chris

Songwriting: Hey Chris!

This is really tough because you're not really looking for a collaborator in the sense of “Hey, lets get together and see what happens” - you're looking for someone to do a very specific job in the execution of your very specific vision.

So I see two possibilities:

1. Pay someone (probably the fastest and easiest)
 

2. Sell someone on why they should contribute to your vision

Have you considered paying someone? Do you have to choose #2?

Me: I wish I had private funds available to commission composers, but that’s not an option at the moment. There’s some interesting poker games going on with arts funding, but I need the music in place before I can sit at that table. So, unless a philanthropist puts up some venture capital (which I’m working on) then #1 is out for the time being.

#2 is more promising. The basic pitch to all you musicians/composers out there is “get your foot in the door”. It’s surreal, satirical, tragicomic, musical political theatre. It’s intertextual pastiche. What more could a young buck want?

As a writer, I’m drooling with the possibilities. I’m looking for musicians with a similar playful attitude. I’m not looking for one composer to score the entire musical. I’m looking for people to pick and choose whatever takes their fancy, then play around with it and PERSONALIZE it

I don’t actually have ONE specific vision. I have several. The whole point of the project is that it can (and should) evolve in different directions in different styles. Suppose a composer said “I really like the Ballad of Tippi Marsh, but I’ve come up with a completely different musical concept that doesn’t fit your lyrics”? I’d say “Great!” Then we’d have another direction to explore…

Just a reminder - this isn’t going to be some West End musical (in its current form, anyway). It’s something I want to see workshopped by top drama conservatoires and professional theatre companies (here and abroad). Think Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What A Lovely War transposed from the trenches to the education/entertainment industry.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the BOOK, and what people do with it. I’ll come to copyright/royalty arrangements with contributors according to what ideas make it through to the workshop phase. Because the profit angle is (at the moment) quite nebulous, I’m not expecting anyone else to put in huge amounts of time and work at this stage. I’m asking for a sense of artistic adventure, curiosity and… well, NAUGHTINESS basically.

To reduce it to a USP (Unique Selling Point) I’m looking for composers with a sense of fun. Preferably ones that drink and smoke and swear and argue about films and TV and “who was the best…?” a lot. No Gleesters need apply :)