Finding Tamsen's Song

FINDING TAMSEN’S SONG

I love roses. Yeah, partly because of my last name. But mostly because they are so lovely. From the florist’s roses in a vase, to the fully opened blossoms covering a trellis in a garden. The soft petals, the vivid colors, the intoxicating scent. Roses and flowers in general, make me happy. Inspire me. Thrill me. Flowers never make me think, only feel.

 But one of our leading characters, Tamsen Donner, was all about thinking. She was logical, analytical, practical; a schoolteacher with an interest in botany. She kept a journal while on the trail and she made notes of the wildflowers she saw along the way.

 We needed a song for Tamsen. A solo which would let us in on who she was, which would reveal the essence of her character. Tamsen would serve as a foil to James Reed, the leader of their group. She was disappointed with the decisions being made by Reed, and in an era when women weren’t expected to have opinions, Tamsen wasn’t afraid to voice her opinions clearly. In the scene right after Tamsen had been needling Reed about his poor choices, we wanted her to sing while her young daughter listened.

 I struggled with finding a lyric for her. My “way in” to characters is usually from their emotions. How does she feel? What does she desire? Yet I just couldn’t find an emotional side to Tamsen; she was all left-brain. In fact, I didn’t really “get” Tamsen’s interest in flowers – it seemed to conflict with her analytical, reasoning mind.

 Eric suggested that I was thinking of how I react to flowers, not how Tamsen reacts to them. Tamsen loves flowers, not because of their fragrance or brilliant colors, and not because their appearance makes her feel cheerful – that’s Margee’s love of flowers, not Tamsen’s. Tamsen loves flowers because of their predictability, of how what they will be and what they will do is programmed into every cell of their fiber. Flowers can be known.

 Once that idea clicked for me, I felt I knew Tamsen. I’d found my “way in.”

 It isn’t that Tamsen doesn’t have emotions (far from it!); it’s that she isn’t ruled by them. What Tamsen wants is to be able to understand people the way she can understand flowers. You know what a lupine will do, based on the scientific evidence in front of you. But despite all evidence... you can never predict what a person will do! They act illogically, they act based on fancy, based on emotion... and that's something Tamsen can't understand, it's not quantifiable. She wishes that people could eliminate that irrationality and – well, be like flowers.

 All of a sudden, the verse, the first two “A” sections of the song, and the “B,” came easily!

A PURPLE BLOSSOM STANDING TALL

IS ALL THAT YOU CAN SEE

IT BRIGHTENS A DUSTY WORLD

BUT SOMETHING ELSE IS CLEAR TO ME:

THERE IS BEAUTY IN THE LOGIC OF THE LUPINE

AN EXQUISITE SYSTEMATIC GRAND DESIGN

EVERY SEEDLING WILL FULFILL ITS BEST POTENTIAL

IT'S A FACT THAT'S SCIENTIFICALLY DIVINE!

IT'S PREDICTABLE, THE LOGIC OF THE LUPINE

FROM WHAT’S WRITTEN IN THE CODE OF EVERY CELL

AND EVALUATING ALL OF THE CONDITIONS

THERE’S AN OUTCOME YOU ASSUREDLY FORETELL

BUT OH! IT'S NOT THE SAME WITH PEOPLE

ALL LOGIC THEY DEFY

THEY WILL ACT ON WHIM AND EMOTION

WITHOUT GOOD REASON WHY

 But the third “A” was eluding me. In the first part of the song, Tamsen explains to her young daughter that what she loves about the beautiful wildflowers isn’t the physical beauty so much as it is the systematic way they live and grow to be beautiful. In the B section, Tamsen has expressed her wish that people were more like flowers. But … was that it? What was left to say?

 I asked myself why it mattered what Tamsen thought of lupines and other flowers. Why is it important to Tamsen and to the story we are telling? Why is it important to us, here and now in 2015 (when I was writing the song) or in 2017 (when it would be premiered), or in some year in the future (when it debuts on Broadway)…?

 For Tamsen, it was early summer on the plains of a great continent, but unbeknownst to her, in five months she and her family would be starving to death in the icy Sierra Nevada mountains.

 For me, it was November 2015. The day before I sat at my laptop struggling to find a lyric for the final lines of Tamsen’s song, ISIL terrorists had shattered the world with a series of coordinated attacks in Paris, leaving almost 100 random people dead.

 What could the science of a wildflower tell either of us that would have any relevance?

 And the answer came to me, as vivid as the memory of yellow daffodils peaking up from the frozen dirt every March when I was a little girl: the science of the flowers gives us hope:

 I FIND COMFORT IN THE LOGIC OF THE LUPINE

WITH A FLOWER I CAN KNOW WHAT IT WILL DO

WE’RE AFRAID OF THE UNKNOWN, UNCERTAIN FUTURE

BUT THE FLOWERS, EVERY SPRINGTIME, WILL RENEW

YES, THE FLOWERS, EVERY SPRINGTIME, WILL RENEW

How To Write A Musical - 2 The Plan

How To Write A Musical - 2: The Plan

“And then when you have to collaborate”

To write a musical, there are three elements to write: Book, Lyrics, and Music. Sometimes one person can write all three. More often, there are two or three collaborators writing a musical. And in some cases, many more collaborators share the writing. (For the sake of simplicity in this and future articles, I’ll use the example of three writers, one on Book, one on Lyrics, and one on Music). Collaboration is one of the greatest things about writing a musical, but it can also be one of the most frustrating. The truth is that collaboration makes your own work better, assuming you have collaborators with whom you share a mutual trust and respect. The work is better for having additional voices to question, to brainstorm, and to clarify exactly what you, as a team, want to create.

Having everyone together in the early stages will help you write a musical which feels as if one person wrote it, because the goal is a musical which flows seamlessly from dialog into song and back to dialog. A musical where each character has the same vernacular whether they are speaking dialog or singing a song. Where each element of the musical supports the same story. It’s a mistake to think of the three elements of a musical as separate tasks, and it’s an incorrect assumption that the Book Writer is the “playwright” while the other two write songs to be inserted into the play. On the contrary, each theater song is an integral part of the dramatic through line of a musical. Whether you are a lyricist, a composer, or a book writer: you are a playwright.

So: you have three playwrights, together writing one play. Get the three of you together at the very beginning of the process and get to work. But don’t write anything yet! Before you start writing, your work begins with discussing it all. Together, create a central vision for your musical.

Start With The Story

Your vision for your musical starts with the story. “Story” doesn’t mean the “book.” The book is just one of three tools you will use, together with the lyrics and the music, to tell the story. Therefore, it’s important that all three collaborators have a clear handle on the story. In addition to talking about the plot and the specifics of what happens, also discuss the themes and the message of the story. Ask yourselves why:  WHY are you telling this story, why here, why now? What affect do you want this story to have on today’s audience? The answers to these questions will guide each of you as you write your element of the musical. The answers may change as you go along, and that’s okay, but having them spelled out at the beginning will help the three of you to write the same musical. As the writing and re-writing process goes on, as you find things changing (the plot specifics, the themes, the message, the style) just discuss it, come to a new understanding, and proceed.

Something that can help you focus the plans for your story is to create your “elevator pitch:” you step onto an elevator with a Producer and she presses the button for the second floor; as the doors close she says to you, “So, what’s your show about?” What do you say, in the amount of time it takes you to ride up one floor? That’s your “elevator pitch,” and though you may not be actively pitching your show to anyone for a while yet, going through this exercise helps you focus on what your story is. (And it prepares you, too, just in case you run into Jeffrey Seller in an elevator.)

Agree on a Plan

Once you are clear on what the story is, plan how your musical will tell that story.

Who are the characters?  How many characters? Who is the hero?

Do you need a large cast or small? What is the setting? Discuss the dramatic peaks of the story and identify probable song moments.

A lot of these questions will be answered by the source material, unless of course you are working on an original story. Look to your source material for the basics, and for inspiration, but realize that you don’t have to be true to everything in the original story. Remember, you are telling the story in a new medium, with a new voice: your’s. And even with underlying source material, this is the time to let your imaginations run wild. This is the time to say, “yes, and…” to each idea presented.

Craig Howard and Erin Parker Meashey in the 1988 New York City production of Oklahoma!

Look for ways to expand the original piece. Maybe there’s a character who is only mentioned briefly in the film, which might be worthy of developing into a subplot in your musical. In Green Grow The Lilacs, for example, Will Parker is mentioned but isn’t a character in the play; Ado Annie is described as an “unattractive, stupid-looking farm girl.” Hammerstein brought Will Parker onto the stage in Oklahoma! to partner with Ado Annie, who was now attractive, and naive rather than stupid. Also look at the events of the story which are mentioned in the source material but not dramatized; for example, if two characters mention they met at a formal ball, is there value in dramatizing their meeting at that ball?

As you and your team talk through the telling of your story, discuss which moments might become songs. Where a scene reaches a dramatic point, how can you use song or dance to heighten that moment? When a character in the story must make a decision, could that be a song moment for her? Look for the most emotional high points, and those moments will often become songs.

There are many more questions to ask and discussions to be had while planning your musical, but if you’ve gone through the above conversations, dreamed big, and reached some conclusions, you are probably itching to stop talking about it and get started. And that’s just what should happen. In the next article, I’ll give you some things to think about as you finally start to write the darn thing.

Just Divine

JUST DIVINE

I hate the word “just.” It’s just so, um… just so ugly. And usually, just so unnecessary.

It’s the lyricist in me that hates “just.” Because when I think of it being sung, there isn’t anything pretty or satisfying in the sounds. The short “u” vowel is boring and dull. The “j” sound which begins the word is mushy and indistinct. And the “st” to end the word is complicated, with the two consonants “s” and “t” combined. Go ahead, say it out loud. Ugly, isn’t it?  Now, sing it. Pick your prettiest, most perfectly-placed note for your own voice and sing, “Just—” Simply awful.

When I’m writing a lyric and I come up with a line that includes the word, “just,” I go back and challenge myself to re-write the lyric without the word. Because it’s not only the ugly sound of the word, it’s the meaning. Or rather, the lack of meaning. It creeps into our sentences as a filler word, maybe for emphasis (“it’s just ugly”) or for attitude (“she’s just a writer”). For some reason I don’t mind the word if it is being used as an adjective to describe an act of justice. But when otherwise used, it’s a warning sign to me that maybe I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say. I remind myself of the meaning I’m intending to write, and then rewrite the lyric or line of dialog with a more exact word to convey a more exact meaning.

Sometimes, you don’t succeed in replacing the offending word. Even if you’re one of the greats. Oscar Hammerstein, in Lyrics (a book which includes his extensive essay on lyric writing), declares that some words have lost their value due to overuse, and he gives the example of the word, “divine.” Hammerstein used the word, “divine” in the last lines of the song, “All The Things You Are,” but he didn’t like the word when he wrote it. He didn’t like the word when he presented it to the song’s composer, Jerome Kern, and Kern didn’t like it, either. The last two lines of the song are: “Some day I’ll know that moment divine, When all the things you are are mine.” Hammerstein loved the final line, but to use the final line he had to have an “-ine” rhyme to set it up.  He tried to replace the word, but couldn’t:

 “’Some day I’ll know that moment…’ What? Sign, line, fine, shine? Nothing served as well as the unwanted “divine.” I never could find a way out. The song written in 1937 shows signs of being a long-lived standard ballad – but I shall never be happy with that word!”

* LYRICS by Oscar Hammerstein II, Copyright 1949, 1985 by Estate of Oscar Hammerstein II, Hal Leonard Books

I’ve been there, too. The big turning point song for the character of Margaret Reed in Meet Your Mountain is called “Just Me.” There’s that stupid word, not only in the song, but right there in the title! This was one of the few times where Eric and I worked music-first, and I was writing a lyric to fit an existing melody from a song we had written for the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop several years earlier. The melody was hauntingly lovely, and Eric suggested it suited Margaret’s refined character. He was right.

I wrote a lyric for Margaret at the moment when she is feeling lost and sorry for herself as she finds, for the first time in her life, she has been left without anyone to help her. Her husband is gone. Her mother is gone. She has several children depending on her, and they are facing hardships of unbelievable proportions. All she has is herself (“…just me”). By the end of the song, though, she is determined to triumph and has made the realization that “… perhaps all I need is me. Just me. Just me.”) In the title phrase of the melody, I only had two syllables to work with. I couldn’t write the lyric as “only me.” I thought long and hard about the word, but ultimately decided I liked the ugly rawness of the word “just;” it contrasted with the lush beauty of the music, and it suited Margaret’s predicament in the story. It’s a good thing I ended up liking the word because the structure of the melody included repeating it twice at the end of the song!

For me, though, this song from Meet Your Mountain is the exception that proves my own personal rule. I will still work towards never again using the word “just” in a lyric.

I have done it, but just once.

Listen to the wonderful Vivienne Cleary singing “Just Me” from Meet Your Mountain. Lyric by Margaret Rose. Music by Eric Rockwell. Demo produced by Frank Galgano & Matt Castle.