FinishMySong Blog

I've spent this afternoon going through the Les Miserables score for this evening's dress rehearsal - the company are doing the School Edition, which is basically the same as the Broadway / West End musical except there are a few cuts here and there to shorten the piece and one or two sections have their key altered by a semitone or two so that it's easier for younger voices to sing... not that the cast at Stampede have anything to worry about on that score.

What gets to me about the music, though, is the number of different changes of time signature that happen in a very short period on numerous occasions throughout the show. There are moments when in three bars the time signature has changed three times, allowing the latter pulse to continue perhaps for one more bar before there are another two or three changes in consecutive bars. This is all very well if your part plays through that section but when you're score is marked with full bar rests it's a bit of a nightmare to count through each bar, particularly if the tempo is very quick or there is no sense of pulse in the music (and the conductor is your only reference to where it lies).

All good fun, though. The way things are coming together there should be some great performances this week.