There is not one way to practice. This is simply one method by which to get better at singing. It’s a method that works. Make sure you understand the principles and apply them in your own way.
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Author Archive: Blake
missed connections at New Works Showcase
I am proud to announce that on January 18th I will be sharing selections from a new song cycle entitled Missed Connections. This showcase is being put together by the Squeaky Wheel Theatre Project in Orlando. Tickets can be purchased here.
Missed Connections is a song cycle that deals with the classified ads that bear the same name. They are funny and cute, but also reveal the deep desire for human connection that each of us have.
Happy Thanksgiving
Enjoy a new Thanksgiving Carol from Double Click Drama!
New Project – Double Click Drama
I have begun a new project, working again with collaborator Craig Sobel. We are working on creating some great art, but beyond that we are also working on a new way to deliver theater online. Most of the information will get posted on the production company’s website: www.doubleclickdrama.com
If you would like to be part of this journey, please sign up for the Double Click Drama newsletter.
Commercial Music
Here is a 15 second commercial bit I made for an apple sauce commercial. It’s a different way of thinking about music and textures.
Understudies Program
Understudies is still in rehearsals – set for competiton on November 8th!Here is a copy of the program cover.
And Then Swine Flu
A silly song I wrote a few years back. Enjoy.
Understudies – A New Musical: Track Samples
Take a listen to some of the tracks from Understudies – A New Musical
Use Pencil, Kids
Every writer has a process that is different. Each has a method that best nourishes a creative environment. Each has a process that works toward refined art. None is right, none is wrong – just different.
My process involves printing out the script single sided and taking time to write notes and other ideas throughout the page. I also enjoy writing full lyrics and musical ideas on the blank sides of the pages. I’m sure I am not the only one who likes the physical act of writing and crossing out and changing. You become comfortable with a document in it’s messiness and flawed organization. Typing a draft (as Meg Bell taught me) is far too final. It already looks polished and ready for print beaming at me from my computer screen when, in fact, I need to cross half of it out and rewrite.
I have been working on a new project and, as you can see in the photo, I took a step back recently. In a strange turn of events whose length of time to explain far outweighs it’s humor, someone else spilled coffee all over my script. Over the past weeks I had just been grabbing whatever pen or pencil I could get my hands on. Unfortunately the red pen didn’t make it.
The loss was tough but, as someone once said, if you can’t remember the lyrics they weren’t very good. So let this then be a lesson to you all: Use pencil. It will not be easily dissolved by the random coffee that is spilled on your script.
Form is all we have
I was recently watching a master class with Jason Robert Brown and The Dramatists Guild of America. Therein Brown said something that struck me (this was said in conversation – don’t judge the grammar too harshly):
“Structure is our whole deal – structure is the whole game. That’s all we’ve got really, as composers. Everybody’s got notes. All we can do it to arrange those notes within a certain structure.”
Wow. This is huge. I mean, it must be true – he does have three names and all…Continue reading