Friday's rehearsal were the lessons we were all looking forward too, being able to try out our new parts and be able to find out what the next few rehearsals will consist of. On the 18th, we had a two hour session, when we got into the lesson our teacher told us to sit around in a semi circle and we discussed our updates on our Blogs and we congratulated each other on our parts.
In the first hour (period 3), we were given a booklet full of the songs from the musical. As a group, we all sat around the piano and started to sing through some of the songs to familiarize ourselves or in some cases learn the songs for the first time. We managed to get through all of the chorus songs apart from one which was 'So you wanna be a boxer' although this is mainly sang by Cagey Joe, but the chorus numbers we did get through were; 'Bugsy Malone', 'Fat Sam's Grand Slam', 'Bad Guys', 'Down And Out' and 'You Give A Little Love'. First of all, we took each song quite slowly, usually breaking after every couple of lines so that we could listen and understand what notes we were needing to sing. We were split into two groups, many singing the same octaves, the boys singing mainly tenor and the girls singing higher mainly being alto, although within these two groups we also had a couple of people singing different harmonies, with the boys a couple sang even lower (more bass) as they had deeper voices in general and a couple of girls, including me, sang the much higher notes ranging towards soprano, as the rest had a little trouble hitting the higher notes, but it all equalled out and the different harmonies sounded really good. The song 'Fat Sam's Grand Slam' was easier to learn than a few of the other songs because after the instrumental, the tune is repeated. The only bit that did need a closer look at was the "da da da da da" section. 'Bugsy Malone' had a few difficult lines as the notes and the pace would change quite unexpectedly, especially the line "He's a man, a mountain, He's a rolling stone", this is one line that I definitely need to have a look at. The third song that we looked at 'Bad Guys' was the easiest of them all as late last year, as a group, we learnt the song and had to make up a dance to go with it so we were all familiar with the tune. The eerie song 'Down And Out' was really enjoyable. The verses are mainly sung by Bugsy so all we had to learn was the simple words of "down, down, down, down, down, down, down and out". This line is constantly repeated whilst Bugsy is singing so it sounds really good underneath, especially with the higher and lower notes in also. Finally, the song 'You Give A Little Love' wasn't too hard to learn either; most of the song is the same tune as 'Bad Guys' just with a few different notes. It's only at the end where we change tune but this wasn't hard to work out and we all just enjoyed it and had a laugh. I think once we all start to get the hang of the notes, we can start to relax more and the volume will increase.
In the second hour (period 4), we managed to read through the whole script in just over 40 minutes. It was a chance to put our new characters into practice and it was really exciting. However, there are around 30 named characters in the musical Bugsy Malone, and we only have 18 students in our class. As a result of this many other people in the class were given two or three smaller roles to play instead. Luckily, being the part of Tallulah enables me to focus on just one character as she is quite an important role who has many lines. The read through helped us to see if any of the people with more than one part, clashed with any of their other characters. It became quite hard though as we had a few people absent this day so Miss had to stand in for them instead. Although the read through is to also help us understand what importance our characters are and to get an idea of how they appear to others and ourselves, this was just a brief analysis, so I didn't have to focus on characterisation too much. However, it helped me to understand the importance of Tallulah a bit better and the role she is known for. Tallulah is Fat Sam's girlfriend and the headliner in the club, which is why she can get away with just about anything, she even has her own song, 'My Name Is Tallulah', which she sings to everyone else in the club, with the help of her dancers. She is also Blousey's rival. When Miss mentioned that we were going to read through the script, immediately I thought to myself that I can't do the accent and I'm just going to embarrass myself, but as were reading it through it just came naturally to me. Yes I need to work on the accent a lot more and add more characterisation in the long run but overall I was pleased with the first read through.
At the end of the lesson, Miss told us that it is important to start learning our lines over half term, as we only have a certain amount of rehearsals to work on it and it is also easier to set and to play around with your character when you are not holding the libretto in your hand. So this was our homework over half term, as well as writing up our blogs.
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