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Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n A couple of weeks before the performance of Chicago at college, I was asked if I could help out by playing piano in the pit band. As I had never played in a pit band before, I was very excited to take up this challenge as it would allow me to develop my sight reading skills as well as understand the inner workings of a pit band. The Chicago score is also quite jazzy and therefore , I really enjoyed listening to and playing the music.<\/p>\n Research<\/strong><\/p>\n The Alhambra pit band experience, which I spoke about in another tab gave me a huge amount of information and understanding on the requirements of being a pit band musician. This included, how the musicians reacted with one another as well as how they followed the musical director. I have played in a wind orchestra in the past and therefore have some understanding of how to follow a conductor, however that was in a group of over thirty people and therefore although they were dis encouraged, mistakes could slip under the radar, whereas with the pit band there was a lot more focus on me.<\/p>\n Initially when I was asked to play in Chicago, I had a listen to the soundtrack on Spotify which was really helpful as it allowed me to have a basic understanding of the songs that I would be playing as well as some of the piano parts.<\/p>\n After John had given me the score for the musical, I began to practice some of the songs to the soundtrack as well as a few little parts to a metronome in order to keep me in time. Most of my research for this project however, came from primary research which me practicing with the pit band. I will try and break down some of the rehearsals and talk about the development of the band over the two weeks that we had.<\/p>\n Rehearsals<\/strong><\/p>\n 04\/03\/2019<\/p>\n On Monday 4th March, I took part in a full day of rehearsals in the live room with the rest of the pit band and the singers from performing arts. I was fully sight reading for most of this session, as I didn’t really know many of the songs other than all that jazz. WE had a great session of rehearsals and got so much work done. There were a few areas where I felt that I could improve upon as well as some parts where I could write out some clearer notation and label the chords a bit better. However , I felt that the rehearsal went well and that I gelled with the band very quickly as well as understanding my part in the pit band.<\/p>\n 05\/03\/2019<\/p>\n On Tuesday 5th March, I took part in a second day of rehearsals. These were in the theatre where the final performance would be which allowed us to understand the cues between the scenes and the songs.<\/p>\n 11\/03\/2019<\/p>\n On Monday the 11th March, we took part in a second full day of rehearsals in which we ran through the full play a couple of times as well as addressing certain parts of the play such as the cell block tango.<\/p>\n Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n 12\/03\/2019<\/p>\n Dress Rehearsal<\/p>\n Overall I think that the dress rehearsal went really well. I slipped up in a couple of areas, however the general standard of my playing was very high. The areas that I struggled in were the songs, that until the previous day I hadn’t received the chords for. These were songs 7 and 15. In order for them to be stronger in the next two performances, I decided to practice them through a couple of times with a backing track. This allowed me to understand the cues and timing in the songs.<\/p>\n Matinee Performance<\/p>\n The matinee performance was quite straightforward in that we all performed to a good standard and personally I made few mistakes. It was great to play in front of an audience and overall it was a really fun experience. The only part that I had to adapt to was playing in the dark with quite small lighting, however this wasn’t too difficult to adapt to.<\/p>\n Evening Performance<\/p>\n Here is the video of the evening performance, showcasing the entire pit band performance. Unfortunately I am off camera to the left hand side, however this video gives a great representation of my playing in the band as it was a really great performance by all of us.<\/p>\n