Our first practice

On Thursday, we had our first actual practice for The Music Man. It was only really a read-through, but it was still exciting to have everyone together and to begin working on it.

For just about everyone, it was the first time they'd heard all the music or seen the entire script. Not me, though. I picked up a copy of the CD and the script a week ago and began working on my songs - hard. I worked so hard this past week, that I thoroughly impressed everyone at the read-through by having every song completely memorized! Well, I still have a bit of work to do on "Sadder but Wiser Girl" but everything else is done. And these songs are NOT easy. I think Meridith Wilson decided he needed to see how many words he could cram into each measure.
The song Trouble was by far the most difficult. To see what I mean, click here or here. I thought I'd never get that line, "jever take and try an iron clad leave for yourself from a three rail billiard shot." Whew, that's hard to even write.

It was funny to watch the slightly amused and even a bit shocked look on the director's faces as I sang the songs from memory. As they realized with each new song that I really had them ALL memorized, they were quite impressed. The music director exclaimed, "you've just made my life a lot easier."

But in my mind memorizing the songs is the easy part, I was able to listen to them on my ipod while jogging and doing other stuff. But other than actual rehearsals (which may provide for most of my memorization time) I'll have to sit down and read the script to memorize the lines.