For the new musical theater performance STOKED! we wrote everything ourselves. That includes the music and all the songs. And by “we” I’m talking about a broad team of creators: songwriters, composer, musicians, arranger, etc.
It’s a super interesting process, which usually starts with lyrics. That has a place in the story, with characters, moment and emotion.
I know the characters and the story and have designed the unicycle-sessions. The song-lyrics then create a kind of an extra layer, which forces me to re-evaluate the unicycle-parts.
Over time, the music comes in. First in a bare performance, just melody. With that we can then feel if the text fits. After fitting, measuring and polishing, the final song is added in a working format.
We can rehearse this to see if it really fits. If it does, then the work format is translated into sheet music and the music is played.
I know I’ll have to wait a while to let you hear it, but I’m sooooo curious to hear what you guys think.