Musical Hotspot Podcast

Themes for recurring characters can bring a great element in to a long-form show. Here are some we put together for Prognosis: Death!.In the last instalment about Prognosis: Death!, Impro Mafia's long form improvised show, we talked about how character themes can contribute to the immersion of a story. Dan from Impro Mafia has been hounding me relentlessly to record a medley of the themes from P:D!. (Well, ok, he's asked me twice. Lay off, man!) I finally got around to it, and just in time, too - the second season of Prognosis: Death! is right around the corner.Some of these character themes were pretty well-formed during the first season. Others were still on their way, especially where I was still getting to know the characters.Here's that medley, along with a breakdown of how it maps to each of Prognosis Death's characters.Listen to Prognosis: Death! Medley or download it from Podbean.comListen to P:D! Theme by Tim Wotherspoon or download it Intro: A piano-only interpretation of Tim Wotherspoon's excellent theme music.Best Damn Doctor: Dr Burton Mangold (played by David Massingham) is the hospital's uberdoctor. Patients rarely die on his watch. And when they do - the drama! Mangold's music is an upbeat triumphant march, very heroic. I must admit borrowing a fair bit from Captain Hammer's opening number in Dr Horrible for this.Meanwhile, At The Nurses' Station: During the show, as one scene finished, the narrator would call the beginning of the next scene, priming it by introducing the characters and the location. The Nurses' Station was a great spot for some of the characters to meet, gossip, and console over impossible relationships, unaware that the latest supernatural threat to St Love is on the rise.The Leggy Avenger: Nurse Lotte Buble (played by Natalie Bochenski) has been with the hospital for a long time. Things never quite go her way, but she soldiers on. Buble has a variety of unusual skills (one of which comes from the audience at the start of the show), including a doorframe repair person and a masked superhero.Buble's theme is mostly upbeat, bittersweet, and resilient.Love Theme: Dr Mangold and Nurse Buble's simmering tension often seems hopeless, as they set their feelings aside to deal with the latest crisis to hit the residents of St Love. This theme, or variations on it, often appeared when Mangold and Buble had the stage to themselves.Faith and Donations: Reverend Thistlewaite (played by Wade Robinson) was the name of a variety of members of the cloth that appeared in different episodes, all with different countries of origin but somehow always named Thistlewaite. Jeremy Thistlewaite. Jeremy Von Thistewaite. Jeremy McThistlewaite. These Thistlewaites seemed to die. A lot. Three Seconds Behind: Dr Ludwig LeStrange (played by Dan Beeston) is the hospital's mortician. He doesn't have very much to do, thanks to Dr Mangold and the low mortality rate at the hospital. Dr LeStrange is introverted and outwardly calm, but hides all manner of emotion and tension. He has awkwardly formed hand gestures; due to a bizarre time travel accident, his fingers are three seconds behind the rest of him. His theme music is sad and discordant. This is the theme music I figured out first. Sadly, I recently discovered that Dr LeStrange's theme works very well as backing to Britney Spears' Hit Me Baby One More Time. Sigh.Hunting for Doilys: Dr Harold Dean (played by Luke Allan) is the hospital adminstrator, and Dr Mangold's arch enemy. Dean schemes to scrimp and save every penny to generate more profit for the hospital. Healthy people aren't profitable, so Mangold's prowess in the operating theatre runs counter to Dean's agenda. Dean is always looking for a way to take Mangold down.Dean's music is a nice counterpoint to Mangold's, similar in tempo and feel, but with a descending minor chord structure vs Mangold's ascending major chord structure.Will Have Ten Cats: Dr Melody Carmichael, Intern (played by Amy Currie) is the youngest staff member at the hospital. She is good-hearted, somewhat naive, and tries to do the right thing. (Well, until the first season finale where, possessed by Satan, she orchestrates the death or downfall of nearly every other character. St Love is a complex place.) Scratch the surface and her ambition to be a great doctor shines through.Melody's music is positive, a little oblivious, and happy.Finale: The finale music, again based on Tim's theme, has a chord progression with a ring of finality and triumph. I avoided the temptation to use it early, and saved it for the very end of the last show of the first season.Sadly some of the cast didn't have recurring theme music. Michael Griffin swung in to support roles for whatever story was on, playing every part imaginable - a giant vampire kitten, a dying psychic child, a mafia enforcer, up to Rick Cocksteady (the one doctor better than Mangold). The director and narrator Greg Rowbotham got on stage for the last show to play the angel Gabriel, sneakily encouraging a fallen Mangold to get back to the hospital and make things right again.Mike has challenged me to come up with theme music for Thistlewaite, and for each of the villians that make an appearance this season. I accept your challenge, Mr Griffin.I'm pleased that the show is returning for a second season at the Brisbane Arts Theatre. For Prognosis: Death! Relapse I'm sharing music duties with Nathan Howard, a fellow improvising musician here in Brisbane. I hope this show is as much fun for him as it is for me!

In this final installment of songs from Theatresports Lightning Doubles, Doug Bayne, Trudy Cooper and Tom Dunstan belt out a song about Soap Opera addiction. There are two versions of this song; the first was live and completely improvised. The second was, well, half-live, half-not. If the idea of improvising in front of 100,000 screaming fans interests you, you should have a listen.The Original VersionOnce again, the actors start the music, and the song is all the better for it. The beginning caught me completely by surprise, actually; when the title was announced, I mentally got geared up for an old piano standard (like Smoke Gets In Your Eyes). Suddenly Doug counts in and starts stamping his feet and grunting... giving me a couple of seconds to get a drums-and-bass patch up and running. (Just goes to show that, if you use different patches, you probably need quick access.)Listen to Soap Gets In Your Eyes Powered by Podbean.comDoug breaks a bunch of conventions in this song. For starters, there isn't any singing; it's not a rap, more of a spoken-word rock song. Doug also pretty much checks out for the chorus, leaving it up to Tom and Trudy. Like A Tim Tam Too Far, if you're not from Australia, you might need a little background before the in-jokes make sense.Neighbours: Popular long-running Australian soap opera; 30 minutes a day, screened in prime time. Will probably run until the 22nd century.Paradise Beach: Short-lived Australian soap opera.Jason: Jason Donovan, an actor/singer who featured in Neighbours in the 80's.Kylie: Kylie Minogue, the Australian singer/actor who was also in Neighbours in the 80's. Jason and Kylie's characters (Scott and Charlene) got married in the series and moved to Queensland. Somehow all retiring Neighbours characters either die or move to Queensland. What are they trying to say?Even though there's no melody as such, as usual there's a bridge in the song towards the end. The chord progression changes and the music gets a little sparser, so it's hopefully some good light-and-shade for the audience. Doug and I do a nice synchronised stop at the end of the bridge, putting an offer out there for Trudy and Tom that they happily pick up.I'm sad that Doug and Trudy no longer perform; they're both legends of the Brisbane impro scene. Tom is more of a living legend, currently performing with several groups in Brisbane and Sydney, and with some great projects on the boil.Soap Gets In Your Eyes, the Arena SpectacularYou may have heard improvised songs before, but you haven't heard anything like this. Listen to Soap Gets In Your Eyes - the Arena Mix Powered by Podbean.comFor some reason we decided this song would have been fantastic if it was a real stadium rock song. To make this come true, we secured the services of David Lovell (guitarist and bass player extraordinaire) and his friend Mr Drums (who I'm sure has a name, lost in the sands of time) to put down band parts in a studio. Because we recorded the original performance with isolated microphones, we had a nice clean recording with Doug lead vocals, and a slightly less-clean recording with Tom and Trudy's backing.Overlay some crowd noise, chop and arrange the vocals, add way more echo/delay than any self-respecting sound engineer would add... Hey presto - Doug, Trudy and Tom performing to thousands of screaming fans. Performing to thousands of screaming fans? The way impro should be. ;)Download Soap Gets In Your Eyes (mp3)Download Soap Gets In Your Eyes - The Arena Mix (mp3)That's it!That's all for this series of Lightning Doubles songs. I hope to bring you more improvised stuff from Brisbane in future posts, hopefully with less tape hiss and more video! If you live in Brisbane, you can catch the great-great-grandchild of Lightning Doubles: Impro Gladiators, running at the Paddo Tavern on Wednesday nights in 2009 from April to August. See you there!

Adam Couper, Rebecca Riggs and Simon Palomares perform a song from the Haircut Challenge show that generated a few of the tracks in this series. (In this show - two teams, two team captains, losing team captain had his head shaved at the end of the show. Sadly, the day before the Haircut Challenge, one of the team captains scored a role in a movie. The scores were neck and neck entering the last game, and the non-movie-role-scoring team graciously threw the last game and submitted their captain for shaving.)Listen to Big Chief No Friends Powered by Podbean.comI seem to recall a style suggestion of "Bubblegum Pop". (That said, I can't remember what colour socks I have on right now, so my memory is anything but reliable.)The trio had a very strong start to define the style of the song. Again, this is one of those times when I think the song really benefitted from getting its start from everyone and not just the musician.Coup is once again in the drivers seat for this one. Adam has a tremendous talent for weaving together a coherent melody in a verse and chorus, pulling together a great story, and managing to rhyme. He's one of my favourite players to work with. (You should see him in a Shakespearean scene; he's unbelievable.)I'm accompaning on keyboard-drums and, eventually, bass. It took me a long time to come in for this one, I suspect I spent way more time hunting for the key than I should have.I wonder how fast Adam's mind really works. I'm intrigued by the turn of events right at the end of the song:Adam:Big Chief, he's got a friendMC (interjecting from offstage): 10 seconds!Adam:Which brings this story almost to an endWas that line in the plan? Or did he alter his rhyme and story at the last second?Adam and I found a nice ending for this song; I love it when the music just drops out in the last seconds of the song, leaving the singer to finish it with a great tag. I had a feeling Coup was going to find a marvelous ending, and he didn't disappoint.Download Big Chief No Friends (mp3)This is the sixth entry in a series of recordings of Songs and Operas from Brisbane's Lightning Doubles Theatresports from 1992/1993.

Two songs for the price of one today. Neither of them are going to make it on to a greatest hits album. Both of them make me cringe a little... but both of them are special to me, for one reason or another.Don't Call Me Jack, MonRoger Beames and Andy Foreman trade verses in this reggae song about mistaken identity. I'm on a sort-of steel drum piano, while Adam Couper jumps in with some keyboard drums. (I tell you, the man is everywhere!)Listen to Don't Call Me Jack, Mon Powered by Podbean.comI'm certain this came from the offer "Don't call me Jack", with the MC giving reggae as a style.A few times the music halts. I can tell you this was probably at points where I thought the music was out of time with the singers, and I needed to resynch. On reflection, I should have just barrelled through; the singers needed the structure and they didn't need me to bail on them.Roger is... well, look, I love the man, he MC'ed at my wedding, he's known my wife and I for close on 20 years, he's a talented MC and improviser and a great friend. And handsome. And can use his mad Aikido skillz to knock folks on their butt. But in this one he's a bit lyrically challenged. (Sorry, Rog.) One thing he absolutely does in this song is hold on tight to it and see it through. He knows it's not necessarily going to plan. You can hear his resolve crack for an instant right at the end of the third verse. But he holds on and continues to deliver, riding the song to wherever it was taking him.That chorus! It's easy and charming and simple. Don't call me Jack monJack monJack mon Jack monDon't call me Jack monThat thing gets stuck in my head.Andy's interplay with Roger makes me smile no matter how many times I hear this song. (I can just imagine him rolling his eyes when he says "Oh good" in the third verse.) And the audience loved it too. It wasn't the most well crafted song ever, but they just go wild.I'm Short, Shirty and I Want to ShoutFedele Crisci and Rebecca Riggs take this song, supported by David Lovell (one of my university lecturers) on bass and myself on keyboard drums.Listen to I'm Short, Shirty and Want To Shout Powered by Podbean.comFedele may not have an opera singer's voice. His rhythm might be a little challenged. But he absolutely committed himself 100% to this song. He knew the wheels were falling off, and even with minimal backing from two supposedly supportive musicians, he carried on. You can hear the point where Dave and I just say "Let's go!" and decide that we should (finally) give Fedele strong backing. And then Rebecca jumped on to that backing. And she completed the second half of the song by basically singing to Fedele about his singing and dancing skills, and how she wants him anyway. I thought Rebecca's handling of that was great; she made light of the first part of the song without being mean, and had a go at Fedele's skills while still professing her love.There's a good amount of light and shade in the music (once it got going, anyway). Right towards the end there's a nice sparse section that lets Rebecca have some fun, before ending quite strongly.And, once again, the audience goes wild. Do they care that the song might not have been as strong as it could have been? Not really - the performers gave it their all, and the audience stayed with them to the end, rain or shine.EpilogueRoger and Fedele now run one of the most successful comedy agencies in the country, the Sit Down Comedy Club. Will they still be able to sleep at night, knowing they were responsible for these two songs? I think they'll be fine.Download Don't Call Me Jack, Mon (mp3)Download I'm Short, Shirty and I Want To Shout (mp3)This is the fifth entry in a series of recordings of Songs and Operas from Brisbane's Lightning Doubles Theatresports from 1992/1993.

Tommy's Little Boat is a rock-opera, featuring Adam Couper as Tommy, Rebecca Riggs as Tommy's mother, and Simon Palomares as the father/narrator. Listen to Tommy's Little Boat Powered by Podbean.comNormally we'll do an opera in more traditional operatic style. I suspect (given the title and the obvious connection to The Who's Tommy) this was offered as a rock opera. I find it challenging to do a rock opera, and try and give the same sort of feeling as you'd get from a heavy guitar-bass-drums format, using just a piano.Adam is a very strong singer, confident and clear. He doesn't wait for a musical offer to set a key, and he changes keys/feels at the perfect time. I managed to find his opening key pretty quickly, but there are other times (eg when his dad first makes an appearance) where you can clearly hear me hunting for his key. Adam carries on confidently, but I think the absence of music lets the opera down for a while. Once again, what I wouldn't give for perfect pitch.This is not a textbook-perfect opera, but there are a few magical moments that I really love. My favourite is the piece that takes place around 2:30, just at the point where Tommy begins to understand why he can't read. The "I Can't Tell My Left From My Right" song is a great example of counterpoint, where each singer sets up a particular melody and rhythm for themselves. This is quite similar to the counterpoint technique Michael Pollock describes in his book Musical Improv Comedy: Creating Songs in the Moment. Adam's melody is complex, well patterned, and it is phrased very quickly; Rebecca's is soaring and holds for longer; Simon's is phrased somewhere between the two, and kind of injects itself around the others.Haven't read Michael Pollock's books? Here's a short review: Buy them. If you need more convincing than that, I'll be reviewing both of his improv books soon.Something I harp on about is making sure as a musician you're changed by what is on stage; if you get lost in your own momentum, you're hurting the scene. There's a good example of being changed at 2:20, as Rebecca sings "Tommy I told you" - I had just started to set up the next section, sort of a minor version of the previous section after Tommy figures out he can't read. Rebecca slowed it down with her vocal, so the music discarded that staccato rhythm to match what she was doing.Right at the end, Simon does a really nice narrator voiceover to close the opera. Sadly he used the shotgun microphone, so Adam and Rebecca's closing song (which I suspect was another lovely counterpoint) is lost forever.Download Tommy's Little Boat (mp3, 3.8 mb)This is the fourth entry in a series of recordings of Songs and Operas from Brisbane's Lightning Doubles Theatresports from 1992/1993.

Danny Murphy delivers a great reggae song on the perils of being a kid with a cop for a mother. He is ably supported by Jamie Rowe and Andrew Nason.Listen to My Mother Was An Undercover Cop Powered by Podbean.comAdam Couper leads the music on guitar, with me supporting on keyboard-drums. This is one where the musicians started the music, laying the basic support for the players to sit in. As much as I love having the actors start first, starting with the music does give the song a lot more polish.The verses are nicely structured with A-B-A-B rhyming. Actually, Danny's rhyming is excellent in this song; his rhymes are perfectly in context and don't feel forced at all.Well I'm a pretty straight kind of guyI'm the kind of guy you know where he's coming fromYou can look at me, right in the eyeBut don't come up and look at my mumCause she's an UndercoverUndercover copThis is a good example of a song where the chorus is just a tag on the end of a verse. Very simple, and very effective.Once again, the final "verse" is chorded as a bridge. It keeps the style of the music consistent, but the change in chord progression freshens things up for the audience, and gives the singer a little more scope to be adventurous. A good bridge tilts the story, and this one is no exception.It's amazing to hear the audience go wild at the end of the first chorus. The chorus-tag was about as simple as it gets ("She was an/Undercover/Undercover cop"), not very clever or challenging, but when the audience got a whiff of the actors actually using the words from the offer in a song, they went crazy. It doesn't take much in a musical game to get the audience on-side.Download My Mother Was An Undercover Cop (mp3, 2.1 mb)This is the third entry in a series of recordings of Songs and Operas from Brisbane's Lightning Doubles Theatresports from 1992/1993.