Think you can come up with an entertaining show? Well, here's a chance to prove it...

I'm starting to look ahead to the winter season and need to come up with a show for the school I instruct. I've got a couple possibilities in mind, but I'm not committed to anything yet. If you can come up with something I like, we may just play it. I might even list your name under our staff in the show programs. (I'll probably give you a sarcastic job title, though.)

So here are the details:

• Likely instrumentation: 3-4 snares, 2 tenors, 5 basses, synth, bass guitar, 2 marimbas (3.5 & 4 octave), 1 vibe, 1 xylo, 1 glock, and an auxiliary player. As of now, we don't have any amplification equipment other than the synth and bass guitar amps.
• It's a very inexperienced group. There are some players with potential, but the school is new to the competitive scene.
• We'll compete in our local winter circuit's standstill division. Since it's a standstill performance, there's no visual caption, but there is a GE/Artistry caption based on WGI-style sheets. Movement and props can be used for effect. (The way some corps break from rehearsal arcs to perform body movement in the lot would fit right in.)
• We're not flat broke, but we're far from rich. Since we need to travel pretty far to get to competitions, most of our budget's probably going into the gas tank. Bonus points for music that's in the public domain, or at least able to be licensed for a reasonable fee. Thousand-dollar pre-written shows like you'd get from msconcepts.com are out of the question.

So that's your mission, should you choose to accept it. If you were in my shoes, what music might you choose?

Ive got nothing off the top of my head, but ill PM you in a few days with a couple ideas, I'm totally on board.

Are asking for people to like write a show or for people to help you find some really cheap music yall could play?

hey, my friend sent me a link to this cause im always making litte WGI like percussion songs. this is somthing im totally interested in. im leavnig for china in about an hour and a half 2 hours (8:00 7/28) if you can get your email to me before that, i can send you some stuff and if you like it, then i'll try and help you out.
if you dont get this in time. check out
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=331841872

and look for the song called "supHARepic" its not my best one... but its the only one i have uploaded on that website. if you can email in the time before i leave my email is
sfsportsfan15@yahoo.com
hope to hear from you!

I'm just looking for possible show ideas. I've got a few in my head, but figured I'd ask around in case someone comes up with something that makes me think, "I'd wanna play THAT!"

I can do the arranging, so I'm really not looking to buy someone else's arrangements. I'm not completely against using pre-fab stuff if written well, but I prefer original arrangements because I'll know nobody else is going to be playing it.

As for being cheap... Even if I do the arranging, that doesn't necessarily mean the music is free. Unless it's an original composition or in the public domain, there are still licensing fees to worry about. Licensing for the music doesn't have to be dirt cheap, but can't be prohibitively expensive.



Thanks! I sent you an email message and I'll check out your stuff.

yo just a thought for a theme

Houdini...(sp?)

might be difficult to design but in the end i think it would be cool to watch

That's exactly the kind of suggestion I'm looking for. Give me a show theme and/or music ideas!

A Houdini show sounds like a great idea, but it might be too much for us to tackle visually. I'll definitely give it some thought, though! (Anyone have any staging or visual ideas that could help make it work?)

my band director said his first show as a director was Phantom of the Opera. he said they made someone like...disappear. no idea how they did it but..figured u could use something of this effect

Sounds like your director was watching SCV in the late '80s. They did Phantom of the Opera, complete with the disappearing act.

Coming up with an indoor concept shouldnt be tough.

Write down different words, or ideas on a sheet of paper.

ex: Lightning, Pinball, the 80's, Indiana Jones....etc

See if any can be done on the floor and add supporting ideas to it. After that...think about the music you'd like to use. I don't think you'll be getting "good" ideas on a forum....maybe through PM but not publicly. Concepts and Ideas get stolen very easy.

could've been you never know. i believe he's been a director for like...15 - 20 years now. so good possibility.

someone mentioned houdini above, and i figured u might be able to use that sort of thing if you decided to go with it.

No worries, Toe. I'm just using this as sort of a brainstorming exercise. I don't care if anyone "steals" any of these ideas. If someone can make use of anything that comes out here, good for them. There's a good chance I won't use any of 'em myself, but some of the ideas tossed around could get me thinking about things a little differently and lead me to something I do use.

There's also the part of me that was simply curious to ask what others might think. From the younger guys, what kind of stuff do you like to play, watch, or listen to? From the experienced staff types, what kinds of ideas seem to work for you? And where do you look for source music?

here are some of my ideas...

Adult Swim theme ( no Idea how much the music would cost, prehaps they would give you some kind of discount if it was cool enough for doing an adult swim theme)

Final Fantasy ( It would be a pretty cool show I would think, we did one of the songs for my senior year during winter drumline).

Roller Coaster theme, Play some kind of Rock/modern music and you could use like the ups and downs of the roller coaster as the highs and lows for the show ( like the Focal point or what ever its called.)

Thats all I have for now.

Dance Crazes Through the Decades

Play music based off of the numerous "dance-along" hits that everyone knows... the Twist, the Hustle, Electric Slide, etc. The kids can do a lot of body movement without getting too crazy. Now, if we could do something about how corny the idea is.

A fun one would be Sesame street lol. every body knows that show. I love the pinball song that goes like 1,2,3,4,5 6... 7,8,9 10... 11......12.....

Lol

ever since my first time seeing a WGI show I've been odsessed with it. And I always randomly think of these ideas and write them down. And lately I've been actually writing out music and even some drill for the shows that I thought up
One of my favorites so far is called STAGES. It's a simple idea. Four stages of life: Birth, Puberty, Aging, Death
Another that is a favorite of mine is a mix of an indoor show I did my sophmore year and the 2004 MCM show. It's called THE MIND. And it just explores different emotions and what not
I have a plethora of other ideas aswell, but those are 2 of my favorites

The thought of puberty being acted out via percussion is almost as unappetizing as the inside out bdy show done by Dartmouth a few years ago.

Heh, that would be kinda like Rhythm X's show last year. I like the idea though.

Okay, I've had this idea playing around in my head for a while. I'm not sure if it's any good. The song 'Girl Anachronism' by the Dresden Dolls has always in my mind been begging for an indoor drumline arrangement. It's an exciting fast-paced keyboard and drums song, with both strong musicality in the keys and really tasty licks on the drums. Of course, the original notes could be expanded on for even more. As far as getting the rights to it, I would expect the band would be very glad to have their music being introduced to a whole new group of people. But that's just me being idealistic. But it would never hurt to get in contact.

Heh, we did a magic show my first year of WGI. Too bad our "saw a girl in half" prop failed for the first time at prelims.

the site, http://www.box-six.com/ sells some show themes. it's an option you could do if you don't want to think of one. those creators are 2 guys who instruct pacifica( open gold at wgi champs 08), fountain valley(open 3rd place at wgi champs 08, and some other lines that are pretty good. i've seen shows they've done and they're good.

I have an idea how about:

http://www.jksmusic.com/percussion/index.php?musicID=107

I know of the guys who write for Box 6 and JKS, but if you go all the way back to the first post in the thread...



And besides... Anyone can pick a prefab show out of a catalog. Where's the fun in that? I'm looking for "outside the catalog" suggestions -- what source material would you write a show around?

Dream Theater lends itself very well to the indoor activity. I could see a dark vampire type theme based on some their stuff. (beyond this life is what I have personal experience with)

Space exploration show based on Holst's The Planets

Medieval Wedding Celebration based on Bachanalle

I'm actually surprised to see someone who listens to Dresden Dolls here.

They're good .

And while this song would be good for indoor, it would be too repetitive and could provide maybe a minutes worth of material. Regarding rights, I think all you'd need to do is ask them as I don't think they're on any major label and even have a play featuring their music for a theater group up in the Boston area (where they're from). Its definitely different stuff, but the whole dark cabaret thing could work, but its also high school, so a different theme would have to be thought of to fit the music.

I say, for a stand still, just steal Crown's show idea and use a bunch of classical music finales.


Candide (Bernstein)
Toccata & Fugue in D minor (Bach)
Barber of Seville (Rossini)
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
Mid Summer Night’s Dream #9 (Mendelssohn)
Clair de Lune (Debussy)
One Hand, One Heart (Bernstein)
Somewhere (Bernstein)
Hungarian Rhapsody (Liszt)
Festive Overture (Shostakovich)
1812 Overture (Tchaikovsky)
Appalachian Spring (Copland)
Hallelujah Chorus (Handel)

A lot of that stuff is going to come cheap, I believe, and there are more you can use. Not sure how you feel about almost blatantly ripping off the show premise from a corps, but it can be used really easily for a beginning group, as most people will have a good understanding of how stuff sounds already (they're all fairly popular pieces), can be had for cheap (I believe) and can fill up a full 5-7 minutes easy. As for the visual aspect, you could do a little more story line than Crown did ( 2008 program explained.

A lot of that is public domain at this point.

Choral Public Domain Library
Public Domain Music

Those are two good sites with a lot of information about what pieces can be used for free. The first one has actual music, the second has lists of pieces that are free to use, but I can't find any actual files.

I'd defintely have to agree that Shostkovich would make for some pretty intense music. Off the top of my head I can't think of a theme to go with it but I still think it'd be prety cool.

Theme... how bout... A Defiant Heart? haha

I always wanted to do a shostakovich indoor show

Impossible.

Kristy Spears aged out in 97, rendering Shostakovich and Wagner themes nearly useless for lack of GE due to her unexplainable hotness in a uniform.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm slightly interested now haha.