This November I’m playing bass for a local production of the musical Legally Blonde. It is a much more complex undertaking than the various pantomimes I have played for in the past. There the music typically consists of a series of snippets from various songs. Here there are about 30 pieces of music, many of which are long and involve numerous subsections, key changes and all closely tied into the dialogue and action on stage.

This afternoon, we finally had our first band rehearsal. It highlighted that there’s a lot still to be done and we need to up the pace to make sure we cover the breadth of the piece and allow plenty of time for dealing with all the nuts and bolts. That said, it wasn’t too bad. Although there are bits that still need further work even in the small set of songs we looked at there were also quite a few passages that are far enough forward not to worry about too much.

The rehearsal set up was also novel for me. We used the garage of one of the keyboard players and, to keep the noise down, were all run into a mixer and listening on headphones. That actually worked pretty and is certainly a good fit for my regular signal chain of bass into Helix LT floorboard, which can create the effect of playing through a big amp and effects without any of the noise.

I’m looking forward to the next one.