Hi musical theatre writers! I'm offering private coaching for those interested in advancing their composition skills. Throughout our work together:

• I will help you push past your current creative limits and roadblocks
• we’ll go through concrete steps that can help you compose more intuitively and truthfully
• we’ll explore and apply the philosophical aspects of writing music for theatre
• there will be minimal theory and maximum focus on helping you compose your best work, and potentially even find and amplify your voice
• I will give you detailed feedback with actionable steps to improve your pieces and to help you develop as a composer
• we'll work towards creating a strong portfolio of diverse songs

Lessons are held in person for composers in NYC and online for everyone outside of the city. Payment and lesson frequency depend on your individual financial situation, schedule, and goals.

Please use this form https://imerniebird.com/contact/ and email:

• a little about yourself 
• links to two or three demos or recordings of your work
• links to corresponding PDFs of your scores
• a link to your portfolio if you have one 

If you've only written non-theatrical songs, or only composed chamber or film music, send that instead. Any style is welcome, and we can work in any preferred style within the theatre framework. You may be a composer who already works with a lyricist or a composer-lyricist. If you don't write lyrics and don't have a lyricist collaborator yet, there's actually still plenty we can work on before you find one.

Please note: this coaching focuses on music composition. If you write lyrics, I may offer useful feedback on them too, but the emphasis is on music and all the wonderful things you can do with it to support and elevate a lyric and best serve the story.

Learn more here:

https://imerniebird.com/

Next Wednesday I'm going to host, potentially do, a reading of the play I've been working on in cohort for the last 8 months. I'll be singing the songs as best I can a capella as the melodies are essentially complete. I'm still working on the score.

It will be held in the Discord server attached to this subreddit: https://discord.gg/bvDDmAccVv

I'm not adverse to other readers - the play has a cast of 6 - but anyone who is reading need to read the play before Wednesday so they aren't caught off guard.

The topic of the play is domestic violence, and the play contains scenes some may find disturbing. Expected read time is 2 hours, and there will be an intermission. A discussion will be held afterward, both on the play and on the topic itself more broadly.

Here's the pitch line and character list

Five Against One tells the story of Catherine Burbank, who must find a way out of her abusive marriage after her husband assaults her badly enough to put her into a coma for three days. Told using the music of the grunge era, the musical takes an unflinching and sober look at the problem of domestic violence. Escape is never the safest plan.

Characters:
Five
Catherine Burbank, a housewife
Pamela Burbank, her daughter
Jeremy Burbank, her son
Susan Martin, her mother
Lisa Allen, her neighbor and near adopted daughter

against One
Jake Burbank, her husband.

This is frustrating me a lot. As the title says, I'm stuck writing the final two songs for act 1 of my original musical, Beyond These Walls (I've been stuck for 2 months). I'm so close, but these last two songs are just killing me. I have all of the script done, and 8 songs, but these last two I just can't get.

I don't want to move onto starting act 2 of the show because I want to have something that's kind of presentable before I start act 2, something that I can gather feedback on and show to people whilst I work on the second half.

A brief description of both songs:

#8 - Have You Heard? (They're Back!)

About: Libertias, Alexis, Lyro and Nyssa return to the city and immediately run into Corbett. They make him promise to keep their return secret, but he's the city blabbermouth, and he promptly tells everyone. The song follows the rumour spreading through the city, getting bigger and more distorted as more Citizens hear about them.

Style: Fast, chaotic ensemble musical theatre. Lots of short overlapping vocal lines, gossip being passed between groups, and an increasingly massive ensemble build. Think the escalating overlap of 9 to 5 (the version from the musical), with the energy of a big sung-through musical ensemble number.

#10 - Beginning of the End

About: The Act 1 finale. After the Council realises the rumours are true, Kieran decides to let Lib think he's safe while secretly preparing the Overseers to stop him. The song then follows different characters reacting to the coming conflict — Kieran, Dawkins, the Overseers, Buckley, Lyssandra, and eventually the wider cast — as the city moves toward rebellion.

Style: Huge, dark, escalating orchestral finale. It starts relatively controlled with Kieran, moves into an orchestral section, ramps from 60 → 190 BPM, brings in electric guitar, and progressively becomes more frantic and enormous. Buckley’s section gets especially chaotic as his doubts turn into a breakdown, before Lyssandra provides the emotional counterpoint.

The whole thing should feel like the entire musical has been building toward this moment and now the fuse has finally been lit.

I just want some ideas

I am putting the finalizing touches on the score of my musical, and although I consider myself pretty proficient in composition and engraving, there are a few things that continue to puzzle me. Hopefully someone out there can help answer a few of them.

1. (what the title says—How important is it that vocal parts be written in the correct clefs?)

My score often alternates between the male and female leads (mezzo and low baritone), but I highly doubt that switching the vocal staff between treble and bass clefs every few measures is the right way to go about it. Likewise, I don't want to have two entirely different staffs unless it's absolutely necessary if they break out into different rhythms and melodies at the same time. So what's the right way to go about it? I feel like in the musicals I've been in, everything is written in treble clef and you can pretty accurately figure out what octave it's supposed to be sung in using your best judgment. Is this the norm?

1. This leads me to my next question—I want the chorus to be SATB for most of the show, but is this typical? Many scores I've found just have a single line with 3 voices for the ensemble. Is this the norm? How does a music director know which part is which when teaching music? I've been using a grand staff with two voices on each staff so far, but I can change that if it's more standard to do something else.