Contents
Introduction
A copyist plays an essential role in all types of theatre productions that have music, such as musical theatre shows, operas, pantomimes and ballets. They perform a wide range of tasks during all stages of the process, from creating rehearsal piano parts before the first cast rehearsal, to typesetting the band parts to make them as easy to read as possible before the first band call, and attending rehearsals right up until press night for any last minute changes.
In 2022, LMP was booked to provide music preparation services for "Treason: The Musical" at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, in London's West End.
In this blog, we'll go through each part of the music preparation process that was involved in making this show a reality.
Piano Reduction
Some musicals start life as songs composed for voice and piano, before an orchestrator turns these piano parts into a full score for a band or orchestra. Other musicals are composed for band or orchestra straight away, though a piano reduction is still needed for the cast rehearsals, due to the expense and practicality of having the whole band or orchestra at every rehearsal.
If this is the case, then the first job for a theatre copyist is to create these piano reductions from the full score.
The copyist will go through every single bar of music for each instrument and decide which notes to include in the piano reduction.
The piano part should always be playable by a real pianist. For example, there is no point transferring a section which fills out seven octaves in the full score to the piano in the same octaves, as that would never be playable by two hands on the piano, and the rehearsal pianist would have to decide which octaves to miss out which would make their job a lot harder.
In passages where there are several contrasting lines in the full score, it may be impossible to play all of these parts with only two hands, so the copyist has to decide which lines would help the cast the most to hear, or which lines add the most to the music.
Arguably, creating piano reductions is one of the more creative tasks that a copyist gets asked to do, even though no audience member will ever hear it.
Read more about LMP's Piano Reduction Service
PV and VS Typesetting
Once the copyist finishes making the piano reduction, or if the rehearsal piano part already existed, the next job is to create the Piano-Vocal (PV) and Vocal Score (VS).
The PV contains the rehearsal piano part and all vocal parts. This will be used by the rehearsal pianist during cast rehearsals, and sometimes by every member of the cast instead of the VS, if the piano part is helpful for the cast members to see. The PV may also be used by other creatives such as the lighting and sound designers and technicians, who will mark it up with their own notes and use it during performances to follow the show.
The VS contains only the vocal parts, and will be used by the cast members during rehearsals and while learning their parts from memory.
As the PV and VS of a whole production can add up to many hundreds of pages, the job of the copyist is to make these as easy to read as possible, while also keeping the page count to a minimum. The PV should also contain good page turns for the rehearsal pianist where possible. Vocal lines may be combined into multiple voices on a single staff to reduce the page count, or kept on separate staves if combining the lines would cause confusion and delay in rehearsals.
Read more about LMP's Score and Part Preparation Service
PV and VS Printing & Binding
After the Piano-Vocal and Vocal Score have been created, it's time for the copyist's first batch of printing.
Typically, three or four copies of the PV are needed - one each for the rehearsal pianist, director, and any other creatives who need one. The cast will each need their own copy of the VS or PV.
The PV's and VS's are usually either hole-punched and put into ring binders, or are comb-bound. LMP uses 120gsm high quality paper to make pages easy to turn, to reduce the chance of any tearing, and to ensure that the parts can survive long theatre runs or tours.
Finally, the music is hand-delivered in advance of or on the day of the first cast rehearsal, to eliminate any chance of these thousands of pages getting lost in the post.
Read more about LMP's Printing, Binding & Delivering Service
Band Reduction and MD Score
Now that the cast are all sorted, it's time to focus on the band or orchestra.
Some productions have a conductor who will use the full score to conduct the show. Other productions don't, and instead a keyboard player will also have the role of Musical Director (MD). If this is the case, the copyist will need to create a special part called an "MD Score" or "Keys/MD Part". This part contains all of the vocal lines, the keyboard part that the MD has to play, as well as a reduction of what the other members of the band or orchestra are playing, to allow the MD to direct them as needed.
Before the copyist can make the MD Score, they must first write the band reduction. There are several ways to do this, and copyists may switch between these methods in order to reduce the page count as much as possible, as MD Scores can get rather lengthy with so many staves to include.
The simplest method is to reduce the band or orchestra parts down to one or two staves, using multiple voices per stave. This can get cluttered if there are many contrasting lines, so the copyist may choose to omit parts, such as if there are four trumpets playing the same rhythm in harmony, the copyist might only include the top trumpet's notes but label this with "Tpts.", to save space on the rest of the staff for another instrument. It is not necessary to be able to completely recreate the full score from this band reduction, but just to give the MD a good idea of who is coming in when, and roughly what they are playing.
Sometimes the copyist may choose to copy the band or orchestra parts to the keyboard staves in small cue-sized notes. This would make sense if the keyboard part has a section of long notes or rests, as it uses less space on the page than additional band reduction staves.
Sometimes it's not necessary to copy certain band or orchestra parts at all to the MD Score, if the keyboard part plays the same material as members of the band or orchestra. For example, if the double bass has the same bassline as the left hand of the keyboard part, the copyist could simply write "+Bs." underneath the first of these left hand notes. The MD would then know that the double bass is doubling their left hand, and the page hasn't been cluttered up with copies of the same material.
Many other "secret codes" exist for making compact and concise MD Scores. All instruments have unique abbreviations, such as "Fl.1" for 1st Flute, "K2" for Keyboard 2, and "Timp.,Hp.,Str." if the Timpani, Harp and all or most of the String players happened to have the same or very similar material. Drum grooves can be expressed with a single item of text rather than being written out, such as "+Dr. 16ths" for a disco semiquaver beat. "+" and "out" can be used to show where instruments start or stop playing, such as "Dr. out" to show that the drum beat stops. "Tutti" is Italian for "all", and can be used to show that most or all of the band or orchestra have the same material.
As well as the band or orchestra parts being reduced, it is sometimes necessary to reduce the vocal parts down to fewer staves, such as if six contrasting vocal lines were happening at the same time, the cast may prefer to see these in separate staves in the Vocal Score, but the MD would appreciate these reduced to two or three staves in the MD Score, to save vertical space.
Once all the band or orchestra and vocal reductions are complete, the copyist then can combine these reductions with the keyboard part to create the MD Score. The usual part typesetting process of making sure there are good page turns and nice spacing, etc., can then be done, before sending it off to the MD in advance of the first band call for them to start preparing for the MD role.
Read more about LMP's MD Score Creation Service
Full Score and Parts Typesetting
As well as typesetting the MD Score, all of the other band or orchestra parts and the full score will need typesetting. This is a multi-stage process which ensures that every page contains all necessary details needed to play the music, while being as easy to read and follow as possible, with great vertical and horizontal spacing, useful cues if there are several bars of rest, page turns which don't interrupt the player from playing the notes, notation which is written in the easiest way to read, and many more steps which professional copyists have spent their career refining.
Once the scores and parts are typeset and looking beautiful, they can be exported as PDFs and sent to the players in advance of the first rehearsal for them to learn.
Read more about LMP's Score and Part Preparation Service
Full Score and Parts Printing & Binding
It's now time for the copyist's second batch of printing. In the UK, the standard paper size for full scores is A3, for band or orchestra parts is A4, and for MD Scores is A4 or B4. B4 is slightly larger than A4, and is useful if there are many vocal lines and band reduction staves as it minimises the frequent page turns for the MD, who already has many jobs to perform simultaneously.
In other countries such as the USA, different paper sizes are standard, such as letter, tabloid or 9" x 12".
Full scores are printed double sided, and are either wire-bound if used by a conductor, or hole-punched and put into ring binders if only used for reference in rehearsal when the MD is also playing a keyboard.
Band or orchestra parts are bound in one of two different ways. If the production is established and any changes are unlikely to happen, the parts can be printed double sided and comb-bound or wire-bound. If it is a new production or orchestration where changes during the rehearsal process are likely, the parts should be printed single sided and taped together. See LMP's blog How To Tape Bind Sheet Music (Accordion Fold) for more information about this method.
LMP uses 120gsm high quality paper to make pages easy to turn, to reduce the chance of any tearing, and to ensure that the parts can survive long theatre runs or tours.
Once printing and binding is complete, the music is hand-delivered in advance of or on the day of the first band or orchestra rehearsal, to eliminate any chance of these thousands of pages getting lost in the post.
Read more about LMP's Printing, Binding & Delivering Service
In-Person Copying at Rehearsals
It is very useful for productions to have a copyist in the rehearsal room with a laptop, a laser printer and a stack of paper.
When changes happen to the parts during rehearsals, rather than the MD having to make a list of edits to reprint later, the in-person copyist can edit and reprint the parts during the rehearsal, and the players can have corrected parts on their stands within a few minutes.
This can make rehearsals much more efficient and enjoyable for all involved.
Read more about LMP's In-Person Copyists Service
Final Edits
The copyist may be involved with the production right through previews and up until press night, when usually the production will have settled on a final version of the show to present to audiences throughout the show's run. Until then, the copyist may be making changes to the PV, the VS, the MD Score, the full score or the band or orchestra parts, as sections are tweaked, or songs are drastically changed, removed, or added.
The copyist is the last in a long chain of people when it comes to creating the music that ends up on the musicians' stands, and is an often unacknowledged but absolutely essential part of creating theatre.
Enquire About LMP's Services
London Music Preparation is a team of music preparation experts who are specialists in different aspects of music preparation, including all of the tasks outlined in this blog, and have experience as copyists for countless theatre productions.
As a large team, LMP is unique in that you can choose whether you'd like a single dedicated copyist to work on your whole production, or for last-minute jobs, a team of copyists can work together to get the job done quickly and to the highest quality.
Get in touch to find out how we could help on your production by emailing contact@londonmusicpreparation.co.uk
We hope you found this blog useful and interesting. This is our third blog in a series of music preparation blogs, so please subscribe to our mailing list to be notified of future blogs.
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