Legally Blonde Pit Orchestra Parts
Elle`s snobbish classmates disapprove of her clothes, and the only person willing to help her is legal assistant Emmett Forrest (“The Harvard Variations”). However, he cannot protect her from the bloodthirsty Professor Callahan (“Blood In The Water”) in class. Callahan kicks Elle out of the classroom at the suggestion of her classmate Vivienne Kensington, who happens to be Warner`s new friend. This “tragedy” evokes the apparitions of the sisters of Delta Nu, who, as a Greek choir visible and audible only by Her, encourage them to remain positive (“positive”). She, believing that the blonde is the problem, decides to become a brunette. She goes to the Hair Affair salon, where she meets beautician Paulette, who, after telling Elle about her hair dyeing plan, tells Elle that when she`s down, she puts on her favorite Celtic Moods CD and dreams of Ireland and her Irishman dream. In the living room, Vivienne unexpectedly invites Elle to a costume party. Paulette sends Elle dressed in a costume for the party with encouraging words (“Ireland (Reprise)”). Convinced that her blonde hair is the source of her problems, she has retired to the Hair Affair salon, where she plans to become a brunette. We meet Paulette, a hairdresser who sees a bright future for Elle and insists she just needs some relaxing Irish music.
Paulette complains about her own dreams of falling in love with Ireland one day. She hears Vivienne and her friend enter the living room while talking about an upcoming party. A curious Elle joins her and Vivienne invites her and tells her it`s a costume party. She thanks Paulette for her encouragement and starts fighting for her husband. One of my favorite musicals is Legally Blonde. At the beginning of the year, I was allowed to play in the pit, on reed 1. I thought I`d talk a bit about reed voices – which instruments are played on which parts and where are the most difficult parts. This is to help people choose instrumentalists for the parts – you don`t want your best flutist to end up with the simple flute piece and all the horrible clarinet solos! This orchestration was originally used for the first national tour in the United States, without the violin and with slightly modified reed dubbing. The first reed player doubled alto saxophone, clarinet, flute, piccolo, oboe (optional) and English horn (optional); The second player doubled flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone and penny whistle. Legal Blonde is one of KeyboardTEK`s most popular shows and bestsellers. This orchestration is based on the 2009 West End production and is orchestrated for 3 keyboardists, all of whom have strong programming. Legal Blonde is one of the first, if not the first, Broadway show to use Mainstage as its primary keyboard programming platform.
The score expects a lot from the woodwinds in terms of doubling the instruments. Both parts require the player to have access to many different instruments, and most importantly, the oboe and English horn are written in the same part as the other reeds (usually these are separate and have their own part). I will talk in more detail about the most suitable parts for players, depending on their first instruments below. If you don`t want to play the oboe parts on reed 1, you need to do a little more on the clarinet. The oboe plays a fairly important role and some of them are certainly better suited to the oboe than to the clarinet. There are some awkward passages around the break if you do it on the clarinet. Again, Legally Blonde Remix has a difficult Reed 1 part, whether you want to play it on oboe or clarinet. Legal Blonde has some really difficult reed parts that require a lot of instruments. Reed 1 is written for piccolo, flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, oboe and English horn and reed 2 is for piccolo, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone and baritone saxophone. Note that the oboe and English horn parts in reed 1 are doubled on the clarinet. I think of all the reed instruments written in Legally Blonde, the saxophone parts are the most fun. They mostly perform in large flashy numbers and usually have some sort of American funk style.
The baritone voices in Reed 2 are often in the low register and you can hit very rhythmic points. There are low A`s in the baritone voice, so it`s much better if you have a saxophone that can play them. I really enjoyed the baritone part in Bend and Snap, although I should pay attention to the 6 pounds! I have played this role myself and although I own an oboe, I am not a competent oboist. I`m at the level where I take the oboe out of the back cabinet once a year to check if the reeds still sound (usually not) and I did the 6th grade on it when I was a kid. As I am a much better flutist, saxophonist and clarinetist (after studying saxophone at university), I can go through simple parts on the oboe. I was able to play some oboe parts in Legally Blonde, but I used the spare clarinet parts for parts I wasn`t sure about. Music and lyrics: Laurence O`Keefe and Nell Benjamin Book by: Heather Hach Based on the novel by: Amanda Brown Based on the film by: MGM; Conductor: James Sampliner Music arranged: Christopher Jahnke Music arranged by: Laurence O`Keefe and James Sampliner Additional arrangements: Alex Lacamoire Keyboard 1 is designed to be played by the MD, who also conducts the orchestra from this chair. Due to the complexity of the show, many productions have chosen to use a conductor to relieve the Keyboard 1 portion of orchestra conducting, but the choice is yours. This book is the main piano part and requires an excellent player. Even though this is the main piano book, there are many more patches than what is usually found in a Keyboard 1/Conductor book, so familiarity with keyboard programming is helpful. These sounds include various guitars, organs, EPs, brass, strings and many synth elements such as pads and leads.
In addition to the licensed orchestration, the original Broadway production also had a horn part, a viola and cello part, a second guitar and three woodwind parts instead of two. The first part of reed doubled with alto saxophone, clarinet, flute, piccolo and penny whistle; the second part is doubled on clarinet, flute, oboe, English horn and tenor saxophone; The third double flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon and baritone saxophone. The piccolo flute in Reed 2 is definitely not worth worrying about if you`re not a great flutist. Almost nothing is written for this – I think maybe even just a small passage and it is not exposed and can be played on the flute up to the octave. It`s not difficult either, so it could be a good opportunity to try the piccolo if you`re looking for an excuse. Reed part 1 has quite a bit of piccolo, with very nice exposed parts – one particularly good is gay or European, there is quite a bit of flute work in both legally blonde reed parts. Normally, the part of reed 1 would have the most difficult passages for the flute, but this is not particularly the case in this part.