Music Theory for Musical Theatre.(Book review)

Music Theory for Musical Theatre, by John Bell and Seven R. Chicurel. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008. www.scarecrowpress.com; (800) 462-6420; 136 pp. $34.95.

In my private singing studio, I have a significant number of students who, at the mere mention of music theory, will start to glaze over, sweat or shake uncontrollably. Fortunately, this sometimes scary subject has just become more user-friendly with the publication of Music Theory for Musical Theatre, a new, fresh and practical approach to this dreaded-by-many discipline. Authors John Bell and Steven R. Chicurel offer a pragmatic and gestalt-like presentation of standard music theory in the context of musical theater repertoire. It's all there--major and minor scales, key and time signatures, melody and harmony, suspensions and appoggiaturas--but the examples are from songs music theater students are mostly likely to know, such as "Being Alive" from Stephen Sondheim's Company, and "King Herod's Song" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar.

It goes without saying that serious musical theater performers should be musically literate. Actors read scripts, dancers read choreography and singers read music. The authors question, however, the depth of knowledge needed by the music theater performer: "While musical theatre artists may need the full ...