Tess - A Herstory (The Final Phase)

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In his final d’Blog on the “herstory” of TESS (no cheering, please),  composer Michael Blore takes you on a whistle-stop tour of the 9 months that finished with the completion of a musical draft for the show. ​

“With a move back home to Bristol now complete, slowly and surely I began to concentrate more and more of my time to composing TESS. Having planned Tess’s final song, knowing what the love song would be, having ideas for the d’Urberville theme and also sketching out a possible death theme, it was about time I tackled probably the most difficult number of the whole show. The opening. Musicals live or die by how they start. You either win an audience over quickly or you struggle till the interval where you face the possibility of people voting with their feet. I had made a number of false starts when tackling the opening months before, but then came the light bulb moment. Follow the ‘bible’. Mike had laid out the action for me in our story-planning stage, so all I had to do was follow that musically. With so many themes already fleshed out, it was time to knit everything together with the corollary of introducing ideas for later development.
 
Now I know it sounds bleedin’ obvious to “follow the bible” and be guided by Mike’s plot-line (forgive me, I am prone to ‘blonde’ moments), but that philosophy took hold. No more thinking about standalone musical moments, just follow the path we had laid out when structuring the story. So, as soon as the opening was done, on I went to the recitative that leads into “In My Hand”. Which then leads on to music for Prince (the horse, not the artist-formerly-known-as) getting killed, which leads on to… Well, you’ll just have to see the show to find out what we did next. By July 2014, via a brief hiatus of me quitting work on the show, Act One was complete. Yet I couldn’t rest. So on it went. Follow the action. Realise it musically. By November 2014, via a brief hiatus of me moving into a flat, TESS was musically in its first draft.
 
And that is the end of the TESS herstory. Musically speaking.
 
But whoa whoa whoa… “What’s with these hiatuses?” I hear you cry. Quitting? Moving again? All I can say is even the best writing partnerships have their testy moments. And as for moving again? Well, I do have something of a wandering spirit. I didn’t even mention the third hiatus… No really.  We found out that another musical adaptation of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” was taking to the stage, which made us ask ourselves whether we should continue or not. We quickly came to the conclusion though that having come so far it would be a shame to quit. It would just have to rank as another tussle à la the Phantoms of Ken Hill and Andrew Lloyd Webber.
 
Now, before I go, I’m aware that during this 5-part Herstory there hasn’t been much discussion of the process we went through to create the show. This is mainly because I’m never much interested in how people have made things. I can admire the craft of a watchmaker, but I don’t need to know about or see the components of the watch. Unless I want to make a watch. In that case, tell me everything! So, for those of you who would like to write a musical, here’s how we did it:

1. Get a lyricist! Not any old fancy dan with words, but one you trust, admire and can get on with. And hopefully one who can understand musical notation. You could do a Sondheim and do it all yourself but that’s just showing off.
2. Find a story you are both passionate about and, with an eye to your audience, one you think will resonate with the general public (you’re going to have to sell some tickets at some point).
3. Work the story. No really. Work it, baby. Condense it, structure it, cut out superfluous characters, keep to one central plot-line (if you’re very good you can have a sub-plot), plot the main musical moments (opening, closing, love song… Oh come on, you can do this!), have a massive row with your lyricist (just kidding, there were no fisticuffs) and go over it all again. I did say ‘work it’.
4. Then it’s chicken or egg. Do you wait for the lyrics to be written or are you going to be followed by the musical thrust of the story? In our case, we went with thrust. Not planned, but when you have a musical mind like mine that won’t shut up, it’s best to find a lyricist who’s content with playing catch up. That said, your lyricist may surprise you and produce lyrics and scenes in advance. In this case, smile sweetly and compose something to words (you are part of a team remember).

 
And then, 5. With the your first draft complete, go on to the second draft. And then the third. And then the… You get the picture. With your bright and shiny final draft in place, be prepared for some really hard work. It’s all about publicity and producers from now on!
 
And so to the future. You may have just clicked over to this page to see a video. And hands up all of you who skipped all the words to get to this bit… I know I would! Well, here’s our latest vid telling you what we are going to be up to in 2016. It’s not long. Promise. And we are VERY excited. Thank you for following TESS and for all the lovely comments we have been receiving from you. It’s making two middle-aged men very happy. Now, here’s the vid…”

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave a comment.

​We’d love to hear from you :)
 
Next time on d’Blog… New Year News. We’ll be keeping you up-to-date with all the latest developments in our quest to bring TESS from page-to-stage. Things are about to get busy… ​