During the showings of ‘The Little Mermaid’ this past month, the music wasn’t only coming from onstage, but also from a live orchestra down in the pit.
By: Ella Chan and Aiden Lupian
Without these performers working together with one another and the live voices, the musical couldn’t have been the production it was.
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Just as the actors on stage, they put in many hours to perfect the music. However, most of this rehearsal time was spent on their own. The cello part, played by Zach Tomooka, ‘26, took several hours to master. “They gave me the part around 2 months in advance,” Tomooka says, “and then I just practiced them until they sounded up to tempo and good enough to perform on stage.”
Matthew Garcia, ‘26, played trumpet and Jovial Blair, ‘26, played percussion in the pit. Compared to Tomooka’s preparation for the musical, Garcia and Blair’s practices were a mixture of actual playing and listening. “I just practiced the whole time, I’d take it [music] home. Sometimes I would write the music down on a music notation software to listen to it,” Garcia says.
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For Blair, the method that worked for her was going through the book, “then I found the audio, then I looked at the music as I listened.” She adds that it was a lot different when she joined the full orchestra. “It’s a lot of watching the conductor, cause it’s different every single time.” Although both got lost in the music from time to time, their hard work and practice eventually led to them successfully going through the show.
“I’d play backing tracks and play along with that. That helped me a lot, cause usually I’d be able to play it on its own, but when it came to playing with an ensemble I got lost.”
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Some of the performers didn’t even get a chance to find the time to practice. Julianne Arakaki, ‘27, performed the 1st violin part. She tried to skim the music the best she could, but their scores were a lot to go through so she tried her best. Arakaki expressed, “It was very difficult [to sight read], I can’t really read that high as what they expect me to play. So, I just tried staying in beat, but I also followed the 2nd violin as well because we had similar parts.”
The choir’s pianist, Hannah Board, took part in the pit playing a keyboard part. This is her 8th year doing the musical pit, and over the years she has found that, “It’s a much different feeling [playing on her own]. By yourself, it’s easy to do nuances and whatever. You can invoke more emotion when you’re playing by yourself and when you’re working with a group you have to take to account everyone you’re working with.” Similarly, Tomooka noticed that, “you have to wait for them [the actors] for certain dialogue queues. And you also see which parts are specifically the melody or fit into other parts.”
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The multiple factors from the others around them, to the singers, to the conductor all caused some difficulties for everyone within the orchestra. Hearing everyone eventually come together musically.
This eventful week for the cast and pit doesn’t come without its challenges. All of the performers had something to juggle on top of these rehearsals and performances.
For Garcia and Blair and a few other members of the pit, they have their whole winter percussion season to juggle on top of the show. On the 3rd show day, Redwood’s Winter Percussion team had a competition at Clovis West. Once they finished their performance, they rode straight to the theater to play for the 2 p.m. show. Blair explains that, “I have to do what I can with both of them.”
“I had to look at the music for the first time,” Garcia says, “which is also in itself pretty tricky, with academics, I missed the first few days so I had to catch up with academics.”
Garcia plans out his days in order to balance his extracurriculars and school work. “Like on Google Calendar, I just make a schedule. I try to see where I can fit in some of the work. Like between school and the musical, like that time after school, is when I can see if I can do like math homework.”
Garcia even has plans for his work and does it even when it might not be the most convenient. “Sometimes I’ll do it during a different class. But yeah just time management and writing things down, and making a to-do list so you don’t forget anything,” says Garcia.
For Arakaki and Tomooka, the Tulare Kings Music Educators Association honor group had their rehearsal and performance on top of one of the musical rehearsals. “I missed a rehearsal because of that and I’m also sick right now,” Tomooka says. “I also went to California All-State Music Educators Association thing. And that was a lot so I missed a rehearsal for that as well.”
Arakaki had a competition as well, and when there’s all this music she makes sure to practice for whatever’s next.
“It’s been stressful, I can’t lie,” Tomooka laughs.
For Board she has, “Regular teaching schedule, and then I also teach regular lessons. Board focuses on, “Doing one thing at a time. I mean you can only take on what’s in front of you at that particular moment. Just a matter of checking off one thing at a time.”
Even though it may seem a lot, for Garcia it gives him something to do. “The music is more challenging than what I play in class, most of the time. It kind of pushes me to be a better musician. You need to pull your own weight,” says Garcia.
The performance experience was enjoyable for everyone nonetheless. It was the first time a handful of performers were performing in the pit, and many enjoyed the event so much, they’d love to come back next year to perform again.
For Board, she explains “Mr. Carillo and I decided together when I started here at Redwood, it was a couple years in before I started playing and then he took on vocal directing, and he asked if I would accompany so that we could do it together. We work together on a daily basis so it was a smooth transition.”
On continuing next year, Garcia says, “Probably yeah, I have one year left after this one. I would consider doing it next year.”
“I wanna get as much experience of playing as I can. It’s the first time I’ve done something like this, it’s very different from other things,” Blair says.
“This is my first time with the pit,” Tomooka says, “I just thought that it seemed like a cute idea, and I like theater. It was a cute idea! This is really nice when it comes together, I really like doing this.”
Tags: arts & entertainment, drama, Drama Department, musical, musical pit, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, redwood the little mermaid, rhs, rhs the little mermaid, visalia ca