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Pantomime Sounds


JamieT123

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Posted

Hi,

 

I am currently working on Hansel & Gretel the Pantomime and we are struggling for some entrance music for the Baddies. And we would like to use some music for when the curtain closes at the end of the pantomime.

 

If anyone has any ideas that would help I would really appreciate it.

 

Cheers

 

Jamie

Posted
Thunder can work well for the baddie's entrance - I used it in the last couple of pantos I did. Failing that, some dun-dun-daaa chords? Or a couple of bars of whatever the baddie sings? As for the exit music, there's generally one feel-good, foot-tapping song in the show that can be reprised effectively. Without knowing your particular show, it's difficult to make any more specific suggestions.
Posted

Find a proper pianist, and get them to do you a few - and if you feel adventurous, find somebody who know sequencers and get the pianist to play a few things into it, then layer them up with brass and percussion.

 

It's a bit tricky because many of us actually have plenty of this stuff, but for lots of reasons, we can't give it to a stranger who we don't know. That simple dun dun duuuuuuuun may have cost hundreds of pounds - so giving it away is often not an option because of the copyright issues and signed pieces of paper. Tell us a bit more about you, your panto, what it's actually for, where it will be performed, who to, how long for etc etc etc. Somebody might decide they can then help. For many on this forum it's actually part of their job, so I hope you can see why we're somewhat wary.

Posted
Indeed. For the Flint Street Nativity our MD put together various riffs and fllls and scary incidental music that were sort of based on the "standard" stings but with his own twist on them, which we recorded and played back as cues at the appropriate point (he had enough on his hands doing the musical numbers).
Posted

Standard baddie music is the minor7th arpeg up slowly then scale down more quckly usually on a really grunty bass. five slow steps four quicker steps for the act to come in with if he wants to. If you want to use something that you've heard remember that someone owns the rights to it, however there is nothing to stop you taking inspiration from something and making your own sound -in fact that's normal.

 

You will need to play with it, perhaps on a bass or a synth, til it says the right thing to you.

Posted

I am currently working on Hansel & Gretel the Pantomime and we are struggling for some entrance music for the Baddies. And we would like to use some music for when the curtain closes at the end of the pantomime.

If you want sounds (and not music) then Freesound can provide lots of 'real' sounds to work with (expect to do a lot of sifting, some trimming and maybe EQ - but you probably want to do this stuff to suit the sounds to your show anyway. Make sure you understand the licenses, but in general they are not onerous. The technical quality there is usually good, which isn't true of everything on the web!

 

As others have said, music has lots of rights issues attached to it, so making your own recordings with a tame musician is much the best route to go down.

Posted
Some chords from Dance of the Knights (better known as Montagues and Capulets , even better known as The Apprentice theme music).
Posted

Making sounds is my favourite part of the process, probably even more so than operating the run.

 

For panto I've probably used thunder more often than anything else--I have a "horror film" thunder effect that's not realistic but seems to work well. I also have (exactly as Paulears suggested) a piano version of the classic villain music that also gets trotted out from time to time. If either sound (pun intended) useful to you, I can upload them.

 

The other option is to think about how your particular show is being acted and staged and do something specific to that...maybe record the baddie doing a "Bwahahaha" and add lots of reverb or something.

Posted
I suspect the purpose of the music has not been understood. Playon and playoff music is not some random sound effect but carefully considered music that sets up what is coming or neatly punctuates a moment in time. The director says "we want something to play him off" and an appropriate musical blot or flourish appears.
Posted
As no-one has mentioned the music for the curtain falling at the end of the show, why not just use a reprise of the last song? If you're not using songs in the panto then a) it's not much of a panto! but b) just use a recent piece of pop music that everyone will know and can clap along with ('Happy'?). Playing something that makes it hard for an audience not to clap along with the beat at least starts the applause going!
Posted
After 80 odd shows that finish with a reprise of 'Happy', I have to agree with Eric. Much as I now hate the song - the thing ends with Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy - repeated over and over again as the tabs come in.

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