Chance Bone On Scoring Mimesophobia (Part 2)

Actor/musician Chance Bone talked to us a couple of days ago about creating the score for Mimesophobia. Chance's thoughts were too big for just one post, so here's part 2, where he tells us about discoveries, frustrations, and a pretty sweet analogy about exploding pigeons.

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What's the most exciting part of the experience?

Well, Margot and I decided the piano was a great instrument that reflected the play well. There is something about it that can sound very haunting and cold all in a single note. The most challenging thing about this process was: I don't consider myself a piano player at all! So, trying to find what to say using a new instrument is really exciting. Especially if you are take what musical knowledge you have in other areas and try to apply it to something completely new, I think you can sometimes get a unique sound.

Mimes, to me, contains a lot of frustrated characters looking for the best way to represent themselves through artistic means: writing books and scripts, even the frustration that comes with dealing with death. Hell, the play can be frustrating due to the nature of the storytelling (you almost have to disregard everything you've ever 'learned' about being told a story and be completely open and accept that this is different. It's a very refreshing play in that respect). So, for me, I went into this experience wanting to feel that too. To have a piece of music that seems to 'know what it's doing' seems like it would feel as though it would separate the audience from the experience of the play. So, I played and wrote from a place of frustrated thought, and I think the music reflects that very well. It sometimes sounds like pigeons picking wedding rice between the keys and then sometimes sounds like a pigeon exploding after eating wedding rice. Ha!

You had a collaborator, didn't you? Tell us about that.

My brother Lennon was good company to have during the writing of this music. I actually took a train to Kansas City, Kansas, where my older brother lives. He has been a huge musical influence on me. He played trumpet and flugelhorn for years and now plays drums for the group Ha Ha Tonka. Mimes gave me an excuse to play music with my brother, which we hardly get to do anymore. And since Lennon had never written for a play before, his mindset kept my mindset fresh too. We work really well together as musicians. I guess that's what happens when the person you're writing music with is the same person who used to chase you around the basement with a Freddy Krueger glove as a kid.

But we sat down together and tossed around our thoughts about the play, and then tried to immediately translate it to music. The music for the show has actually taken a lot of different shapes over the last few weeks.

I was trying to avoid that MIDI computerized keyboard sound you hear a lot of in theatrical settings. Its one of the few things that really angers me: why is there not more live music and sound in theatre? Yes, it's easier and cheaper to just use a computer but I hate it. So, I tried to avoid it like the plague.

Was there anything unusual about the process this time?

Lennon and I recorded live trombones, trumpets, guitars, drums, and piano all in the process of Mimes. We spent a couple of days writing different themes and then manipulating them in different fashions. For example, we recorded a guitar part at 30 beats per second, and then sped it up to 160 and recorded all the other instrumentation at 160. Using live instruments and recording them in this fashion was very new to us. To me, one way to describe some of the sounds is like, well, when you're in a moving car looking at the different plants on the side of the road going 70 mph... you know what you're looking at but its hard to find the details.

I started recording the music a couple of weeks before rehearsals even started! This is sometimes the case with a lot of different shows, but probably not too common with a show that relies so much on kind of 'organically' coming up with material in the rehearsal space. So, again, I think the style of the compositions really have a lot of respect for the actors on stage. I tried to work together to help set the tone of what Carlos, Margot, and the actors have created so well.

I'll probably think of something different a week after the show is open, thinking, "Damn! Why didn't I do this or that?" But that's what theatre is. Presenting in the moment. Though there is recorded music, it reflects a moment. An audible photograph. Just as theatre is one you can shake hands with afterwards.