Question to all the pianists out there: What was the hardest Broadway piece you've encountered?

[CJ N2N]

What do you think the hardest Broadway piece is?

The worst I've encountered is probably "Worst Pies in London" from SWEENEY... The beginning is so damn fast and there are all these random notes flying all over the place... And then it goes to six or seven flats...

But what is your opinion?
(Note: I'm only like a level 6 piano player)

[bwayphreak234]

I have found that pretty much anything Sondheim is extremely challenging on the piano.

[tazber]

Sondheim is hands down the most difficult musical theater composer to play.

[trentsketch]

It has to be something by Sondheim for me. Worst Pies was a challenge, for sure.

Discounting Sondheim, it took me a long time to wrap my head around A Little More Homework from Thirteen. I have a mental block with Jason Robert Brown. Most of his music doesn't look like it lines up on the page for me. Once I realize the feel he's going for, it starts to come together. A Little More Homework is nonstop syncopation once you hit the first chorus and the rhythms in the right and left hands are very different.

[michellek45]

I'd disagree with Sondheim being the hardest to play. Sondheim is very intricate, yes, but he generally sticks to a straight-forward approach, at least in the songs of his I've encountered. Michael John LaChiusa and Jason Robert Brown both put a lot of flourishes and runs in their music, which makes it more difficult for me.

[bwayphreak234]

Wildhorn's music is very easy and fun to play. It also sounds great on the piano too. I tend to add my own little touches to it though since some of the arrangements are pretty simple. I recently tackled Boy Falls From the Sky from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. It was very difficult to learn, but it sounds great now that I have it down. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is challenging as well.

[tazber]

I totally agree about JRB. Once you get the "feel" of the piece it just flows.

It took me some time to get the sloppy blues of Big News.

[fingerlakessinger]

Stephen Schwartz has been a tough learn for many of my vocal coaches. One of teachers says that it's difficult to play "Defying Gravity" and "No Good Deed" because of the key's and wide range or something. I'm not a pianist by a long shot so I have no idea what makes it difficult.
They also have said Sondheim is difficult to play but its more of a challenge to sing rather then play.

[GavestonPS]

I'm not a pianist either, but I have heard players talking about how to "fake" their way through Sondheim's "Another Hundred People". That was back when every girl in town was using it as her audition piece.

[chewy5000]

I can play the first two bars as written, then fall apart, but then gain, piano is not my instrument. I much prefer the trumpet part at the end.

[grandpianoalex]

The only thing that has REALLY given me trouble to play is Sondheim's "The Miller's Son"...

[AwesomeDanny]

Well, it all really depends on the arrangement, but I typically think Sondheim stuff is hard to play. Jason Robert Brown and other modern composers are easier, as others have said, once you get the feel of the piece, but Sondheim pieces typically require slow practice for me, and I'm a great reader. Andrew Lloyd Webber pieces are very easy for me--they're surprisingly conventional. Maury Yeston's music, in my opinion, is much more difficult than it sounds.

[bwayphreak234]

Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is a breeze. Maury Yeston is VERY hard. I still have not been able to completely get through a song of Titanic without struggling. Ragtime is pretty hard on the piano too. I think Schwartz's stuff is very difficult (Wicked in particular) because the arrangements are just a mess.

[fingerlakessinger]

^I Disagree with the Schwartz being a mess thing. I think he structures his music quite well IMO (again, I really think its a matter of one's preference.)
For me, "I'm not that Girl" is a beautiful,easy piece, while "Defying Gravity" builds beautiful to the climax where it becomes a challenge to play. "No Good Deed" is apparently a bitch to play because of the crazy fast notes that are everywhere over the piano.

[hyperbole_and_a_half]

You folks are crazy, re: Sondheim. Granted, it's not beginner piano (like Wildhorn), but once you've mastered weird intervals in the left hand and cluster chords, it's really manageable.

The definitive answer to this thread is "The Beauty Is" from Light in the Piazza. This song unfortunately became very popular at the same time I started playing many of the auditions at my university. The score is ravishing to listen to, and I quite liked this song in particular before I had to play it, but it's a clusterf*** for sight-reading. I mean, you can turn to almost any page in that score at random and it looks like Adam Guettel loaded sixteenth notes into a shotgun, pulled the trigger and sprayed the manuscript.

[jdrye222]

If any pianist has any business working anywhere near Broadway, in my opinion, they should come from a CLASSICAL background - in which case, things like Sondheim are no big deal.

Some stylistic things in Kander and Ebb, Jason Robert Brown, etc, could be a tiny bit challenging but still shouldn't be preventative. In the scheme of piano playing, if these things are difficult, why is this person doing this for a living to begin with?

Of course, to me, there is a gigantic difference between playing the notes and actually being able to perform the song in support of the singer. Kander and Ebb would seem to me to be a definitive thing in this respect ---- much of it seems easy note-wise, but the journey of each song and the emotion of the singer need to be matched by the accompaniment, which many pianists are not able to do. I recall the pianist from the "First You Dream" review who has done many Kander and Ebb things, and he does this beautifully... much different to hear him play "Colored Lights", for example, than any random pianist. (I don't have the program in front of me so forgive me forgetting his name)....

Anything from Light in the Piazza is hard. That's the truth. It is classically-oriented and complex. But totally beautiful and fulfilling once you get it. However, a singer bringing a piece from Piazza into an audition where he/she did not know the pianist is really not smart.

[fingerlakessinger]

^A girl that I had to audition with for "Little Shop of Horrors" did that. I was bewildered while sitting in on the audition because...
A) Why would you audition for a rock musical with a classical oriented piece like "Piazza"?
B) Pianist and her were not familiar with each other and you could tell by his expression when she handed him the music that he ready for a disaster...and boy was he right. It was a mess. She sounded okay and he played wonderfully under the circumstances but come on! Be smart while auditioning.

[trentsketch]

jdrye222, those are some pretty broad sweeping statements about ability. I'm classically trained but most of my performance experience before I started music directing was in jazz. I could sight read most of City of Angels when I did that show but took longer than I expected to get through the Hot Step section of Shipoopi the first time I did The Music Man. That's just a series of fast chords, but it took me a good minute to wrap my head around the patterns.

Everyone who plays an instrument has different strengths and weaknesses. Taking more time or finding more challenge in one style over another does not reflect a poor player, especially if they know enough about their own strengths and weaknesses to know what needs more practice for them.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Try playing Woostocks Theme from SNOOPY!

I would take it to auditions as a joke, just to see the look on the pianists face.


One cried.

[best12bars]

Some of the ones that drive accompanists to drink:

The Miller's Son
Meadowlark
Franklin Shepard, Inc.
Epiphany
Molasses To Rum
The Road You Didn't Take

Yeah, a whole lotta Sondheim. Not the ballads, but pretty much everything else.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Oh, and there's always 'Gesticulate' from KISMET.

[Hannahbelle]

I have played at auditions and come from primarily a jazz background (with some classical training). I hate Sondheim, because it's hard to sightread, and because if you screw something up and need to rely on what you know about music theory for a second, it's usually pretty unintuitive. Jason Robert Brown is easier to fake for a second if you need to, because I can make up those runs if I know what chord to put them in and what key I'm in. They don't all need to be exactly as written to sound good.

[tazber]

I don't find Piazza difficult, you just have to get used to amount of dissonance he uses.

[EricMontreal22]

I had always been told to avoid Sondheim as an audition piece just because pianists have such trouble sight reading it. I used to use Live Alone and Like It a lot--which I thought would be relatively easy, but twice at auditions they ended up just having me sing it without piano because the pianist was having such trouble...

[JohnyBroadway]

I've heard Menken has some tough sequences, especially for Beauty.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Franklin Shepard Inc. is a brilliant song, but played solely on the piano, it barely sounds like music.