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Notes on the Music for Mulan JR.

by Bryan Louiselle

You may have a doctorate from the Julliard School of Music or you may not have made it past your first piano
lesson, but musical directors of all backgrounds will share four main concerns in putting on Mulan JR.:
1. Making sure that everything your cast says and sings is heard and understood by the audience;
2. Making sure that the CD tracks are loud enough for the cast to hear, but not so loud that they
overwhelm the vocals;
3. Getting the most out of the Accompaniment and Guide Vocal CDs; and
4. Adapting the music to best serve the needs and abilities of your cast.

Make sure that everything your cast says and sings is heard and understood by the audience. If the
audience can’t hear and understand everything your kids are singing and saying, they might as well go home
before the first pluck of the pipa. And unless you have the luxury of microphones and an amplification
system, the audio ball is in your court. Here are a few guidelines:
• Face the audience. When your cast is singing or saying anything, they should be facing the audience –
not the wings, not upstage. There are exceptions, of course: In “No. 4 – Written in Stone (Pt. 3),”
balance among all those vocal parts is critical to a successful performance. One solution is to start at m.
6 with the Ancestors facing downstage and the other groups – Mothers, Fathers, Daughters and
Sons – facing to the sides.
• Diction, diction, and oh yes – diction. Encourage your Soldiers and Dragons and Huns (and everyone,
for that matter) to enunciate as if the audience had to lip-read their words. It should feel ridiculous. It
should feel hyperbolic. And it should go a long way toward the audience understanding the lyrics.
• Louder. While you are rehearsing, move as far from your cast as you can, and have them sing to you.
Or have a regular conversation with them from fifty feet away. Make them feel how much energy has to
go into a theatrical performance. The vocal cords are a muscle and must be trained and strengthened
like any other.
• Bring ‘em closer! How much nearer can you get your cast to your audience? Pretty pictures are nice,
but there’s nothing like proximity to aid audibility. Grandmother Fa and Shang may look great thirty
upstage, but if you can’t hear them, so what?

Make sure the CD tracks are loud enough for the cast to hear, but not so loud that they overwhelm the
vocals. It’s a Catch-22: the cast has to hear the music or they won’t know where they are. On the other hand,
the music can’t be so loud that the audience can’t hear the cast. Avoid the arms race with the following
guidelines:
• Put the boom-box, or the speakers, or whatever is broadcasting the music upstage of the action. In other
words, put your cast between the sound-source and the audience. As the music makes its way from the
back of the stage forward, those onstage get first crack at hearing it. And the sounds your cast is
producing (e.g., singing) will naturally take precedence over the music from the CD.
• Experiment with the position of the sound-source. Place it, for example, in front of the stage (facing the
cast – and facing away from the audience). You know you’ve found the right placement when it works:
you can hear the music, and you can hear your cast.

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