MOUNT VERNON — Rehearsal is not for the faint-of-heart.
“Sausage-making and band rehearsing are two things you might not want to see before the finished product,” said John Vining, as he and Heather Green were joined by band mates Glenn Sigler and Jason Ball for a thorough rehearsal Sunday night at ThePlace@TheWoodward. The musicians will be presenting a show there titled “Hoagy and Bacall, How Little We Knew” Saturday.
First, the performers did a sound-check in order to set volume levels on the various instruments and microphones.
“I’ve got no keys,” Vining called back to sound board operator Brandon Cummings. “I want to hear some bounce from the back.”
What his rehearsal shorthand meant was that he couldn’t hear the sound of his keyboard bouncing back from the far wall of the room, thus he wanted the volume increased.
As the rehearsal proper got under way, the players repeated songs, intently working out details as they went.
“The tempo’s really bothering me,” Green said at one point, stopping a song she was singing. “It’s getting out of sync.”
They stopped and discussed how they should handle the passage until a plan of attack was made. Hundreds of such details have to be worked out prior to going onstage.
On top of the polish, Vining and Green have organized the show around the idea of 1930s-40s film noir stars Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, and the man who wrote the most popular songs of the era, Hoagy Carmichael.
Taking a break from rehearsal, Vining said that he and Green, a former voice student of his, always like to give each show a theatrical theme. The idea for this show comes from the fact that Carmichael met the young Bacall on the set of her first film, “To Have and Have Not.” Carmichael appeared in the film and wrote songs for it, including one which Bacall herself sang, “How Little We Know.”
This theme shaped both the selection of songs and the arrangements. In addition to numerous Hoagy Carmichael songs, including “Stardust,” other songs of the period will be performed. A few more recent songs will be performed, too, but in arrangements that rub shoulders with the original period tunes.
According to the two singers, a lot of care goes into protecting the voice for a major show. For instance, Vining said that when the weather is extremely cold and dry, singers have to remember to breathe through their noses, so that the outside air gets heated and moisturized by the nasal passages before it hits the vocal chords.
“It’s like starting your car in 20-degree weather and all of a sudden taking off, without letting it warm up,” Green said.
Even under ideal conditions, care must be taken. Green said she has to make sure to get sufficient sleep the nights before a show, and then on the day of a show, she tries to remain silent for a good portion of the day, only gradually starting to talk as the day wears on, in order to gradually warm up her voice for the show.
Green will also be performing an original song, as she did at their most recent show. Though her BFA is in music theater performance, Green has a strong grasp of musical composition and makes use of it in numerous original works. She said that she has accumulated a number of original songs which she would like to record as an album at some point, perhaps when she returns full-time to Chicago later this year, where she has worked extensively in the past few years.
But Green said that she has to let the song grow in her thoughts until it “speaks” to her.
“It’s like love,” she said. “You can’t force it.”
Likewise, Vining writes a great deal of music, composing original musicals for his students at St. Vincent’s.
The duo works through the songs, adjusting as necessary to make them their own. Vining said that often the arrangements which are published are simplified and include the melody in the piano accompaniment to help amateur singers.
“We cut that out and leaving the accompaniment more spare,” Vining said, adding that he and Green take turns being in charge, each one heading up the song which they chose for the show. That doesn’t preclude amiable disputes, however.
At one point, Vining started singing a swinging version of “Fly Me to the Moon.” The others fell in, somewhat uncertainly, behind him. Puzzled, Green called out over Vining’s singing.
“John, the music’s in three,” she said. The sheet music they were using was in 3/4 time, but Vining was singing and playing in 4/4.
Vining stopped.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “I like it that way. That’s how Sinatra did it.”
“But it’s throwing us off,” Green said. “If the music’s in three, we should play it in three.”
What they finally decided to do will be revealed Saturday night at ThePlace@TheWoodward, 111 S. Main St. at 7 p.m.
Dinner reservations are required for those who want both a meal and show, while show only tickets will be available as well. Reservations can be made to Sips Coffee House at 392-2233 or the North Main Gallery at 397-9582.