Big Fish The Musical Sheet Music

Getting Through Big Fish The Musical Sheet Music

The orchestration on this score is heavier than most people expect when they pick it up. Andrew Lippa wrote a lot of it, and the piano-vocal conductor scores run over 100 pages with a ton of vocal lines and intricate accompaniment figures that don't always land where you'd guess on the keyboard. I've had people call me up saying they can't play through the overture because the left hand patterns feel wrong, and it's usually just because they're reading the score too literally instead of understanding how the harmony actually inverts through the sections. The main piano-vocal reduction is published by Hal Leonard. You can find it on their website or through most music retailers, and it's also available as a digital download through Musicnotes. The full orchestral parts are separate and cost significantly more if you're doing a licensed production and need to buy out the whole band set. That's probably going to run you somewhere in the neighborhood of three to five hundred dollars depending on whether you need strings and brass or just the core rhythm section.

Where to Find Big Fish The Musical Sheet Music

The Hal Leonard piano-vocal score is the standard reference point. It's available for purchase physically and digitally. The digital version from Musicnotes is handy because you can flip pages with a foot pedal if you're performing, but the file quality on some of the earlier scan pages is a little soft. You'll be able to read it fine on a tablet, just make sure your brightness is up. The physical book holds up better for people who want to write directly in the margins, which I do with almost every score. If you're licensing this for a production through Music Theatre International, you get the full libretto and the approved arrangements along with the sheet music. That's the route you have to take if you're mounting anything bigger than a student workshop. Trying to source individual print copies outside of MTI for a public performance isn't really an option if you want to stay on the right side of licensing. The paperbacks from Hal Leonard are fine for rehearsal practice, studio learning, or private study. One thing I've run into repeatedly is that the vocal ranges on this show are not forgiving. Edward's part sits pretty high for a tenor, especially in "Your Past Isn't Over" where he's sustained and belting in a narrow window for several minutes. I've had singers struggle through that entire number and then realize halfway through that the published score has them in a range they shouldn't really be pushing at all. The good news is MTI does allow transposition for certain roles within reason, so you can shift things down a half step or whole step if the singer genuinely can't handle it. Just don't transpose it more than two steps without checking with the licensing agent first.

The ensemble writing is where most productions stumble. "The Grand Finale" involves a lot of overlapping vocal lines that are not easy to sing in tune while also navigating the choreography. I remember a student production where the sound man kept asking why the mics were feeding back, and it turned out the singers were so focused on hitting the right notes in that finale that they weren't listening to each other at all. They needed two weeks of rehearsal just on that piece before they got it locked in. Start with the harmonies on paper before you try to sing them, map out where the altos and the basses are actually entering, and have someone play through it measure by measure. The instrumental breaks are another area that trips people up. The solo guitar work interspersed through the show references fingerstyle techniques that a typical theatre pit musician might not have spent a lot of time developing. If your guitarist isn't comfortable with that style, consider simplifying the figure or substituting with a piano arpeggio that covers the same harmonic ground. It won't sound exactly like the recording, but it will serve the scene adequately and your guitarist won't be sweating through it every night. For people preparing auditions, the sheet music is essential but don't neglect the fact that Lippa's melodic contours are quite specific. The leaps in "A Little Wonder" are not things you can approximate with a different rhythm or phrasing. The judges and directors will notice if you smooth out a major sixth into something easier. Keep the intervals as written even if your voice wants to take the path of least resistance.

The underscore cues in the pit are dense and they change frequently between songs. If you're the music director calling the band, don't assume the conductor's score tells you everything you need to know about when a cue should start or stop. I've seen at least two productions where the underscore was trailing too long into the next song because the music director was waiting for a cue that wasn't explicitly marked in the conductor score. Keep a stopwatch and lay it out measure by measure during your first read-through with the band. Overall it's a solid show with a very memorable score, but it demands more from the performers than a lot of contemporary musicals. The vocal demands are real, the orchestration requires musicians who can read complex rhythmic figures under pressure, and the emotional arc of the piece means you can't just go through the motions and still make it land. If you're willing to put in the rehearsal time, it pays off.