Customer Reviews

Musical Direction for Improv and Sketch Comedy:

5 star:		(3)
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"Musical Direction for Improv and Sketch Comedy" is a book I wish I'd had when I was learning the job. Michael Pollock has undertaken and conquered the colossal challenge of compiling decades worth of insight into musical direction. Whether you are looking to accompany improvisation or sketch, this book is the shortcut that bypasses much of the land of trial and error. Enormously informative and very funny, Michael answers questions many might be too timid to ask. The book and CD offer great examples of the limitless power of music to evoke images and emotion in the minds of both the audience and the actors onstage.

When you enter an improvised world, you step into a white room with nothing in it. Michael Pollock gives you the canvas, the brushes, and most importantly the permission to paint a vivid picture through music. What a gift!

Chapter Twelve on its own should be required reading for life; it's a handbook on how more of us should act toward one another.

Michael's excellent book is thorough, well-organized, entertaining and EXTREMELY useful. I had no previous experience in musical theater, let alone long-form improvised sketch comedy, but I really love it, and "Musical Direction for Improv and Sketch Comedy" has been an incredible boost in my learning curve.

There are also elements and rules in the book that can be applied to composing for film, television, commercials, and just plain songwriting and performing - creating a mood, underscoring, segues, becoming familiar with many styles and genres, etc. Any and every working musician can glean something useful from Pollock's book.

It's the closest substitute to having Michael Pollock as a personal mentor, and that's saying something.

This is a great book. The ideas are clearly explained, and the lists are so valuable. Everyone involved in sketch and improv should have this. It has already helped me in my approach to this work, and it is the only book of this kind that I know of.