MEET COMPOSER MARVIN HAMLISCH

Marvin Hamlisch, the composer of A CHORUS LINE, is also a conductor, arranger, and pianist extraordinaire. He claims to be most comfortable in front of a piano. To him, the piano is home, sweet home, an old friend. It should be, because Marvin has been playing since he was 4 years old.

Young Marvin watched his sister at piano lessons and must have thought, “I can do that” and he did. He was a child prodigy, who at 7 years old, attended the prestigious music school, Julliard, in New York City. From that moment on, Mr. Hamlisch has spent most of his life at the piano.

In the 1950’s, Marvin liked to listen to the radio and watch Your Hit Parade on TV. It is not surprising that one of his early compositions was the Rock and Roll song “Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows,” sung by Lesley Gore. That song was a hit and #13 on the pop charts. This was a hint of what was to come.

He has composed, conducted, arranged and performed music for:

Broadway: A CHORUS LINE, They’re Playing Our Song,
Sweet Smell of Success, The Goodbye Girl.

Hollywood: The Sting, The Way We Were, Three Men and A Baby,
Sophie’s Choice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Ordinary People.

TV: AFI Salute To Barbara Streisand, A Streetcar Named Desire,
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Beacon Hill, Liza with a ‘Z”.

Marvin has toured with a variety of artists, from Barbara Streisand to Groucho Marx. He has conducted for the Pittsburgh Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and the National Symphony in Washington D.C.

He has collaborated with Edward Kleban, Carole Bayer Sager, Craig Carnelia, Bryan Adams, Johnny Mercer, and Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Marvin Hamlisch is the recipient of many awards, including the Tony, three Oscars, three Golden Globes, four Grammys, four Emmys, and one Pulitzer Prize for drama.

Songs he has written include:
“The Way We Were,” “What I Did For Love,” “Through the Eyes of Love,” “The Last Time I Felt Like This,” “Nobody Does it Better,” and “Life is What You Make It.”

The man knows how to write a song.

So, if you’ve ever considered composing or just wonder what makes a song a hit…here are Marvin’s thoughts on how to write a great song complied from an interview.

TIPS ON WRITING A GREAT SONG:

• Know that music is a language.
• Let the idea for the song come first.
• Come up with a notion of what the song is going to be about, a title or something to hang your hat on.
• Let the music serve the purpose of the song.
• Figure out how you feel about the subject, then translate that feeling into the music.
• Find something to grab at your heart and put that into the song.
• Tell the story entertainingly and movingly.
• No one element of the song should stick out.
• Accept that some songs you write will never see the light of day.
• Know how to get along with people.
• Feel good about your collaborator because if you like the person you are working with, it shows in the work.
• Collaborators need to decide together the road that they’re going down and where they’re going to end.
• Compromise may lead to a place that both collaborators want to go.
• Write the music first.
• Find a new way of saying something - a novel approach.
• Put something down on paper that wasn’t there yesterday.
• Elevate poetry into the lyrics of a song.
• Song should have a kinetic energy.
• Put something out there that you are proud of and that people will enjoy.
• And the most important thing is that song must have a wonderful melody.