The process for composing the music for Charlotte's Web started with research music such as Aaron Copeland and Eric Whitacre. The cast and I listened to some key songs to understand what feeling we were trying to recreate. Then we warmed up with some vocal and breath exercises, and sat down to dissect exactly how Charlotte would feel spinning her web. Next, we proceeded to do an exercise to generate melodies.

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That exercise is recorded here:

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It consisted of the eight cast members sitting close together in a circle in the dark theatre. I set the scene for them by narrating what was happening with Charlotte making the web, and how she felt in that moment. Then, I tapped one person on the shoulder, and they would sing out a melody, any short phrase that came to their mind. They repeated that phrase, and I soon tapped another person's shoulder. They added in with whatever musical idea they had in their head- regardless of whether it matched the key or pitch of the other person's phrase. This continued until all of  the cast members were singing at the same time. Then I tapped on people's shoulders in reverse, to have the person stop singing. This continued until no one was left singing. 

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We repeated this exercise two more times. It was obvious to everyone which moments worked and which ones didn't. Even for those who did not have a lot of musical knowledge or experience were tuned in to the innate feeling of when music works and when it does not. 

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After finishing the exercises. The cast sat down and listened to them. We periodically stopped when we heard something that sounded right for the mood we were trying to create. I would transcribe the phrase onto the piano and record it so that we could remember the idea. This continued until we had one favorite melody that was a combination of several ideas. The next step was to make the harmonies and build it into a song.

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I wrote the harmony part up a third from the melody. This became our intro and bridge. We then used one of the other melodies we liked, and adapted it to the key of this intro phrase. We used the words in particular to shape the notes of it. After a little singing and playing around, we came up with what was essential our "Mystery" song. From there, we utilized those melodies to create several other songs, including "Adventure".

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"Sacred" was the only song that took a different path. Initially, we used the chord structure of Aaron Copeland's "Our Town" to build up arpeggios. This proved to be very difficult for the cast so they started coming up with some alternate ideas on a rehearsal day I was not there. When I came back to rehearsal, I transcribed what they had, and helped make a new song. The most important part was keeping the male voices on one note to help the other singer's stay in one key. The guys also had the most difficult time finding pitches so having them start off the song made it stress-free in that regards.