This page contains recordings of five songs (of eighteen) from Experimental Positions,
a musical comedy about "scientists, success, secrets, and sex."
You can download each song by clicking
on the song's title.
About the songs: The full musical contains nineteen songs, comprising pop,
rock, jazz, and rap styles.
The songs are recorded with wonderful singing actors, but generally canned
piano exported from my notation software.
(Credits for the performers are at the bottom of the page.) I enhanced the piano parts in 2020 with the help of
arranger Scott Nicholas, but
the recordings are of my original, very spare, piano and vocal arrangements.
Thank you for taking a listen! Please consider using headphones or a decent sound system for the best experience. (Computer speakers
just will not do justice to the really fine acting work of the singers.)
University-based scientists Art and Gwen school a new and arrogant colleague on what constitutes success—and greatness—in science. (Script Page I-2-7)
Neuroscience grad student Trudy, stressed out and downtrodden after a terrible lab error and some not very pleasant "comforting words" from her boyfriend, considers the role of stress in her life. (Script Page I-7-27)
Gwen considers some of the challenges and complications of being a female scientist in a realm still dominated by men. (Script Page I-11-41)
A younger Art, still in grad school, debates whether he should go on long-anticipated "stay in" date with fellow grad
student Gwen after she's knocked him down from his "Golden Boy" status by getting published in a prestigious journal before him. It's not only his ego that's reduced in stature.... (Script Page I-13-49)
Trudy wants to upend the career of her hated advisor but she'll mess up the prospects of her friend Sy in doing so. Sy challenges her as to whether she's really the upright person she thinks she is. (Script Page II-21-77)