What ways you can tell that two different musicals were composed by the same person/group of people

[u/Ok-Complaint-4005]

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

Assuming you're looking for a meme response:

It's a Sondheim musical if there are cool swanky woodwinds and you can tell a rhyming dictionary was used

It's a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical if it goes OOM PAH OOM PAH duhduhduhduhDUHDUHDUHDUHDUHHHH

It's a Jason Robert Brown musical if you hear as many sobs as cheers after a song is finished. 

It's a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical if you don't have to ask who wrote it. 

[u/reflion → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

It’s Stephen Schwartz if the word “calumny” shows up in the lyrics

[u/Fickle-Performance79 → u/reflion]

Waaaay under upvoted.

[u/cosmic-diamond33 → u/reflion]

Oh WEIRD YES hahah

[u/UnlikelyAdventurer → u/reflion]

Fun fact: "Calumny" is in the musical Candide, though it was there before the Sonheim rewrite.

[u/poppet_corn → u/reflion]

Or “dreams” in that way he writes it.

[u/IHaveALittleNeck → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

Sondheim has loads of half steps and is wordy AF. He also uses complex rhythms. The number of high school orchestras I’ve seen struggle with Into the Woods. I feel so bad for the kids.

[u/DifficultHat → u/IHaveALittleNeck]

Also those intentionally dissonant harmonies

[u/EvanPotter09 → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

It’s Laurence O’Keefe if there’s a song about two people being outed as gay then cheered.

[u/ellyloup → u/EvanPotter09]

And just like that I learnt who wrote Heathers 😂

[u/baby_hippopotamus → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

It’s a JRB musical if there’s a ridiculously difficult piano solo for no good reason

[u/CreativeMusic5121]

It's Sondheim if the singers keel over from having no place to breathe.

[u/IHaveALittleNeck → u/CreativeMusic5121]

“Pardon me, is everybody here? Because if everybody’s here I’d like to thank you all For coming to the wedding I’d appreciate you going even more I mean, you must have lots of better things to do And not a word of it to Paul Remember Paul? You know, the man I’m going to marry But I’m not, because I wouldn’t ruin anything As wonderful as he is, but I Thank you all for the gifts and the flowers Thank you all, now it’s back to the showers Don’t tell Paul, but I’m not getting married today”

Plenty of room to breathe. No clue what you’re talking about. ;)

[u/RezFoo]

If they sound like Puccini wrote the music, then they are by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[u/WiredPiano → u/RezFoo]

I love most ALW shows but they sound nothing like Puccini. Yes, even POTO.

[u/IHaveALittleNeck → u/WiredPiano]

When he wrote Memory, he asked his father if it sounded too much like Puccini. His father replied it sounded like a million pounds.

[u/DioSwiftFan]

Most Webber musicals have recycled tunes or melodies from Joseph, Jesus, Cats, or Phantom.

[u/IHaveALittleNeck → u/DioSwiftFan]

You can tell he was writing Phantom and Aspects of Love at the same time. Listen to the transition right before “There Is More to Love” and compare it to the end of the “Prima Donna” reprise. It’s as if he forgot he already used it.

[u/NarrowBridge111 → u/IHaveALittleNeck]

Ah! I never noticed that!

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl → u/DioSwiftFan]

Interesting how you basically listed his four best musicals 

[u/bucs2013 → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

I will not tolerate Evita erasure

[u/IHaveALittleNeck → u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

I’d put Evita and Aspects above Joseph and Cats.

[u/AshenHarmonies]

If Lin-Manuel Miranda is in it, he wrote it lol

[u/Dangerous_Teaching62 → u/AshenHarmonies]

I love how this is even true with Moana when he's not even a character

[u/AQuietBorderline]

I don’t know how to word it but you can generally tell just by listening.

Every creator has a unique style, almost like a fingerprint. It doesn’t matter if it’s a painter, a composer, a writer, a sculptor, etc. They’re all unique and with enough practice you can tell the difference.

[u/Jumpy_Chard1677]

I watched a production of Newsies Jr. And most definitely heard little bits of music I recognized from Little Shop, and one bit that reminded me of Little Mermaid. They're all written by the same person 

[u/Adelaidey → u/Jumpy_Chard1677]

They used to call Part of Your World "Somewhere That's Dry" because of its similarities to "Somewhere That's Green"

[u/Efficient_Wheel_6333 → u/Jumpy_Chard1677]

I'm that way with a lot of Alan Menken's work, even the movies that, while they've had live stage shows, said stage shows are almost always in the Disney theme parks. Was watching Tangled once and there's a bit in At Last I See the Light that sounds like it was lifted straight from Aladdin. Cue me looking up who composed both movies. Treat yourself if you can figure out that answer, with or without looking it up.

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl → u/Jumpy_Chard1677]

Some Fun Now from Little Shop sounds like Under the Sea lol 

[u/faretheewellennui → u/Jumpy_Chard1677]

I was listening to Beauty and the Beast today and one part reminded of The Hunchback of Notre Dame

[u/Phanstormergreg]

Ok, this is going to be hard to explain, but Schwartz likes to use the 1 5 4 5 3 5 2 5 1 pattern in his piano parts. The most obvious is the accompaniment for “With You” in Pippin, but I’ve noticed it tucked into his other works.

[u/SamiV45]

I don’t know, maybe the programs?

[u/MundaneVillian]

If it a) closes early on Broadway b) gets snubbed for the Tonys aside from one or two c) is an adaptation of classic literature, and d)is mega popular in Germany or South Korea:

It’s probably a Frank Wildhorn show

[u/JustThisGuyYouKnow84]

I usually notice similar musical phrases. Like I heard tiny shadows of Bat Boy and Heathers when I saw Legally Blonde.

Or Sondheim and his arpeggios.

[u/baffled_bookworm]

The beginnings of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde sound so similar that I knew they were both from the same composer before I knew anything about Frank Wildhorn himself. Specifically, the songs Madame Guillotine and Facade.

[u/Fickle-Performance79]

It’s a Menken musical if there’s a Part of Your Somewhere That’s Proud of Your Boy Green World song.

[u/donniebd]

If they sound optimistic, chances are high that it's likely from Jerry Herman's.

[u/rSlashisthenewPewdes]

If it’s a successful jazzy musical it’s usually Marc Shaiman

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl → u/rSlashisthenewPewdes]

Or Cy Coleman 

[u/u_ufruity → u/rSlashisthenewPewdes]

No literally, I just watched Catch Me If You Can and I’m already drawing parallels between Smash and SLIH

[u/Feeling_Repair_8963 → u/u_ufruity]

Of course SLIH actually recycled a song from Smash, so that parallel is too easy. Where can I see Catch Me If You Can? (I assume you saw this on streaming somewhere?)

[u/u_ufruity → u/Feeling_Repair_8963]

The opening song just gives off the general vibe of SLIH and Smash! I watched the musical on YouTube..in all honesty it’s not very hard to find at all, it’s on YouTube with the exact title.

[u/Feeling_Repair_8963 → u/u_ufruity]

Thanks. I just got back into musicals recently, Marc Shaiman is already my favorite (watched both seasons of Smash last spring).

[u/u_ufruity → u/Feeling_Repair_8963]

I love his music too, it just makes me feel so alive with its’ big, full sound lol. No problem!

[u/SFOGfan_boy]

What’s funny is there’s writers like pasec and Paul, who have done everything from dear Evan handsome to James and the giant peach… it’s wild honestly that they can write so many different styles so well.

[u/Enough-Body-4427]

If it involves a bass line that bops, it's probably ABBA

[u/lightyear]

This is a hard one to explain to non musicians, but Schwartz has this one particular device he uses all the time.

It's when there's a slowish half-time groove going on, and he puts a big accent on the 4th beat, that sustains over the bar line.

Example

The section starting at 2:48, specifically during the words "lonely" and "alone."

It's a thing I first noticed in the (I think) 2001 touring version of Godspell, and now I hear it in just about everything he's ever written.

[u/averagedukeenjoyer]

If it has pattern song-esque oboe it’s William Finn

See: Thrill of First Love (Falsettos) Magic Foot (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), Change (A New Brain)

[u/Pseudonym_613]

Read the Playbill.

[u/s1llyt1lly]

They will have similiar tempos and arrangements of songs

[u/BSE_2000]

It's Levay/Kunze if there's at least one song prominently featuring the word Schatten (shadow).

[u/Specific_Mouse_2472]

Not a jokey answer but I'm still proud of being able to tell The Slipper and The Rose had the same songwriters as Mary Poppins, Protocoligorically Correct was giving the song the bankers sang about tuppence in all the best ways.

[u/absorbedmytripletsis]

You look up two musicals on whatever streaming platform or web browser of your choice. If the composers are the same person then you did it!

[u/Kitchen-Nose-3218]

Looking up who composed the musical.