Am I the only one who finds this really irritating? One example is in Fiddler on the Roof, during the “Tradition” song, when after the papas, mamas, sons, and daughters sing their verse, they all sing it again, but simultaneously. Also, one common exercise when I was a kid was with the Row Row Row Your Boat song, for one group to start singing, then the other group to start a few seconds later. I always thought that sounded terrible and never understood why we did it.
I kind of like it, but I guess I can’t really say why. I think it requires a certain amount of ingenuity from the composer to make sure that the parts are rhythmically dissimilar enough that you can always hear both parts, and yet contain notes that more or less fit together harmonically.
Other examples:
All For the Best from Godspell
All That Jazz from Chicago
two or three of the songs from Wicked, I think
Oh, and in the opening of Into the Woods, when the Baker and his wife repeat, “The cow as white as milk, the cape…” while Cinderella mutters about going to the festival.
I believe the term for this would be “counterpoint.”
Yes. Perhaps you can start a resistance.
I like it; if done well, it makes the music more interesting.
The best example is “An Old Fashioned Wedding” from Annie Get Your Gun. The two leads sing about their very different ideas for a perfect wedding, first Frank, then Annie, then both, and it great because each sings in a different style, appropriate for the type of wedding they are envisioning.
“Six Months Out of Every Year” from Damn Yankees is another good example.
Not that generaly the different parts are sing separately before being sung together. You don’t have to pick up the lyrics – you’ve heard them – and can concentrate on the music.
My favorite – “Fugue for Tinhorns” (“I got your horse right here, his name is Paul Revere…”) from Guys and Dolls.
There’s also the bit in West Side Story, just before the big rumble at the end of Act I, when Riff and Bernardo and Maria and Anita are singing the reprise to “Tonight, Tonight” and everybody is singing a different melody but they all work together. That’s one of the best moments musically in the whole show. But twickster’s selection, “Fugue for Tinhorns,” is also quite awesome.
Also, there are two sections in Phantom of the Opera (the Note segments) where there are something like four or five different parts going at once. It fits together perfectly, though, and I used to just listen to that over and over and try to follow each of the parts as they wove into each other.
This is parodied in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. There’s a song about various groups (I think four of them) preparing for the big event towards the end of the movie. Each of the four groups is singing a different verse about their preparations for this event. One of the four main South Park characters realizes that this is going on and says something like “How did this song suddenly turn into a medley?”.
The “Confrontation” song in Les Miserables is excellent in this regard - Valjean and Javert take turns being “dominant” but they’re singing different things that are thematically similar. They don’t pre-load it by singing each seperately, though, so you’d best be paying attention.
if it is well written and well performed, I think it is one of the best aspects of musical theatre. I’ve done my share (HS, college, community theatre) and it is fun to perform
Gilbert and Sullivan are also famous for this - usually in their act one finales.
But these are very different from the “row row row your boat” example in the OP - A ‘round’ is a very old form of music, and it’s done because it is fun. It teaches kids to sing and to listen while they sing. They learn the concept of harmony. The melodies are simple, the lyrics often meaningless, but the act of singing harmony in groups is a great experience for grade schoolers.
Now. Later. Soon. from A Little Night Music is one of my favorite songs from a musical.
So, I’m going to go with “no, not irritating - when it’s done well.”
Not irritating at all. Downright impressive when done well. I dropped in specifically to mention “Tonight, Tonight”(reprise) from West Side Story. Well, that and the duet between Giles and Tara and the whole cast singing “Walk Through The Fire” in BtVS - “Once More, With Feeling.”
Apparently so.
And it’s not unusual to find a quartet (or more) in an opera, each person singing something entirely different. And it works.
The opening song to Newsies has a section like this. The first song in the second act of The Fantasticks is too.
I like it when it’s done well.
Ever try to sing Rock of Ages (the Hanukkah version) at the same time as Deck the Halls?
you do have to change one note in the last stanza but it works
I know and love all of the examples provided so far, and am just popping in to mention “Quartet (A Model of Decorum and Tranquility)” from Chess. 
Well, I certainly don’t. Maybe you just aren’t into complex music, or aren’t much of a musical theatre fan to begin with? What kind of music do you usually listen to?
The most thrilling moment in Xanadu was when Gene Kelly and Michael Beck are each envisioning their version of the perfect nightclub band then their two separate visions blend together- in song!
Okay, I just wanted to be the first person ever to write the phrase “The most thrilling moment in Xanadu”.
(If this was one of those “Name Your Guilty Pleasures” Threads, I’d tell you just how much I really do love that scene!)
Excellent piece, that.
And, to address the OP, it might be good to differentiate between the different variations of “people singing more than one thing at once.”
First, we have a canon, in which a melody begun by one voice (or instrument) is followed and mimiced by another voice, starting some point after the first. If the first voice, upon reaching the end of the line, goes back to the beginning and starts over, we have a round, as in Row, Row, Row Your Boat.
A fugue, as in twickster’s example, is a bit more complicated, but can be basically summed up as follows: there is a main theme, that is performed at the beginning of the fugue by one voice. Other voices come in afterwards with the theme at various points. Each voice also has a part that is not the theme, yet related harmonically and structurally. At any given point one or more voices may have the theme while other voices have their ‘non-thematic’ parts. The interweaving of the theme from part to part is what makes a fugue a fugue (hope that makes some sense).
As TJdude825 mentions, these are all forms of counterpoint, namely, music in which more than one melodic line sounds simultaneously.
I’m sure there’s a term for the South Park example and its ilk; when multiple songs or themes following the same harmonic structure are played against each other. I’m not sure what it is though.
I would actually like to draw the jury’s attention to “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” from Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics (the South Park Christmas album). I am not normally a huge fan of South Park as a general rule, but that song kicks my ass six ways from Sunday. Plus, it’s a killer earworm.