Lin-Manuel Miranda's Iconic Overlapping Technique

They way he overlaps each person's part in the climax of his songs is so good!

Non Stop - Hamilton
96000 - In the Heights
We Don't Talk About Bruno - Encanto

No copy right intended.

[Emriş_Official]

its like a tradition of him in every project

[neoshenlong]

Hamilton is amazing though, because he is not overlapping any sounds, he is overlapping the motifs of all the characters as they were sung through act 1, basically reminding us all of the characters and where they are right before finishing the act and at the same time saying look, all of that brought us (and Hamilton) here, while also perfectly capturing the feeling of having a thousand voices in your head while trying to make a decision. And somehow it all fits into a great so g

[XoeNyxp]

I like how Anthony Ramos who was a secondary character in ‘Hamilton’ became the lead in ‘In the heights’ and Stephanie Beatriz who was a secondary character in ‘In the heights’ was the main character of ‘Encanto’

[RavenYoung]

He doesn't take into consideration the feelings of those of us who sings all the voices in a sing along

[blackk.kkattt]

How was he able to make the overlapping work in We Don't Talk About Bruno? Like everyone's verses were so different and he mashed them up to sound perfect like how?!

[sarangiljimolla]

What’s so amazing is how it all blends so well and how it sounds so good despite how all of them sings together like it shouldn’t have hit that hard but it DOES

edit: 9k likes?! I guess we all love what Lin does with his pen

[alexanderhamilton]

This is a musical technique called polyphony and it usually sounds really chaotic- but good. However Lin elevates it so that it actually harmonizes as well as still being seperate, and it sounds fucking amazing. He's a musical genius- comparable to Mozart in my opinion.

[marianneswiftie]

It was honestly the overlapping technique in we don't talk about bruno that made me realize it was Lin who wrote songs for Encanto

[aeaeeaeae]

There's something so satisfying every time he does it. It always sounds perfect.

[mevkdfp]

It's amazing how he's able to make every single word intelligible and understandable even tho it's overlapped. My respecf for him just went higher

[valentinaquintero]

HE DOES IT SOOO WELL I thought that no one else was aware of that overlapping Technique

[michalgryc]

I still do agree that the way Lin calls back to not only previous lines of the song, but to the whole motifs of characters is great. Lin truly is a genius.

[NaviNeku]

As soon as I heard that part in We Don’t Talk About Bruno, I immediately thought about Non-Stop in Hamilton. I knew Lin composed for Encanto, but that moment nailed the door on the coffin for me. If I could learn a thing or two about Lin’s songwriting, I would only hope to be half of how great he is!!!

[malachiteviii]

Wow, if I had a nickel for every time Stephanie Beatriz was involved in one of Lin-Manuel Miranda's overlapping technique songs I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[ReelPodcasts]

We Don't Talk About Bruno is probably the peak because of just how many tracks are being layered onto one another and each one of them is audible and also able to blend in with one another.

[marisflores]

i really love how in the encanto song featurette thingy he mentioned how each character has a certain pulse and when everyone is singing he carefully places the characters’ respective pulses in their parts and thats just beautiful

[zah_ussi]

I’m so glad you’ve made a cut of all of these! When I heard it in Encanto I was so unsurprised but in the best way

[vhybridrally]

The overlapping in "We don't talk about Bruno" makes even bigger sense when you notice, that every character sings their own part when the vision is still in pieces and when it's put together by Mirabel, they all start to sing "we don't talk about Bruno" in one voice

[dionadair]

"We Don't Talk About Bruno" is probably the best on this list and in the movie, due in large part to the sheer number of characters singing at once, with different-styled parts, yet all keeping the same rhythm and tempo.

[THEATREisJOY]

The technical term for this is ‘musical counterpoint’ and there are some really terrific examples of this throughout Music Theatre history. My personal favourite is the Tonight (Quintet) from West Side Story