Anywho, these guys are more than satirists, but pretty savvy musicians. It takes a creative mind to come up with compositions, then they splice-slice-dice live non-musical footage into the compositions. The rhythms need to be kept to some extent so the speech can still be understood, but there are snips and repetitions so it slides right into the musical groove. It also allows satiric emphasis- you hear what the creators want you to hear again and again. The visual element gets spiced up by having the creators green-screen themselves to provide musical/satiric foils to the actual news bits. The music makes it memorable and catchy, but the real point is the political satire.

While a lot of the messages are liberal in nature, the musical style is pretty standard pop music. The heavy electronics, the ubiquitous auto-tune, and the ostinato and repetitions are very “pop”. I think the music genre lends a topical aura to the source material: that which is literally topical. While it definitely makes a splash today, the musical workmanship in the future will probably only be admired for its innovation, rather than as a work of art. You don’t go listen to old episodes of Auto Tune the News because the news is out of date, therefore the video is out of date. Topical becomes stale, stale becomes history, history becomes retro, and retro churns out hipsters and thrift stores, and who really likes thrift stores? Really? You just want to admire old things for being old. “These dresses are so silly! Let’s go get a bubble tea.”

Out of date isn’t necessarily bad. Some choice phrases (“Very thin ice,” “Hide yo kids, hide yo wife”) make the music a little catchy, but you sing that on the streets and people will give you the crazy eye. [aside: I may have turned the auto-tune remix of the double rainbow clip above into my ringtone. Listen to the end, and you'll see the whole troupe doing a live version. ] But still, there used to be lots of classical compositions that “quoted” other popular composers in their works…and nobody knows who those quoting composers are. They were topical. Now they’re forgotten (mostly).

Old clips of the Daily Show? Entertaining only because of the gags, not the news. There’s a huge difference between John Stewart making an impeachment joke about Clinton when Clinton is in office versus out of office for 8 years. It’s old. Yeah. Get with the times.

The music in it, while not particularly epic or amazing, was perfect for the show and I wouldn’t have asked for anything else. Synth sounds, traditional Asian instruments, and artfully stylized character motifs all arise naturally, without being too stilted. Huge ups for a great TV show!

~Ostinatos, or repeated bits of music, make teaching and retaining a lot easier…so you should do it! Do a single measure motif, then repeat it for a section. Every part can have a different ostinato (which makes it sound flashy), but it drastically cuts down on the amount of material you need to devise.

~What may seem less important than notes- the dynamics, shaping, and syllables- are just as important as the notes. Don’t forget them.

~Be enthusiastic about yoru arrangement, even if it’s your first. Attitude changes a lot, even if it’s a crummy arrangement. If you come in tentative, your singers will be tentative, and your performance will be tentative. Tentative performances suck.

~Try to avoid putting the highest notes of the arrangement near the beginning or middle. Let them be a literal high-point near the end of the arrangement.

~Arrangements take time. It’s ok if you’re spending hours and hours on it. That’s normal! Just keep working until you believe that it is ready- don’t try to finish it in an hour.

If you’re stuck for ideas (esp. in the verse), you could always add some sort of lyrical echo.  There are these long pauses between each short phrase the solo has, so I would probably experiment with little counter-melodies repeating the lyrics the soloist just sang. (I would probably wait to use this kind of effect until the 2nd or 3rd verse)

I also second Yuri’s suggestion of singing first.  If you write it first and then try to add vocal syllables, it will tend to sound sort of unnatural — Instead, try to sing something that feels/sounds natural to you, then write it down.

Don’t be afraid to shorten the introduction.

Consider cutting the instrumental interlude(s).  Guitar solos almost always come off as corny, which could ruin the mood of the song.  If you have someone who can do a mellow, authentic scat, that could work well.

Other than that, I’d suggest searching YouTube for any and all versions of the song that could give you ideas.  Live performances, acoustic versions, or a cappella arrangements.

Your first arrangement won't be ambitious as this one.

A reader wrote in requesting some pointers on arranging for his high school a cappella group, and I thought I’d post a few here: advice for writing your FIRST arrangement.  These tips do not necessarily apply to ALL arrangements and are not general rules, but are good ways to make sure nothing goes too haywire from the start.  Enjoy!

• The best advice for somebody who hasn’t tried it before would be 1) to map out the structure of the piece, 2) to figure out the chords and make the arrangement conform, and 3) don’t write women’s parts — even the sopranos — higher than an an A or B.  Things can get very messy very fast.  Exceptions exist, of course.

• Make sure vowels match between parts.  Have at most two different vowels happening at once, but really writing a homophonic texture is good.

• The way I arrange is by singing first.  So, sing along to the original song, improvising a line that you think might belong in the arrangement.  Then, I go back and expand it through harmonization, and/or fill in the chord with other parts.

• More specific to the song you’re working on, try to find a midi of it with a decent piano transcription, or find piano sheet music.  This can help take a LOT of work out of the project.

• Your first arrangement will probably have lots of repeats in it, and that’s okay.  You can repeat a section COMPLETELY and just instruct the choir to sing different vowels, and it’s a good quick way to make the piece sound like it’s growing.  Sustained oos can turn into sustained ohs or ahs.

• The most important part about writing a good arrangement is making it FUN for everybody to sing, since that makes all the difference in how well they do it.  So, make sure you sing every single part of your written arrangement on your own, and see if you enjoy it.  If you don’t, fix it.

What I think is fascinating is how the lyrical vocal line is accentuated by the latin rhythms and the light backups. Oh yeah, the faux-trumpet break is pretty sweet and serves as the homerun gimmick, but the reason why Nota won was not because of nailing gimmick after gimmick (which they did, btw), but the musical choices that set up those homeruns. Each one of their performances features some ethnic flavor that makes each one stand out, but the underlying musicality is why they walked off as champs.

To use a cake metaphor…they had really good cake. Yeah, the frosting and decorations made Nota distinctive and gave them that necessary push to top the Bubs and Voices of Lee, but they developed something good and did it right, then added the buttercream to eke out the top slot.

Listen closely to the arrangement and see how the ensemble works: you can easily hear the soloist, the backup hits are light, there is smart use of silence and noise, and the percussion sets up a groove and establishes a mood without overshadowing the solo. The interplay between the singers links the musical phrases (watch how one hits the splash cymbals on the VP) and the choreography has direction: “We are here. We are now moving here. We are spreading out…to do something wicked cool. We come back together.” The choreography underlines the music, rather than the other way around.

A take-away from their arrangement is the use of sustained bass notes. When the bass activates and starts jumping around, there’s a rise in the energy level, but when it’s sustained it sets up a smooth groove. Also, the root of the chord provides a strong tension with the vocal line, which sits on the dissonant 4th and 2nd scale degree a lot. Milking that tension makes it delicious when it resolves…down (b’dum, crash).

And yeah, the trumpet break is pretty ballers too.

RIP Porkins.

Not only does pitch exist, it’s part of the trifecta of all music (the other brothers Timbre and Rhythm will have their day).

Sound is a giant pitch. Not just one, but lots of pitches. Big pitches, small pitches, pitches you can pick out in a crowd, and pitches that don’t sound like a pitch but actually are pitchy, if you look closely enough.
Double entendre’s aside, every sound you hear is a note: music just organizes all those sounds into something kind of pretty, sometimes. Identifying these discrete things we call pitch and manipulating them allows us to make what most people call music.

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Blowing out candles helps build strong lungs.

In this article, we’ll be going through the motions of arranging a song. Instead of looking at a completed arrangement, we’ll walk through every step of the process to show how an a cappella arrangement evolves and is finally completed. Today, the tune is Happy Birthday, that old standby of yore.

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Back in the day we wrote our music for 5 miles, in the snow, uphill, both ways!

If you went back in time with only your computer, it’s saved internet cache, and a love for a cappella, how would you teach an arrangement if music notation hadn’t been invented? Well, if you’re Guido of Arezzo, you’ll just invent notation and that will be that…or you could utilize some non-traditional notation techniques. Fortunately, this article (hence the saved cache…get it?) will help timetravelers or acamembers who don’t read sheet music.

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A composite part is when several parts combine to create one effect. Sometimes it’s used to make bell chords or arpeggios, or perhaps you are creating a sustained tone by fading back and forth between two singers. Maybe it’s a long lick that spans several ranges (a run from a bass’s low notes up to a soprano’s high notes). Whatever it is, you’re using multiple people to create one unified sound or effect.

If you get meta about it, all of a cappella is composite singing. Multiple people lending one voice to create a unified sound…that’s so meta…