Portamental » Songwriting/Composition

First-time arrangements, Third Installment

Dan Newman — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:13:17 +0000

~I wholeheartedly support all kinds of research that you can do before putting notes to a page. Steal ideas! Save yourself time! Don’t reinvent the wheel with every new arrangement, especially if you’re cutting your teeth for the first time.

~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.

Staff, clefs, notes, and rests

Dan Newman — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:32:06 +0000

To start off the Music Theory section of SmarterMusic, I’ve written the first article in the Fundamentals land: Staffs, Clefs, Notes, and Rests. It is a brief introduction to the most basic music symbols and how they tell us neat things. If you have no music training or you chose to drift into a coma while in General Music class, this article is for you! It is, as usual, full of puns, bad jokes, and occasional sarcasm. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a SmarterMusic article, no?

Arranging Walk-Through: Happy Birthday

Dan Newman — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:50:15 +0000

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.

Non-Traditional Notation

Dan Newman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:19:29 +0000

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.

Composite Parts

Dan Newman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:40:06 +0000

It seems that there isn’t a quick explanation of a composite part on this website…so here’s one!

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…

Non-traditional notation teaser

Dan Newman — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:03:43 +0000

Something to spur imagination while I’m working on a new part of the arranging guide: Non-traditional notation. While sheet music is super-handy, and provides a common language to communicate music, sometimes people just don’t speak Wookie, and you have to think outside the box.

~How would you write out parts for someone who doesn’t read music?

~How do you teach an Alto2 if they don’t understand how quarter notes work?

~How do you put together an a cappella arrangement without writing down any notes?

Ponder that while I’m on a boat.

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The Art of Song Selection 2: Mechanics and Logistics

Dan Newman — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:46:08 +0000

Not as easy as A and B

While it’s well and good to know what your group is about, who your target audience is, where you want to take the group, and if your 2nd soprano is single, that doesn’t actually pick your songs. This article is geared towards the practicality of picking songs, and several methods with their pros and cons. Naturally, you can adapt these archetypes to suit the ensemble; you’re the one making the sauce.

Arranger’s Toolbox: Vocal Percussion

Dan Newman — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:01:18 +0000

“Guh, chicka chicka tss”

“Doof, tepuh kss”

“Pfft dubba dubba, kcha”

It’s a fallacy that drums noises are reserved to just drums, just as vocal percussion is limited to the vocal percussionist. If you can speak, you can do VP, and if you’re writing arrangements for people who can speak…well, everyone can be a drum sometime or other! All it takes is a little ingenuity and riskiness to write some drum parts for your whole ensemble, as well as some singers who are willing to have some fun.

Techno remixes- the next frontier of satire

Dan Newman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:35:08 +0000

For those who aren’t up and savvy with their Christian Bale celebrity gossip, our recent Batman was caught on tape verbally beheading some poor dude on the set of Terminator 4. Just a heads up…it’s pretty much just strong language.

Here’s the original rant, which was followed by a techno remix, R&B/Club remix, and my personal favorite, a Newsies trailer re-release.

Oh, how technology and cheap beat machines have revolutionized the political cartoon.

A brief Quick’n'Dirty 10-step Arranging guide

Dan Newman — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:16:52 +0000

You're a winner if you like it quick and dirty!

So maybe you don’t want to peruse the multitude of articles right now, and you just want fast and easy directions of how to do an a cappella arrangement. Will do, but here’s the caveat- this is just one way of going about an arrangement. I would recommend reading the other articles on this website when you get the chance, as well as be aware of what works and doesn’t work for you.

So here we go!