I am going to do something a bit unusual today. I am going to give you an arrangement for free that you normally have to pay for. “He Hideth My Soul” is an arrangement that was released to my Monthly Hymn Arrangement Club members in May.
Before you continue reading, you might want to download the arrangement here: He Hideth My Soul
(By the way, this file is 29 MB so will take a bit longer to download than normal.)
Last week, I was at a conference where I taught a class on harmony and I want to share some of that material today. I used this arrangement as a demonstration of the principles I was talking about.
Essentially, I talked about 6 different principles and they are all demonstrated in the arrangement. Here they are with some sample bars where you can see them in action.
- Turn almost all triads into 4-note chords by adding the 7th. (Pick any bar. Essentially every chord in the song is a 7th.)
- Further extend chords by adding 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. (Bars 8, 16, 24, 30, 32)
- Chord substitutions. (Bars 5, 14)
- Extend progressions by inserting chords in front of target chords. (Bars 2, 7, 12, 16)
- Complete reharmonization (Bars 25-28 and 45-48)
- Voicing (Pick any bar.)
I will not discuss these concepts in depth because there are many posts on the blog that go into details about all these ideas. However, this is an opportunity to see them in real life if you study this arrangement.