When you first start arranging, very often you are just trying to come up with enough ideas to fill up three minutes. I call that a theme and variations approach and that is the way I arranged through college. I shudder to think about what I wrote back then. Most experienced arrangers eventually come to […]
Tag Archives: arranging
I don’t think that I have ever really talked about pedal point here before. This is a very simple idea that really can make your music more interesting. If you don’t see the video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKmQull39qU
Every year, I like to give you guys a project to work on throughout the year and today, I want to introduce this year’s project: transitions between songs when doing congregational accompaniment (or similar situations). The video below gives you a three step process for learning how to modulate as well as how to adjust your […]
In case you missed it, here is part 1 of my interview with Faye Lopez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzQ4CK1CYtE Today, I posted part 2 which covers her arranging process and some tips about texture. If you don’t see a video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reCQzH-XrSQ
As I mentioned in my last post, I was at the Composers Symposium last week meeting with other writers and publishers. One of the big things we did was introduce our music to each other and get publisher feedback. In the room were decision makers for Hal Leonard, Lorenz, Fred Bock and probably other publishers […]
If you want to watch the earlier parts of this interview, here they are: Part 1 (Danny’s bio and how he got into professional studio work) Part 2 (How the studio music process works) Part 3 (Charting) In this last portion of the interview, Danny discusses licks (what I often call fills). I actually get […]
We have talked about turns before but to summarize briefly, a turn is a set of chords that are inserted between phrases in a song to give more harmonic interest and connect the phrases together better. For example, let’s say a phrase ends on I and the next phrase starts on I. In that case, […]
Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here In this segment, Danny discusses how charts work. For those of you who don’t know what I mean by a chart, I am referring to the music notation used by studio musicians. Basically, a chart contains the overall roadmap of the song down to every bar but […]
Read Part 1 here. Here is the second (of four) segments from my interview with Danny Crawford last week. In this one, he discusses how a song goes from an initial rough idea to a professional-level recording and the process used to generate an entire project worth of tracks in one day. Keep in mind […]
One of the things I like to do here is try to get you inside of the production of professional music. I think it is incredibly interesting. Some of you will agree with me but even if you are not into that scene at all, there is still a lot to learn from the people in […]
According to one of my online critics, I am not an arranger; I am apparently a deranger. I have been around the absurdities of the bickering that goes on in church music for a long time and thought I had heard it all but I have to say I have never heard that one. It […]