5 Important Questions When Arranging

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Episode Writeup:

Arranging can be overwhelming. You wrote a song with your guitar and your voice, and now you need to make a full arrangement out of it? Where do you start? What is important to think about?

Why is this Instrument the Right Choice?

A harmonica and flute playing the same part will have a very different feel.

A piano ballad and guitar ballad sound fundamentally different.

It’s important to be intentional about your instrumentation. Don’t just throw instruments in without thinking of WHY it is you are choosing the instrument for that part.

The feel of your song isn’t just determined by the lyrics, chords, and melody. The instruments you use to fill the song are imperative to the tone and feel.

When you write a new part, should it be acoustic guitar or electric? Or should it be a synth or violin? Do you want a full drum kit, or will a cajon part do?

What is the Job of this Part?

Every part has a job. Not every part can or should be the star.

Some parts may be very important, but aren’t flashy and most people won’t even notice them.

The star of your song is probably primarily the vocal. Some random filler synth to thicken up the chorus, that acoustic guitar that sits in the background of the 3rd verse, and (let’s be honest) the bass guitar are just not meant to be the stars.

This doesn’t make them unimportant. They just have a job to do, and it isn’t to be the star. That doesn’t make their job any less important.

Where does this Part Fit into the Arrangement?

Every part has its place.

And it needs to be in its own place, not another part’s place.

Think of it like a puzzle.

Well, 4 puzzles. The first puzzle is the distance puzzle. This is about whether it is a lead part (close up, in the foreground) or a filler in the background, as well as everything in between. As I said in the previous section, not every part can or should be trying to be the star.

The next puzzle is the pitch puzzle. You don’t want all the parts of your arrangement to be in the same couple octaves. The parts will clash, making it harder to sound good in a recording.

I generally like to map out what octaves different parts tend to reside in. I use this to be sure there is good representation from several different pitch ranges.

This helps to fill in the arrangement without getting overly muddy or clashing.

Next, we have the rhythm puzzle. Like the pitch puzzle concept, you don’t want every part occupying the same rhythmic space. If one part is a chord held over the entire measure, you don’t want every other part to do that too.

You probably want one that plays a syncopated rhythm and another that may be a pad synth that has no rhythm at all. A part that plays quarter notes on the down beat will be a change up from something playing a syncopated part and something else playing only every measure.

Lastly, we have the energy puzzle. This puzzle is related to, but not quite the same as the rhythm puzzle. While the rhythm puzzle is primarily concerned with where the transients (beginning and most loud part of notes) are, the energy puzzle is concerned with the level of “energy” of a part.

The “energy” of an electric guitar playing rapid 16th notes, growing louder and louder vs a piano playing a laid back melody is strikingly different. We generally don’t want all our parts being at 100% energy all the time, and we also don’t want all our parts being equally laid back all the time.

If all the electric guitar parts are driving the song forward with high-energy staccato parts, maybe the job of the violin is to give a legato melody to hold the song together.

When Should Each Part Come In?

The easy answer is usually you want something new to happen in the song every 4 measures or so. Obviously this is far from a hard and fast rule, but if the song just doesn’t quite hold the listener’s attention, thinking through how often you change something up to interest the listener can be helpful.

But something has to change to keep the interest of the listener. The song shouldn’t stay stagnant like a small pond. It should be a river, with new and exciting things coming with each passing second. Never quite the same, even if it is overall familiar.

When Do I Know When To Stop?

When the song feels right, can hold someone’s attention from beginning to end, and both delivers and dials back when it should, that is when it is time to stop.

That’s when you’ve successfully arranged your song.