Have you tried creating your own solo arrangements?

[Grinning Boy]

Hi All,

I'm pretty new but have posted a few times. I'm now officially addicted to the AGF!

I've been playing a LONG time and have tried most styles and genres. I always come back to playing solo fingerstyle arrangements as I find it the most enjoyable and rewarding.

I wanted to post because I see a lot of people talking about playing arrangements by other people, usually through tabs and/or sheet music. I did this for years myself.

A long time ago I heard Joe Pass say in an interview the best thing you can do for your playing is to "just play songs". About two years ago my little brain opened enough to finally realize what he was talking about. I sat down and using basic sheet music of songs I love I started working on my own arrangements. I sit with a good chord chart on my left and a summary of chord substitution/embellishment rules on my right and force myself to play the song using every trick I can think of to make the song interesting and fun.

It took a while. My first attempts were pretty rudimentary. But my repertoire of pieces "under the fingers" is really expanding and the arrangements are getting better and better. I got totally re-excited about the guitar all over again. I can't wait to get it in my hands and play every day.

I played for several hours yesterday and had one of those wonderful blissful feelings that all players experience sometimes...you know the one..."Wow! Is this really me playing? What a blast". It's just been so much fun and so exciting I wanted to share it with everyone here.

If you're trying to decide what to work on, I really encourage you to give this a try!

[mr. beaumont]

It's all I do...well, and arrange my own tunes too.

I agree 100 percent...there's tons of books and stuff, but nothing teaches you how to do it more than DOING IT...and falling flat on your face a few times as you go.

[rick-slo]

Yep, the extra creativity of writing my own music ( plus an arrangement now and then of some existing tune) keeps me playing guitar these days. Quite a few forum members do the same. Visit Show and Tell now and then.

[Nailpicker]

Ditto what Mr B and Rick-slo and you are doing. I hardly use written music at all anymore. I just pull the song out of my memory and build it and keep building it to help keep it interesting.

[vts]

I have (very little). A lot of fun and extremely useful (but takes a lot of time that I don't have...).

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Grinning Boy

…My first attempts were pretty rudimentary. But my repertoire of pieces "under the fingers" is really expanding and the arrangements are getting better and better.

Hi GB...

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I see you joined a few weeks ago, but don't think we've met yet. Glad you joined and started a thread to share how your arranging has grown.

Yup - why just play other's arrangements note-for-note (as if our heroes play their arrangements note-for-note the same every time)?

Once you get a rudimentary arrangement down, and then begin to flesh-it-out, these things take on a life of their own - well your own! And I've got pieces which I started over a decade ago which continue to grow.

Sometimes out of the blue, other bits just seem to fit - and wah-lah it's a new bit of variety for the arrangement.

Glad you continue to grow!!

[oldhippiegal]

welcome.

It's great fun to arrange (and I wish I had more time to do it). Those golden days where it's all working and the music sounds wonderful are great, aren't they?

I'd just add that a person has to have a certain amount of music theory, good familiarity with the fretboard, and some years of playing experience to make arranging fun. While everyone has to start somewhere with arranging, starting without a number of fundamentals would, I imagine, be quite frustrating!

[Wengr]

Sure I create my own arrangements. I start with the tab arrangement by a great player, dumb down all the tricky bits that I can't do, and walla - there's my arrangement

[Toby Walker]

Welcome to the AGF! It's a great place to be addicted to.

I agree that creating your own arrangements is one of the best ways to learn what works and what doesn't work for you. Remember, it's all subjective.

I'm in the camp of not only creating my own arrangements of songs but my repertoire also consists of other folks arrangements... specifically Guy Van Duser's arrangement of 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.' If Chet Atkins can perform Guy's tune in concert then why can't anybody... providing they practice hard enough!

You can learn an awful lot by studying the arrangements of others. Mark Hanson has a terrific DVD out on creating your own arrangements which you should look into. I've used those concepts to teach my own students this skill.

[Grinning Boy]

Thank you everybody for your responses to my post. I'm starting to feel very at home here!

I totally agree with you Toby about the value of studying the arrangements of others. It goes to oldhippegal's point of needing a good foundation of how to do it exactly.

I love the arrangements of others. For example, I've probably played Ed Gerhard's "The Water is Wide" 500 times!!

What got me thinking of writing this post was a different thread going about memorization techniques. That person was having difficulty memorizing arrangements of others and that totally hit home with me. I've felt good about my playing ability, but I rarely got those arrangements by others in my head without the music. That issue was totally solved when I started focusing on my own arrangements. And aside from now having a ton of songs in my head now, the guitar has taken on new meaning for me since I did it. I've been really excited about it so I decided to share that as my first post.

If there are very basic music reading skills and knowledge of the fretboard, I would strongly encourage that person to start working on their own arrangements. To start, pick songs you really love with wonderful melodies and then just start playing them using any basic sheet music you can find. (Wikifonia was a wonderful source for basic sheet music for this purpose. Although it's down now, there are still options out there for accessing its data base). If this interests you, you'll never regret getting started.

[Silly Moustache]

Hi, welcome aboard!

I visit many acoustic music venues and many of them offer playing spots to people non judgmentally (as does my own club).

There are usually those people who have learnt by tab and it is immediately obvious as usually they play in a stilted way, often staring at cheat sheets instead of looking at their audience, and stumbling over riffs and breaks that were as they heard it "on the recording".

When I hear a number on an album that I want to "lightly steal" - my method is to google for the lyrics (or write them down whilst listening), and then I'll pull down my old "office" guitar and work out the chord progression.

I type out the lyrics with the chords above written in roman numerals so I can adjust the key as I (or my accompanists) wish.

From then on - it is down to me to adapt the song to my style. Tempo, space for breaks, breaks themselves and instrumentation, and "feel" are ALL up for grabs, and innovation.

In fact after I've been playing a song for some time - it is best for me not to listen to the original arrangement again as I sometimes find it confusing.

Someone once said that whoever wrote/sung/played a song, when YOU are performing it - it is YOUR song, and YOUR story (it might have been me).

Nothing is sacred - I often find the lyrics changing to suit my delivery, and I might add in a VIm or a IIIm for colour.

My breaks are MY style not anyone else's.

I once worked with a banjo player who truly believed that the ONLY way to play a number was by slavishly copying the recording. He once remarked that I'd played a guitar break differently the previous night - I replied that when it's my break, I have little idea what I'm going to play - just the progression - he looked at me with a worried expression and said "that's very dangerous!" I fell about laughing - he couldn't understand.

This was the guy who once remarked - "I don't give a **** about the audience - I just want to get my part right!" - demonstrating, of course, that playing music was - for him a technical exercise and not performing and entertaining the audience. I'll never work with him again!

In can't play like Tony Rice, or Bryan Sutton, but then - I don't suppose they can play like me!

Playing simple well is better than playing complicated poorly"

[Crashcup]

"Playing simple well is better than playing complicated poorly!" Now THAT is an epiphanic statement! I think I'm going to post that one on my music stand.

Thanks!

Bill

[Vognell]

Originally Posted by Crashcup

"Playing simple well is better than playing complicated poorly!" Now THAT is an epiphanic statement! I think I'm going to post that one on my music stand.

Thanks!

Bill

Aye. In my youth I was attracted to complicated, flashy solos that I could never play well. Now I want a clean tone, good timing, and expression... consistently. Takes a LOT more focus, but I find it more rewarding now.

[ameetnsharma]

I like Joe Pass' way of playing solo guitar. He keeps the tempo.

Problem I find, with a lot of solo guitar, and solo piano too, is they change the tempo too freely for my taste.

[NilsG]

It should have a beat. So you could dance to it. Read in another forum that finger picking jazz is a no-no as you lose the swing, but, then, you have to have a bass and drum combo or it will sound lame, and I don't have that sitting about in my kitchen.