have you ever given up on an arrangement?

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Woolbury

I feel like half or more of the things I play never get to "performance ready'. But sometimes I stumble through something seeing if it will open up to me. Often its the vocals that shut it down for me. i recently worked on Clapton Unplugged Before you accuse me, an E blues, but can't sing it at all, too high. But I played Ramblin, an E blues and have no trouble singing that. So I stole all the licks I learned from Before you accuse me and use them in that tune. You never know how its going to work out when you jump into a tune.

To me, this is the real value in learning arrangements by other people - use the ideas in your own arrangements. It isn't that I don't play other arrangements, but instead that I don't learn them to perform over and over. I have never been good at memorizing poems, jokes, or complete musical arrangements. I can take ideas from all of these to make my own, so that is what I am most comfortable with.

Tony

I don't know why I forgot this but I did exactly the same thing with Maple Leaf Rag about a year ago. Dropped David Laibman's arrangement and learned Pat Donohue's. Much more guitaristic as well. I do still play David's arrangement of Original Rags though.

[zmf]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

To me, this is the real value in learning arrangements by other people - use the ideas in your own arrangements.

I'm with you on this sentiment. I'll force myself to practice arrangements that use chord progressions and techniques that are new to me, but it's mainly to have new skills to bring to the way I like to play.

Memorizing someone else's arrangements feels too much like when I was a kid taking classical piano lessons.

[donlyn]

have you ever given up on an arrangement?

Lots of times. But that doesn't mean I've given up on the song.

If an arrangement doesn't work for me, I am not afraid to rework it for myself. Or start from scratch and come up with my own arrangement. Sometimes I'll just shelve it for a while and get back to it later, which might be the next time it crosses my mind, whenever that is.

In his YouTube video, "The Process of Arranging Celtic Melodies", Tony McManus basically says to 'absorb' the melody independently and then build your arrangement around it. During his example, he tries different tunings, different keys, and different additional material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfVznJpvIc




Plus he's easy to listen to.

Don
.

[Pitar]

Yes and no. If I find the original progression difficult to negotiate I'll transpose to an easier progression and capo as necessary.

[Taylor814]

Originally Posted by Brent Hahn

That's a just-plain-weird song, besides. I think so anyway. It starts out brilliant and beautiful and then just sorta wanders off. Both melodically and lyrically. It's almost like Jobim got a ways into it and then lost interest, but rubber-stamped it "Done" and put it on the street anyway. Wish I could reanimate him and not let him go into The Light and find eternal peace until he really finishes the darn thing.

Jon Hendricks' English lyrics weren't his best day at the office, either.

Harsh, or what? :-)

Probably, but it might explain my love/hate relationship with this song. It was my understanding that he wrote it as a way to address critics of Bossa Nova who didn't understand what he and others were trying to do with this new style of music.

As for the English 'translations', I much prefer to listen to the original Portuguese. Despite not speaking a word of the language, I'd much rather listen to Joao Gilberto than Perry Como.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by donlyn

have you ever given up on an arrangement?

Lots of times. But that doesn't mean I've given up on the song.

If an arrangement doesn't work for me, I am not afraid to rework it for myself. Or start from scratch and come up with my own arrangement. Sometimes I'll just shelve it for a while and get back to it later, which might be the next time it crosses my mind, whenever that is.

In his YouTube video, "The Process of Arranging Celtic Melodies", Tony McManus basically says to 'absorb' the melody independently and then build your arrangement around it. During his example, he tries different tunings, different keys, and different additional material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWfVznJpvIc




Plus he's easy to listen to.

Don
.

Thanks for posting this Don. There are some real gems out there on youtube - too many to absorb. So when anybody posts a special one like this, so appropriate to this thread, it is much appreciated.

Tony

[Wade Hampton]

I have a fairly pitiless approach to songs that I work up, whether I've written them myself or taken someone else's song and come up with an arrangement of it (I don't attempt to learn arrangements from books or videos - it's all got to filter through my own musical sensibilities before I can make it work.)

What I have is what I call "the three times rule." If I write or work up a song and play it in public three times, only to have it fall flat or receive a merely polite rather than enthused reception each time, I'm done with it. It doesn't matter if it's got lyrics that I cherish, or if I happen to think it's really good, because I'm too close to it to be an impartial judge.

The one exception to this is if I've tried and failed to make a song work on one instrument but come up with a winning arrangement on another. For years I tried to make the Beatles' song "Please Please Me" work on guitar, then mountain dulcimer, then mandolin, and it just didn't work on any of those instruments with any audience I sang it for.

Then - years later - after I'd gotten fairly facile on clawhammer banjo I worked up a version of "Please Please Me" that people responded to. I've since used it on solo gigs and with larger groups, and it's a real crowdpleaser.

But prior to figuring it out on five string banjo it hadn't been, not for me, anyway.

Short version: as a general rule, if I play a song in public three times and it doesn't win the crowd over on any of those three occasions, I'm done with it. I don't see any point in expending energy trying to save a lost cause.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[The Bard Rocks]

"I have been enjoying these albums for quite some time. Since I can read music, I am able to play tunes in the book from time to time. I am not really interested in learning somebody else's arrangement note for note and then trying to memorize it so I can play it over and over for other people. I do enjoy listening to the music, but my interest in playing is in arranging tunes myself and then not having to remember exactly how I played them. "

From TBELTRANS - he says exactly what I feel.

[PiousDevil]

Pretty much every arrangement I’ve attempted.

[RodB]

Originally Posted by donlyn

………If an arrangement doesn't work for me, I am not afraid to rework it for myself. Or start from scratch and come up with my own arrangement. Sometimes I'll just shelve it for a while and get back to it later, which might be the next time it crosses my mind, whenever that is.

In his YouTube video, "The Process of Arranging Celtic Melodies", Tony McManus basically says to 'absorb' the melody independently and then build your arrangement around it..........

This is the key thing for me as well, as I also like to put my own ‘stamp’ on a tune.

Also an arrangement might call for an unusual fingering (to me) that seems difficult if not impossible, or just ‘strange’ at first. It doesn’t seem to get any easier by repetition but can suddenly just work, often after having not having played it at all for a while - as if I was trying too hard.

I also like ragtime played at slower speed than you often hear, and agree that the best arrangements balance keeping the structure of the music with a playability that allows the musician room for expression.

[Silly Moustache]

This dialogue confuses and intrigues me.
Do you guys learn a piece not by note from what someone else has "written"?

I can't read notation and Tablature doesn't work for me, as to me music is sound not a written language.

When I or bob and I determine to play a piece - typically a David Grisman piece with a collaboration guest. (Currently working on Tipsy Gypsy with DG and Tommy E)



Bob will find the melody but never has the chord progression.

So then it is my task to find a progression that will work under the melody and the A,B and sometimes C parts, and then once weve got it down it'smy job to work out a guitar break. We rarely write anything down aprt from notes like

"Tipsy Gypsy" Dm,

Intro - Bob
A,B - Bob
A.B - Andy
A.C - Bob , outro

I can remember trying to work with a banjo player who was convinced that if we didn't sound just like the record it wasn't right.
He once asked me why I played a guitar break differently to the previous week. I said , it's a 12 bar in G - I just play whatever comes though my fingers" he said "That's very dangerous!" Dangerous?

I can't imagine trying to make it sound "just like the recording".
Do most guitar instrumentalists feel it better to follow an arrangement scrupulously like classical players?

[donlyn]

My take from this discussion is that there are more players who prefer to 'go their own way' than not. I think it's silly to not put at least a bit of yourself in anything you play. Some of us put a lot of themselves into their arrangements.

There are many examples of this from the pros too. Does not Clapton overuse the "Day Tripper" hook in "What'd I say"?
Listen to Jimmy Smith do "Walk Don't Run", then Chet Atkins, and then the Ventures. Almost like listening to different songs. And I fingerpick it on 12 string acoustic nowadays. No drum soloes or whammy bars, but I have some wicked neat substitutes.

I think there's a lot of 'mavericks' in this AGF 'heard'.

Don
.

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

This dialogue confuses and intrigues me.
Do you guys learn a piece not by note from what someone else has "written"?

...
I can remember trying to work with a banjo player who was convinced that if we didn't sound just like the record it wasn't right.
He once asked me why I played a guitar break differently to the previous week. I said , it's a 12 bar in G - I just play whatever comes though my fingers" he said "That's very dangerous!" Dangerous?

I can't imagine trying to make it sound "just like the recording".
Do most guitar instrumentalists feel it better to follow an arrangement scrupulously like classical players?

Funny. Some of us like danger I suppose. I was surprised to earn there are many folks like your banjo player to whom a piece does not sound right if it isn't played a certain way. I respect that but don't subscribe.

Years ago, I remember hearing "Rhapsody in Blue" on the radio, suffered through it, gritting my teeth as the version just sounded awful to me. At the end, the announcer said the pianist was - George Gershwin! That taught me something. The Winifred Atwell version which sounded "right" to me was only because that was the one I was used to hearing from my own recording.

[RodB]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

This dialogue confuses and intrigues me.
Do you guys learn a piece not by note from what someone else has "written"?

...... <snip>………

I can't imagine trying to make it sound "just like the recording".
Do most guitar instrumentalists feel it better to follow an arrangement scrupulously like classical players?

As I have posted above I will answer for myself at least:

For me an arrangement can be a starting point that I can use to an extent or other. I seldom do this for traditional or classic melodies (i.e. celtic tunes or say autumn leaves, etc.) but some of the classic rags that are referred to in this thread require a lot of work to transcribe them from piano to guitar whilst keeping the harmonies / progression involved. Much easier to start with an arrangement that I admire.

Even playing an arrangement note for note is not necessarily an attempt to sound like a recording - if it exists (e.g. John Renbourn’s Arc et Senans ).

However when I played lead in a group or backed a singer I used to just need the key, opening riff maybe and what structure the tune/ song followed. No music written down, no arrangement to follow. The two approaches address very different music in terms of complexity / freedom to improvise or ‘wing it’.

I trust this helps...