Arranging Accompaniments?

[TortoiseAvenger]

Hi there:

As a singer/songwriter, I’m happy with my ability to craft lyrics and melodies, and pair them with basic cowboy chords. What completely stumps me is building on that to make a complete satisfying song. I am not an experienced guitarist, but I’m eager to learn.

There are a few courses on TrueFire that caught my eye, but they don’t really explain their decision process… they just show you how to play it.

I posted a similar question several years ago, but I’m hoping for new insights. Any thoughts?

[jaymarsch]

Hi TA,
As a singer songwriter myself who has explored this topic, I have a few recommendations:
Happy Traum on Homespun has some courses - either DVDs or downloads - on creating easy song arrangements and then building on them. He uses a number of traditional songs as illustrations. He makes the info very accessible and easy to transfer to other songs, including your own. Check out his Guitar Building Block Series and his 2 volume set called:
Basic Arranging That Every Guitarist Should Know - From Simple Strumming to Intricate Versions of Traditional Favorites.
Also check out Acoustic Guitar Magazine and Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers. He breaks down the guitar accompaniment styles of folks like Bob Dylan, Shawn Colvin, John Prine, and a few others.
Pete Huttlinger’s website also has instructional materials on the guitar work of folks like Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce.
Have fun exploring!
Best,
Jayne

[catdaddy]

Hey TA!

I've been following your creative journey for a while now. I admire your dedication and passion! I know you're working on becoming a more proficient guitarist, and as I've mentioned before, by doing so your accompaniment will become more interesting as your skills increase. It'll be a natural, almost subconscious evolution.

Jayne has offered some good sources for building arrangements. As a simple starting point for my own arrangements, I usually take a look at working in different chord voicings to add some variety to the accompaniment. The process of doing arrangements is a skill that improves the more you do it. With your musical interest and dedication I'm sure you'll be successful, and be creating arrangements on guitar that will be satisfying to you and your audience.

[RRuskin]

I participated in an online workshop on this subject last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_vVzxeYOig&t=2013s

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TortoiseAvenger

Hi there:

As a singer/songwriter, I’m happy with my ability to craft lyrics and melodies, and pair them with basic cowboy chords. What completely stumps me is building on that to make a complete satisfying song. I am not an experienced guitarist, but I’m eager to learn.

There are a few courses on TrueFire that caught my eye, but they don’t really explain their decision process… they just show you how to play it.

I posted a similar question several years ago, but I’m hoping for new insights. Any thoughts?

Hi TA
A lot more great musicians are far better at creating than explaining the creative process.

I've attended workshops over the years with a few players who did a pretty good job of explaining what they were doing…but most could not.

Muriel Anderson had a class called "Putting Your Heart Into Your Hands" which discussed the emotional side of arrangement creation well.

Paul Asbell did a great job of conveying some of the aspects you mentioned as well. But it was often when he was answering questions rather than approaching his course materials at his workshops.

I hope you find some material which explains what you are asking, but in 30-some years of exploring fingerstyle solo and arranging plus accompanying, I've not seen it yet either. But I've gotten good at obsessing over the material of an artist, and listening, watching, and figuring out what they are doing to grab on to the parts of it that fit my personal musical tastes and styles.

Players who influence me are Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, Bob Bennett, Pete Huttlinger, Al Petteway, David Wilcox (alternate tunings guy), Muriel Anderson, etc. I'm not trying to be a clone of any of them, but to utilize the bits of what they do which benefit my playing and arranging.

These may not be the influencers you need or are looking for. So you need some heros who play things you want to play to analyze.

Learning to read hands (YouTube is your friend) is really important.

Good luck on the journey…

[jaymarsch]

Originally Posted by RRuskin

I participated in an online workshop on this subject last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_vVzxeYOig&t=2013s

Thanks for posting this, Rick. Great stuff!

Best,
Jayne

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by TortoiseAvenger

Hi there:

As a singer/songwriter, I’m happy with my ability to craft lyrics and melodies, and pair them with basic cowboy chords. What completely stumps me is building on that to make a complete satisfying song. I am not an experienced guitarist, but I’m eager to learn.

I think the starting point is for you to explore the question of what, to you, makes a "complete satisfying song". In other words, what would you have to add, or what is missing, that would make for a "complete satisfying song".

Answer that question and I think you are well on your way towards the answer you seek.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi TA
A lot more great musicians are far better at creating than explaining the creative process.

I've attended workshops over the years with a few players who did a pretty good job of explaining what they were doing…but most could not.

Same with a lot of people who have a high level of natural ability at what they do, I think they went through the sequential stages of learning so fast and early on that they never really became concious that they were following a learning process, I had a skiing instructor like that, could never uderstand why I kept falling over when he found it so easy.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Andyrondack

Same with a lot of people who have a high level of natural ability at what they do, I think they went through the sequential stages of learning so fast and early on that they never really became concious that they were following a learning process, I had a skiing instructor like that, could never uderstand why I kept falling over when he found it so easy.

Hi Andy-etc

Yup. I've seen people who cannot read music, but they really do understand it, and they play at very high levels of skill.

[Bob Womack]

I've been thinking about your question and trying to work out a useful reply. By way of background, arranging is a big part of my work as a producer/engineer. I am a "fixer." Artists and producers send me recording music in multitrack form that the feel isn't working. I listen, arrange, edit, record, and mix the pieces to make them work.

I've always listen to a LOT of music, from classical to rock to pop to folk, etc. I studied music composition in college. One of the principles in composition is that you can never stand still. The audience needs to be led through your composition. Things need to be developing all the time to reward them for hanging in and listening. If you are working in typical folk or pop you need to start simple and become more complicated. You start from an initial statement to gain their interest, develop the interest to a peak, and then create an anticlimax, just like in a movie or TV show. So there is a tension structure, starting low, working up, and then tapering off.

Arranging for vocal pop or folk lives within the same parameters. You've got a melody, a lyric, and a basic chord structure. What can with do to start the audience at one place, take them on a guided tour, and deliver them to the destination? How can we keep them from juming off the train from boredom?

Some think in terms of "hooks" to get and keep attention; I think in terms of rewards and enticements to guide the audience with me. I'll start with an intro statement by some instrument. You really have to approach that as a composition on its own. One form can be to take a portion of the vocal line and state it on an instrument to pre-echo the vocal statement later. Next you need to think of some rhythm pattern to draw the listener's interest through the verse. Some refer to that as a groove. Then, when you reach the chorus or bridge, you want the accompaniment structure to change and become more complicated. Then you'll need a "turnaround" to take people back to the form of the second verse, etc. You can use an instrumental solo to form your peak. Some say that the solo is dead, but I think only uninteresting, pro-forma solos are dead. A solo composed or "played for the song" is still interesting. And then you can have a third verse and chorus. Your closing is your "kiss off." It is how you say goodbye to your audience. It can also leave your audience wanting more.

I'm going to post an example that I've posted before but I'll show you the elements involved. This song started as a composition exercise, telling the story of thecourtship between my wife and myself. I wrote the verses and choruses and had a basic chord structure and then began fleshing it out. We start with an instrumental intro that contains part of the verse and a final transitional part grafted together. The drummer starts ahead of the downbeat to give the song an impatient sense of urgency. Then we go right into the verse. The groove going under the verse is developed with both the bass and a clean electric guitar playing in unison to allow it to be well-defined and forward without getting in the way of the vocal. I guide the listener to the chorus with an organ fill. We go to the chorus and I added three part harmony, but with each part recorded three times and panned across the stereo stage to make the song bloom at that point. There is also a call-and-response part on the electric guitar to keep the pace up during the chorus. At the end of the chorus the electric guitar plays an ascending scale to take us right back to the next verse. At the end of the verse we take a turn to an instrumental solo. It is actually TWO solos - a statement of portions of the verse and chorus again played on two guitars in unison followed by a composed solo that moves into a chorus by way of that transitional part we heard in the intro. One word is changed in the chorus to add a little intrigue. At the end of the chorus, the electric guitar does its ascending scale that takes us back to a final verse. The last line is repeated twice and a portion of the intro is used to finish up the song. So here it is:

THE SMILE IN HER EYES
Copyright 2017, Robert C. Womack

Bob

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I've always listen to a LOT of music, from classical to rock to pop to folk, etc. I studied music composition in college. One of the principles in composition is that you can never stand still. The audience needs to be led through your composition. Things need to be developing all the time to reward them for hanging in and listening. If you are working in typical folk or pop you need to start simple and become more complicated. You start from an initial statement to gain their interest, develop the interest to a peak, and then create an anticlimax, just like in a movie or TV show. So there is a tension structure, starting low, working up, and then tapering off...
Bob

An OUTSTANDING post.

You lay out the common elements, the form, the common techniques that are used in (the Aristotelean aesthetics in) art, literature and music and then give an illustrative example showing those things in use in popular song.

I suggest that many current song writers are unfamiliar with these basic elements of music. I often find the result is a song that goes nowhere and one in which I quickly lose interest - for the exact reasons you stated.