Arranging Music: Where to Begin, How to Succeed
by Louis Anthony deLise, D.M.A.
The volunteer ensemble you head at the local chapter of the Americans for Healthy Lettuce has been chosen to supply a special program of music to be used during the retirement ceremony of the chapter’s president. Your ensemble includes skilled amateur musicians who play B-flat clarinet, alto saxophone, cornet, baritone horn, guitar, percussion, violin, and electric bass. The head of the retirement committee has asked you to include in your program the president’s favorite song, “Aloha ‘Oe,” but, as the president and her husband are champion ballroom dancers, the committee chair would like for you to prepare the old folk song as a medium tempo foxtrot. They want the retiring couple to open the dance floor and lead the dancing.
Oh my! What to do?
Of course, you check on-line for a published arrangement that will fulfill your requirements. No such luck! There are versions of “Aloha” written for string quartet, accordion trio, and banjo solo, but there is nothing published of the classic Hawaiian folk song in the rhythm you need and for your compliment of instruments. You’ve checked and checked again. The thing you need just doesn’t exist. It’s now going to be up to you to create a new piece of music, but where does one begin? How does one create a new version of an existing composition, create a beginning, middle and end, establish a new and different “groove” for the arrangement and, of course, make it playable for the collection of instruments your musicians play?
Such is the work of an arranger.
Arrangers are highly specialized musical craftspersons charged with remodeling existing musical compositions. Arrangers make their new piece fit a collection of task-specific criteria that could include writing for a particular group of instruments, lasting a specified length of time, and having the new piece comport to an established musical genre or historical period.
Arranging music has been part of my work for more than forty years. I have written arrangements for ensembles as small as a duo and as large as a symphony orchestra; for concert engagements and commercial recordings; for radio, television and film.
Arranging, the skilled work of crafting something different out of an existing piece of music, is one of the things I will discuss in depth when I present at this year’s Chrysalis Chamber Music Workshop. The Chrysalis Workshop will be held during the last weekend in September in the lovely Wildwoods of New Jersey. Please join me as I guide you through my personal “How To” plan for writing successful arrangements. I will provide you step-by-step instructions about how to design and build the musical arrangements specific to your needs, the music that will help you chart your course to attracting a wider audience and help you create a more interesting musical experience.
Now I hear some of you beginning to convince yourselves that you could never arrange anything other than a bouquet of flowers. Not true. You can do this. You can construct a solid, professional chart that will work well for your particular and special musical requirements. Just give me some of your time at the Chrysalis this fall and I will show you how. You will leave the workshop with a new set of musical tools and a practical, concise, concrete method for writing musical arrangements that work!
Louis Anthony deLise is a published composer with dozens of pieces in print. He has written arrangements for Patti LaBelle, Peter Nero, Robert Hazard, and Halestorm, played by the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the Marine Chamber Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, Seattle Symphony, the Philly Pops and many others.
The Chrysalis Chamber Music Workshop will take place from September 24th through the 27th in the New Jersey Wildwoods. For more information: https://www.chrysalismusicworkshop.com