Notes 2012
A Cappella Arranging Quick ‘n Easy Katie Wardrobe Midnight Music
www.midnightmusic.com.au About Katie 4
Professional development & training 4
Free tips, tutorials, articles and news 4
A Cappella Arranging Quick ‘N Easy 5 10 Easy Steps 5
1. Choose a song 5 Tips for choosing a song 5
2. Listen to the song…a lot 5 Familiarize yourself with your chosen song 5
3. Decide the basic parameters of the arrangement 6 Faithful to the original, or a creative approach? 6
4. Gather materials 6 Find lyrics, sheet music and MIDI !les 6 Lyrics 6 Sheet music 6 MIDI !les 7
5. Consider how you’ll “record” your arrangement and how your group will learn the song 7 Sharing options 7 Notation 7 Record: MIDI 7 Record: Audio 8 Transcribing Tips 8
6. Get the melody down 8 Notate or record 8
7. Strong bassline 8 The basis of a good arrangement 8
8. Add in some interesting inner/backing parts 9 Rhythm and texture 9
9. Make a good arrangement outstanding 9 Including contrast 9
10. Sharing your arrangement: teaching and learning 9 From a notation program 9 From a sequencing program 10 2 From an audio recording 10
Other tips 10 Podcasts 10 Information, links, reviews 10 Recordings 10
3 About Katie
Katie Wardrobe is a quali!ed teacher who enjoys helping people of all skill levels get the most out of music software programs. She runs her own business – Midnight Music (www.midnightmusic.com.au) – which specialises in training classroom teachers, instrumental music teachers and students. She also regularly runs sessions for composers, songwriters and arrangers. Katie’s sessions are relaxed, informative and relevant.
Katie has worked in a variety of music and education-related workplaces, including Sibelius Australia and Orchestra Victoria. In 2011 she was the Project Manager of the Soundhouse Alliance's Music Technology in Education Conference and she has presented at more than 20 other conferences and events.
Katie has worked as a freelance copyist, music arranger and transcriber for more than 20 years and is an Executive member of the Music Arrangers Guild of Australia. She also sings in (and directs) a 5-voice a cappella group called Quintessential. In 2010 Katie set up a tutorials and tips website to support users of MuseScore – free open-source notation software (www.musescoretips.com) – and in 2011 she released an ebook titled MuseScore: The Essential Beginner's Guide.
Professional development & training
In-person training Katie runs music technology training sessions at schools, network meetings, conferences and professional learning events in Australia (and beyond!). Courses focus on the application of technology in education, in addition to the nuts and bolts, “how- to” aspects of software. Training is offered for Sibelius, Acid, Audacity, GarageBand, MuseScore, Interactive whiteboards, iPads, !lm scoring, podcasting, remixing, teaching composition with notation and more.
You can !nd more information about professional development workshops here: www.midnightmusic.com.au/pd
Online courses Ka e offers a range of online courses in Sibelius, Audacity, GarageBand, Acid, Mixcra , interac ve whiteboards, iPads and more. Courses are scheduled to take place a er-hours (Australia) and consist of mul ple sessions. To find out more, visit: www.midnightmusic.com.au/online
Free tips, tutorials, articles and news
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4 A Cappella Arranging Quick ‘N Easy
10 Easy Steps Do you have trouble !nding arrangements of contemporary songs you’d like to perform with your group? Would you like to arrange but don’t know where to start? This session will run through an easy step-by step process for tackling arrangements of pop, rock and jazz songs.
1. Choose a song
Tips for choosing a song • Choose a song that will suit the members of your group, and the soloist (if there is one)
• Some popular ar sts nearly always lend themselves well to a cappella arrangements: S ng, Michael Jackson, The Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Queen, Beatles, Maroon 5, Jus n Timberlake
• Don’t overlook public domain songs (folk songs, tradi onal songs, hymns) because they can o en be given a contemporary “makeover” – think gospel style, jazz, pop
• Try to choose something different to everyone else!
• Listen to music with your “arranging ears” on all the me
• You might consider doing an arrangement of an arrangement of an original song
• Keep track of poten al songs to arrange by keeping an iTunes playlist of possibili es
• Choose a song you like – you’re going to spend a lot of me working on it even before you get to the first rehearsal, so don’t pick something you’re not prepared to listen a lot!
2. Listen to the song…a lot
Familiarize yourself with your chosen song • First of all, find a recording of your chosen song. Check the iTunes store or your local CD shop
• Become familiar with the different parts of the song: melody, bassline, backing parts
• Make some basic decisions about your arrangement while listening (see Step 3)
• At some point, it’s good to “put it away”
5 3. Decide the basic parameters of the arrangement
Faithful to the original, or a creative approach?
This is where you can start to think crea vely. Perhaps you’d like to change the original song completely, or maybe you’ll choose to be fairly faithful to the original concept.
Some basic things to think about:
• How many parts will the arrangement have?
• Some mes less is more: 3 or 4 parts sung well is be er than 8 parts sung badly
• Will the song feature a solo?
• What is the song structure? Map out the verse/chorus/intro/outro and remember that you don’t necessarily need to be faithful to the original version
• And the fun part...deciding the musical style, key, speed and overall “feeling”. These elements can really make an arrangement unique.
• Will you use a jazz-style accompaniment for a gospel song?
• Will an up-tempo pop song become a hear elt introspec ve ballad?
• Will your version be in a different key? Minor instead of major?
• Use a different voice part for the solo? Be faster or slower than the original?
4. Gather materials
Find lyrics, sheet music and MIDI !les
You may have found a recording of the original version of the song, but there are other resources you can use to give you a head-start in crea ng your arrangement. There’s no point spending hours transcribing a song from a recording if you can find the sheet music or a MIDI file or your chosen song at li le or no cost.
At the very least, finding the lyrics, sheet music or MIDI file can save you me wri ng out the melody and bass line and will allow you to spend more me tackling the crea ve aspects of your arrangement. Lyrics
You can find the lyrics to almost any song online. Do a search for the song tle plus the word “lyrics”. Sheet music
The easiest way to purchase sheet music is via download from an authorised website
• Sheet Music Direct: h ps://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/
• Sheet Music Plus: h p://www.sheetmusicplus.com/
• The Music Room: h p://www.musicroom.com.au/en-AU/ 6 Don’t forget that you can o en transpose the sheet music before prin ng out your purchased copy MIDI !les
There are thousands of MIDI file sites - try typing your song tle plus the word “MIDI” into Google. You can also try these:
• Cool MIDI h p://www.cool-midi.com/
• MIDI Zone h p://www.free-midi.org/
• Electrofresh h p://www.electrofresh.com/
• Hit Trax h p://www.hi rax.com.au/
5. Consider how you’ll “record” your arrangement and how your group will learn the song
Sharing options
You’ll need to share your arrangement with your group somehow and there are a number of different op ons. You may like to consider the following:
• Does the group read music? Do you have the skills to write down the nota on?
• Will the group learn by rote?
• Do you need an audio recording of each part? Do you have the equipment needed to make a recording?
• Will you use a combina on of these? Notation
The easiest way to notate your arrangement is by using a specialist nota on so ware program. The best op ons are: • Sibelius
• Finale
• MuseScore (free)
The beauty of using a so ware program is that you can easily copy and paste sec ons, transpose at the click of a mouse, move parts around and even create instant rehearsal CDs (backing tracks) for your group. Record: MIDI
If you are not planning to notate your arrangement, you might choose to record it into a sequencing program like GarageBand, Sonar Home Studio or Mixcra using a MIDI keyboard (or an on-screen keyboard). The benefits of using sequencing programs are much the same as using a nota on program, although they’re be er suited to making an arrangement sound good, rather than look as a printed arrangement. 7 Record: Audio
Another op on might be to sing the melody and record it using a hand-held microphone, mul track recorder or into a microphone a ached to your computer. You can then distribute recordings of each part (as well as the arrangement as a whole) to the members of your group. Transcribing Tips
If you’re transcribing the melody from a CD recording, here are a few ps:
• Find a quiet place to work
• Use headphones!
• If you’re playing back your song in iTunes, learn a few playback shortcuts (ie. space bar to start/ pause)
• If you’re using a CD player, find one with responsive rewind and fast forward bu ons
• Use technology to help you: Audacity is a free audio-edi ng program which will allows you to slow down the tempo of a song (without changing the pitch). You can also transpose a very low passage up an octave to make it easier to hear
6. Get the melody down
Notate or record
If you’re nota ng your arrangement with a so ware program, or recording it into a sequencing program via a MIDI keyboard, a good place to start is by wri ng out the melody & lyrics. This will allow you to map out the form of the song and provide a basis for the rest of the arrangement.
And if you’re using a nota on or sequencing program it won’t ma er which part you write the melody into for now – you can always copy and paste it into a different part later on if necessary.
I usually write the en re melody for a song into one part – such as the soprano or tenor line – and then add in repeat bars, double barlines at the ends of sec ons, 1st and 2nd me bars etc so that the song structure is in place. Don’t forget to write in the lyrics too – they help you keep track of where you are in the song.
7. Strong bassline
The basis of a good arrangement Melody + strong bassline = good arrangement
If you can get the basics right – that is, a strong bassline to accompany your melody – you’re 80% of the way there. So what makes a strong bassline? • It’s harmonically sound
• It will o en move in a different direc on to the melody
8 • When you play the melody and the bassline together, the song can “stand” on it’s own (ie. you don’t need any other parts to make it work)
8. Add in some interesting inner/backing parts
Rhythm and texture
The “backing” parts are where you can add a lot of interest into your arrangement. Some ps:
• Make them rhythmically interes ng
• Use a different texture to melody and bass
• You may like to consider imita ng instrument sound (ie. jazz horns, guitar arpeggios)
• You can repeat words from the melody (or pre-empt them)
• You can use scat/nonsense syllables
• Be imagina ve with syllables: there’s more than just doo, dm and ba! Try jing, gling, thm, zwee, dot, shu….
9. Make a good arrangement outstanding
Including contrast
One of the best ways to enhance your arrangement is to use CONTRAST:
• One sec on unison, then break into parts
• Begin sparsely (melody and bass only) then increase fullness by adding other parts
• Change the style of backing parts in different sec ons: ie. arpeggio pa erns followed by a chordal sec on or short, staccato chords followed by a lyrical sec on
• Choose to use different tempos for different sec ons
• Vocal percussion
10. Sharing your arrangement: teaching and learning
From a notation program If you notated your arrangement, there are a few options: • You can simply print out scores to distribute to your singers • You can email PDF versions to members of your group • You can also create an audio !le of your score which you can burn to CD (and make rehearsal track versions too
9 • You can set up a Dropbox account and create a shared folder for your group. Each time you add a new arrangement, it will appear in the Dropbox folder on everyone else’s computer and/or mobile device
From a sequencing program Some sequencing programs allow you to print notation, but the results are not nearly as sophisticated as a dedicated notation program like Sibelius or Finale. You can also create a backing track of each part, or of the whole score to distribute to your singers
From an audio recording You can distribute the recording of your arrangement in the following ways: • Burn to CD • Export as an MP3 !le and share via email (if the !le is small enough • Set up a Dropbox account and create a shared folder for your group. Each time you add a new arrangement, it will appear in the Dropbox folder on everyone else’s computer and/or mobile device
• Upload the arrangement to an audio !le-sharing website such as SoundCloud
Other tips
Listen to recordings of lots of a cappella groups and take note of what makes an arrangement work and what doesn’t. There are lots of places to !nd good a cappella music:
Podcasts • The Acapodcast – full-length songs h p://www.acapodcast.com/ (no longer running)
• The Mouth Off Show – in-depth album reviews, interviews, opinions (look past the giggling…!) h p:// www.mouthoffshow.com/
• Contemporary A Cappella Society originals h p://www.casa.org/node/5908 Information, links, reviews • CASA h p://www.casa.org/
• Recorded A Cappella Review Board h p://www.rarb.org/ Recordings • Primarily A Cappella h p://www.singers.com/
• iTunes Store - it can be difficult to find contemporary a cappella music in the iTunes store because there’s no a cappella category. A cappella albums and songs can be categorised as “vocal”, “pop”, “rock” or “jazz” or a variety of other op ons. Once you’ve found one or two albums, it can be useful to check the “Listeners also bought” sec on for other sugges ons
• The website of your favourite vocal group
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