Arrangement

In music, an arrangement loosely describes rewriting a piece of pre-existing music for a specific set of instruments or voices, often in harmony or with additional original material.

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structure" (ibid).

Explanation

An arrangement is often an adaptation of a previously arranged piece of music for a musical application other than that for which it was originally intended. This includes arrangements for different instruments, for example an arrangement for piano or flute, or a duet, based on a symphonic piece, or an arrangement of instrumental accompaniment for vocal music). Or, it may be an adaptation for another musical style, for example adaptation of a classical piece for a jazz or rock ensemble, orchestration of a song written by a popular band, or an a cappella setting of a song from a stage musical or an opera.

In jazz or studio settings, "arranging" is most commonly used to describe the process that is also called orchestration, adaptation, setting, instrumentation, or a variety of other terms. Orchestration differs in that it is only adapting music for an orchestra or musical ensemble while arranging "involves adding compositional techniques, such as new thematic material for introductions, transitions, or modulations, and endings...Arranging is the art of giving an existing melody musical variety" (Corozine 2002, p.3).

A satisfactory musical arrangement will most likely :

Provide "contrast between high and low sounds"
Avoid heavily doubled parts with an emphasis on solo sections
Be "sufficiently transparent to allow the musical lines to be clearly heard" and
Not have all the instruments playing throughout.

An arrangement may specify or vary some or all of:

Harmonies, including parts.
Instrumentation.
Style, dynamics and other instructions to the players.
Sequence, including the order and number of repeats of sections such as verses and choruses, and provision of sections to be improvised by instrumentalists.
Introduction, coda, modulations and other variations.

Credit for an 'arrangement'

As with composition, the ready availability of sound recording equipment has changed the understanding of what "arrangement" means. At one stage, credit for an arrangement would only be given to a person who had produced a written musical score of some sort. More recently, any original treatment of an existing work that is available for repeated performance by other players may qualify to be loosely called an arrangement. In jazz an unscored collaborative arrangement is called a "head arrangement" (Randel 2002, p.294; it is in the head of the musician(s)). Every time a piece of music is performed it has an arrangement, which may or may not have been done by a professional arranger.

Popular music

In popular music an arrangement is a setting of a piece of music, which may have been composed by the arranger or by someone else. Most commonly, this is a matter of providing instrumentation for the songwriter or composer's basic melody and harmony. It may add details omitted by the composer, or it may replace those originally given and be merely based on the original work.

Classical music

In European classical music an arrangement is a setting of any composition for a medium other than the one in which it was created: for example, a piano piece may be arranged for full orchestra, or an orchestral composition may be arranged for solo piano. Often arrangement involves considerable reworking of the original material, in conformance with the resources of the final medium.

Jazz music

In jazz music, an arrangement is a specific setting of a pre-existing composition, although in jazz, the arranger has a larger role: it is common for jazz arrangers to contribute additional original material of their own, to significantly alter the forms and structures of the pre-existing material, or to combine the pre-existing material with snippets or quotes from other pre-existing material.

Big bands such as those of Duke Ellington, Bennie Moten, and Count Basie performed head arrangements (ibid).

Arrangers

Popular music arrangers include:

Billy Byers
Don Costa
Duke Ellington
Gil Evans
Robert Farnon
Bob Florence
Jimmy Giuffre
Neil Hefti
Fletcher Henderson
Bill Holman
Thad Jones
Quincy Jones
Gordon Jenkins
Billy May
Henry Mancini
Gerry Mulligan
Peter Matz
Sammy Nestico
David Paich (arranger for Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart)
Nelson Riddle
Eddie Sauter
Don Sebesky
Claude Thornhill
John Williams
Elvis Presley

For a more complete list, see:

List of arrangers

Sources

Corozine, Vince (2002). Arranging Music for the Real World: Classical and Commercial Aspects. ISBN 0786649615.
Randel, Don Michael (2002). The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians. ISBN 0674009789.

Musical terminology

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