arrange • compose • conduct
Just because we all have to be in agreement doesn’t mean we all have to be beholden to the page. A rhythmic disagreement between sections tonight offered an opportunity to ignore the sheet music. Sheet music, of course, only contains a fraction of the musicality – there’s a lot of […]
One of my main criticisms of typical “acapop” arrangements comes down to this question: Would it sound better if those parts were being played by instruments? So much of pop a cappella consists of straight lifts from original band recordings, and minimal adaptation to vocal writing. The problem is, that […]
William Shakespeare is celebrated less for creating original stories – many of his best plays were adaptations of earlier works – than for the piercing language he used to tell the stories. The specific scenes, interactions, and dialogue he used are what make him the most celebrate English-language author. I […]
A 4-bar phrase might take me half an hour to finish, if I’m working carefully and meticulously. it might have taken me twice or three times as long when I started writing. That same phrase will only last 5 seconds when performed. When we’re writing, time loses clear meaning, and […]
My bread comes out almost exactly the same every time. Even when I take photos of my bread loaves fresh from the oven, they look the same as they did 6 or 8 years ago. It got me thinking about creative voice. Is my bread consistent because I have a […]
The longer I write music, the more I think in terms of timbre minimum. Timbre, to my ears, is more important than specific voicing. What kind of sound is it? Is it unison? 2-part? 4-part close position? 4-part open position? 6-part? Is it vocal percussion, vocal bass, and three part […]
More and more, I’m enamored with chords I can’t label under a triadic/diatonic/jazz framework. They might be quartal chords, whose labels never seem to quite successfully describe how they work. They might be the passing clustery nonsense in Alice Parker’s arrangement of “Vive L’Amour“, which work great because of the […]
I have been blessed with some fabulous Patrons on Patreon supporting me in creating new vocal music every month. In April, my project was an a cappella SATB arrangement of “What’ll I Do?” – the classic Irving Berlin ballad that recently entered the public domain. Patreon supporters get free access […]
For the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve had an annual Tip Jar in which I accepted donations from readers to help support my costs of maintaining the website. Many people were very generous in their encouragement of my writing. In 2020, I skipped it – it was a time […]
I had an interesting arrangement challenge recently – it was for a flash mob-style performance at a wedding, and had some very specific requirements, not least a very limited amount of rehearsal time. Since the commissioning party is an excellent singer but not a professional musician, I thought carefully about […]