How long did it take to write that arrangement?
I premiered a new arrangement tonight of Bruno Mars’ Dance With Me – it’s available for purchase, too! So how long does it take to write an arrangement?
When I was starting to write choral arrangements, in college, it might take weeks of concerted effort to craft an arrangement…one that I can look back on and cringe, just a little. This newest arrangement took maybe four hours of total writing time, and probably closer to three. It’s also a lot better in a lot of ways despite taking a small percentage of the total time.
But it didn’t really take three hours. It took three hours and a quarter century of practice. It took three hours and hundreds of previous arrangements. It took three hours and more than twenty years of conducting tenor-bass ensembles, learning what works.
The best thing about creating something is that the next thing you create will be informed by what you learned. It will be better and take less time.