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 presenting my arrangement plan to her after we spoke, and settled on, effectively, a spreadsheet arrangement. I used a row for each 8-bar phrase, included lyrics in the first column, and described what was happening for soloist, group, and piano in the subsequent columns. It all made sense to her so we were good to go!
What was even better was that I had a formalized document to look at when I began the arrangement. And because of that, the arrangement came together in just a few hours, with so much of the musical thinking having been done for the spreadsheet.
It’s a variation on my usual arranging template, which is on paper and a little more free form, but it worked exceedingly well for this project. And all it took was a spreadsheet app.