Studio Recording

Supported By

In The Studio: Orchestral Music And It’s Role In Understanding Arrangement

We can learn a lot from listening to orchestral music
This article is provided by Home Studio Corner.

.

Right now I’m listening to the soundtrack from the movie Braveheart. I found it tucked away in an old CD case. (Random fact: I actually did a term paper in high school on William Wallace.)

I’m listening to it right now (the soundtrack, not the term paper) on my Sennheiser headphones. Glorious. I’m almost too relaxed to t…y…p….e…..

Anyway, whether or not you enjoy orchestral music, there is a lot to be learned from it. I don’t listen to it a LOT, but when I do, I’m always blown away by how complex and interesting it can be…and they don’t use crazy plug-ins, weird panning tricks, or distortion pedals.

We can learn a lot from listening to orchestral music. Today, let’s start talking about arrangement.

Arrangement
When you’re producing a song in your studio, what drives your decisions? How do you settle on an arrangement?

First, what does arrangement even mean? Arrangement is simply how the song is organized from start to finish.

Arrangement and songwriting go hand in hand for me. A song is only as good as its arrangement. When I’m writing a song, I’m always thinking about the arrangement in the back of my mind.

If the lyrics are amazing, but the arrangement is boring, the song won’t have the kind of impact you want it to have. If you’re the songwriter, you need to give as much attention to the song’s arrangement as the lyrics. If you’re producing a song written by someone else, your job is to make sure the arrangement flatters the song.

This can mean making changes to the song itself, which can be tricky. If you use some tact, you can pull it off without offending the songwriter. And you’ll come out looking like a hero in the end.

Now that we’ve established what arrangement is, what all is included in the arranging process? Well, there are many things to consider, and a lot of people lump instrumentation into the arrangement process, but I think they’re somewhat separate. We’ll talk about instrumentation in a later article.

The way I see it, there are three main components to arrangement – melody, chord structure, and dynamics.

Let’s take a look at each of these.

Melody
When you’re listening to an orchestra, what’s the first thing you listen for? The melody, of course.

The Braveheart soundtrack is particularly good at maintaining a series of melodies throughout the entire piece. You walk away humming that same little part over and over.

Melody is just as important in pop music. If the singer-songwriter comes in, and she manages to only sing three notes in the entire song, you most likely have a problem.

All the fancy engineering tricks in the world can’t spice up a boring melody. (Except for maybe Autotune…) grin

When thinking through the arrangement of the song, the melody needs to be killer. Once you’re happy with the melody, you can move on to chord structure. Sometimes chord structure will dictate the melody, but often a good melody will work in several different chord structures. Let me explain.

Chord Structure
One of my favorite things to do when writing or arranging a song is to change the chord structure while keeping the melody the same. This can be a powerful way to capture the listener’s attention.

If the song was written with a typical 1, 4, 5 chord structure, try throwing in a 6 minor chord instead of the 1 or the 4. Or maybe go to the 4 instead of the 1…leave things hanging for a bit.

I’ve produced songs before that were originally only three chords. By adding in a few chords at key moments throughout the song, it went from being boring to interesting. It didn’t take much.

Orchestral music is so good at this. There are melodies that keep repeating throughout the various movements, but the chord structure is a little different every time.

For example, have you ever listened to the St. Matthew Passion by Bach? It takes the familiar melody (“O Sacred Head Now Wounded”) and repeats it throughout the piece, but each time the chord structure gets darker and darker. It starts off nice and light, then it slowly adds more and more minor and dissonant chords, making for an insanely powerful piece of music.

Dynamics

Once you’ve nailed down the melody and chord structure, you need to think through the dynamics of the song. You’ll rarely find an orchestral piece that doesn’t flow back and forth from super-quiet sections to super-loud sections. This is yet another way to keep the listener engaged.

If the songs you’re producing are loud all the time, I’m going to change the song after a minute or two. However, if your song starts off quiet and builds, I’m much more interested. Or if it starts off REALLY loud, then drops off into a quiet verse, I’m hanging on to find out what happens next.

Focus on dynamics, and your songs will take on a whole new feel.

Study Hall Top Stories

Supported By

TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik’s mission is to design and build iconic microphones and modern professional audio equipment that provides classic sound for recording, broadcast, studio, and stage . Our vision is to be a global leader in emitting good vibes through manufacturing and design, all while capturing the spark of the TELEFUNKEN legacy and transmitting it with uncompromising quality.