You know how some days you just can’t quite bring yourself to sit down and get started? You’ve got a whole morning set aside to finish an arrangement, you know it shouldn’t take longer than that, and you wake up knowing that’s the plan for the day.
But then you wake up a little groggy, with a crick in your neck and some weird red marks on your shoulder from where you were crushing your own fingers all night in one position. And you make breakfast and read a few pages in Esquire, and maybe do a little yoga to stretch out those kinks…start some laundry…read the comics…
And then it’s 11:30. [sigh]
So I left off the last column in the middle of “Every Season,” verse 2. I just listened through to the whole thing again and I think I’m satisfied so far – I’ll leave it alone until the sing-through later. But since getting started seems to be an issue for me today, I’m going to ease into this.
At this point in the song, there’s a pretty clear soprano line, so I’ll jot that down first. The bass line is also straightforward, a descending chromatic line, though I may go back later and change it a bit depending on how things fall together in tenor/baritone world.
The tenor line seems to come out next – it’s essentially everything in the left hand on the piano except for the bass note. There will be some issue with range here, as the line starts lower and lower each measure, so I may wind up tossing a baritone section in briefly. I generally don’t like splitting up my men for just a short moment in a song, though, so I’m hoping that later on when more instruments join in I can continue the split and give the boys a little time to enjoy it. The altos, on the other hand, don’t have a very clear line to my sluggish ear today, and since this is still relatively early in the song and the big lush instrumental part is coming up, I’m going to give the altos a simple whole note moving line to contrast with the melodies alternating in the tenor and soprano.
Still looking at that tenor line, and I’m wondering how I can fix the range issue. I can’t very well bump the low note up an octave, because that ruins the flow of the melody; at the same time, I can’t give the basses an extra note, because that would shift attention away from the root of the chord and/or their stabilizing force. Grr. I’ll come back to this later.
Now, the last measure before the instrumental section, in the recording, has an arpeggiation in the harp as a lead-in to the fuller sound ahead. This is just a personal thing, but I hate when a cappella groups try to pull off any kind of piano or string arpeggiation. It just sounds contrived, and unless the timing is absolutely impeccable, it tends to fall apart. So I’m going to rebel a bit here and, instead, I’m just going to leave an open chord with no note in the bass: Bb in the tenor, Eb in the alto (held over from the last eighth in the previous measure), and Bb in the soprano. This will create a clear contrast, avoiding the muddiness of a wayward attempt at impersonating a harp, and the playback actually sounds quite nice alongside the solo melody.
On to the bridge!
Again, the soprano line rings clear and I’ll jot it down first.
I realize that I’m often just saying “the soprano line” as if it’s blatantly obvious when listening to this song which notes should go to which parts. Well, in some cases it is, like when there’s a clear higher melody line that stands out and is relatively integral to that part of the song. Sometimes, though, it isn’t quite clear, and in those instances I do one of two things: a) listen as closely as I can, often over and over, until some sort of discernable line stands out enough for me to build a part, or b) make something up. As with the altos at the end of verse 2, I couldn’t really hear an obvious part for them, and to be honest, the arrangement sounded fine with just what I’d put in the bass, tenor and soprano lines. So I made up an alto part that fit into the chord structure but was subtle enough not to interfere with the parts that were already happening. The necessity of “making up” parts is dependent upon both the size of the group (i.e. number of sections) and the complexity of the song. You just have to use your best judgment.
Anyway, back to the bridge. There are four measures where the “soprano” line went a little higher than I’d like to hear them reaching. However, the melody for those four measures is repetitive and will work well in its own right as a separate line, so I lowered it an octave and gave it to the altos. When I’m putting syllables together, I’ll be sure that this line stands out from the crowd as much as the soprano line leading into it does.
The bass line is next, and once again, they’ve got this moving chromatic line…You know, this is frustrating because, while it certainly works well and makes the song sound poignant and rich, it really wasn’t all that creative on the original arranger’s part. This is the third descending chromatic line the basses have had, and the only variation here is that they’ve got dotted quarters with quarter notes instead of straight whole notes. Oooooh. [sigh] However, I don’t want to mess with that too much because – well, because it does sound poignant and rich.
Filling in the rest of the voices here is kind of like putting a puzzle together. There are strings and a piano in the original, and they’re trading off in this very pretty call and response quarter note melody – I can hear each voice take the melody for a measure, and that’s the first thing I’m putting into the arrangement. It looks rather haphazard at first, with the soprano starting off and then a tenor harmony underneath, then the altos take over with a soprano response, and then the tenors finally take it to the end of the bridge. But it’s going to sound interesting. Now I just fill in the gaps and figure out where those voices are, and what they’re doing when it’s not their turn to stand out.
A listen through says that this bridge has actually turned out rather nicely! I’m always a little worried about instrumental bridges – they can make or break a song. Luckily, this tune’s bridge lends itself well to a 4-part arrangement and it will just be a matter of dynamics and syllables to polish it up.
The first half of verse three is a relief – it’s a sudden reduction of voices, from a full orchestral sound to just one held note on the violin and a right hand piano part. Ahhhh… Seriously, that’s so liberating – whereas the last 10 measures took an hour to figure out, these next 8 will probably take 10 minutes.
I’m actually going to give that held violin note to the tenors – it’s lower than in the original, but if they can hold it quietly it will add a really pretty texture to the section. The piano part will be divided up into soprano, mezzo and alto, to once again make use of those divisions I started the song with. The simplicity of this section will be a welcome shift to both singer and listener (and me).
The second half of this verse starts off simply as well, adding a tenor line in and some more movement. There’s that lovely descending chromatic line again, this time in the tenors (basses get a break from the monotony).
Oops. Spoke too soon – four measures of tenor descending line, and then the bass picks it up again. Sorry guys.
There is also another whole note held under the radar, which I’ll give to the sopranos to continue using both first and second sopranos, as well as to keep the women a little soft. Less voices on a part means less chance that they’ll overblow the dynamics and ruin the contrast between this section and those around it.
The last part of this verse leads into a key change. Key changes can be an absolute bear sometimes and I confess, I’ve been dreading this part. But the alto line I’ve created here, a moving line that answers the tenor, leads directly into the new key, so that’s one part down. The bass as well is pretty simple – they’ve just got a whole note to swell on into, well, more whole notes. I’ll give them a little bit of drive, actually, because this next section is intense and full – dotted quarters into eighth notes tied to halves. That should help. There is also a muddled moving line that I can finagle (and yes, finagle is apparently a real word) into a tenor line, and the altos and sopranos will be pounding out a C, the 9th above the bass, along with a second soprano line that will have whole notes to carry over the string effect.
Now I’ve run into a snag in the bass line after all, because it turns out that the key change in the original piece has them simply staying on a Bb across the measures. Well that’s all well and good when you’ve got a piano to drop down and hit a Bb an octave below for emphasis, but with just that one low Bb to work with, it sounds very off. I’m playing around with the parts a bit to see if I can make a more appealing and decisive key change…
Well alright, one problem is that I’d given the altos a note in that last measure before the key change that just didn’t fit. It made the last chord sound too discordant to resolve well when they were immediately going into the 9th of the new tonic, so I fixed that. As for the basses – I just took them out of that last measure altogether. The tenors were already on the Bb an octave higher, and now there’s this neat kind of suspension in texture just before the basses drop in all heavy and badass to complete the key change. Again, it isn’t exactly the same as the original, but it creates the desired effect and that, I feel, is more important than going note for note with the recording.
And WOW this blog is getting long! I just got all caught up in the arranging and forgot that some of you are trying to read this in one sitting [laugh]. There’s one minute left in the song at this point, so here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to finish the rest of the notes in the next blog, as well as do a full review of the tune to make sure that everything I’ve written works, that it fits into the singers’ ranges, and that they get to take a breath here and there. And then volume 5 of this insanity will hit the lyrics and dynamics.
Hopefully we can get these up more than once a month so you don’t have to wait too long – and as always, comments are welcome! Add as favorites (77) | Quote this article on your site | Views: 3824
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