how to create your own arrangements of a song?

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As I really like the way that each lesson builds on the previous lesson it occurs to me that someone is doing the arrangements at iRocku. I would really like to know how they go about it. I’d love a step by step account on how this is done with someone explaining at the piano what they are looking for when listening to a tune. What to write down and what to leave out on an initial draft. How they would then build the arrangement. Perhaps you could select a tune or tunes on Youtube and supply sheet music for each step. How much is artistic license and how much is down to theory/method. I think that there are too many piano lesson sites that say you “simply do this” and then a miracle happens and it only takes 5 minutes. We all know a lot of knowledge is implied and we never get to hear the thought process behind their decisions. I don’t have a problem finding an explanation of specific music theory if directed towards it but I would prefer the process behind the decisions made. I think that many years playing with lots of different musicians equates to a lot of knowledge and experience that never gets passed on. I’d love to ask Ray Charles how he created new arrangements etc. but I will never get to meet him

Topic

Regarding the creation of an arrangement you nailed it- it’s a combination of artistic license, theory and method. Our arrangements are NOT transcriptions of the original, they are interpretations. Most original recordings have guitar, bass, voice, and drums so our arrangements incorporate components of each into the Lessons. While there is no simple answer we can break it down into the steps we go through.

Also know that different musicians might follow these steps in a different order. For example, a musician with a great ear might begin with step 2 or 4 and then add the rhythm while a drummer or rhythm guitar player might do the opposite. You will eventually develop your own approach but, in most cases, the following four steps are needed:

Step 1. You will need to determine the chord progression.This is really a learned process. The more you do it the easier it becomes. Knowing the chords of the various keys it essential. We provide a list of the chords under the ‘Lesson schedule’ for each song but you should try to figure out the chords on your own.The key of the song is usually the predominant sound, most often the note that phrases in the song begin or end with. Sit at the keyboard while listening to the song and play notes until you find the note that tends to be the key of the song. Once you’ve found the root then listen to when the chords of the song change and try to determine them. Focus on one particular instrument and listen for the chord changes. The bass or rhythm guitar are often the easiest to recognize chord changes. For rock, common chord choices would be the 4 chord ( ie F in the key of C) and the 5 chord( G in the key of C), also the 2m chord ( Dm in the key of C) and the 6m (Am in the key of C).

Step 2. Along with developing the chord progressions you will need to determine the underlying rhythm of the song. Create the groove chart. A lot of folks have been asking how to create a groove chart so we created a forum topic about it on the website. You might want to check that out.

Step 3. Once you have the Groove chart ( the chord progression and rhythm) you have the complete roadmap of the song. Now you can start working out your left hand. For IROCKU, we like to offer two to three different left hand patterns to keep the arrangement interesting. If it is a piano centric song the let hand might be obvious, if not try recreating what the bass player is doing. When Chuck plays he constantly changes his left hand pattern. It’s almost like he’s improvising with his left hand all the time. This is a technique he learned from Ian Stewart. It’s not human!!! Ray Charles tends to keep a more consistent left hand. For most of us, it is best to develop a couple of left hand patterns to use throughout the song. As you get comfortable you can start varying the pattern.

Step 4: Start listening to the melody and overlay pieces of the melody to your liking onto the groove. You can choose to play the complete melody or just highlights of it. Do whatever sounds good to you. With the right hand you want to try to recognize the scales that the song uses. Is it pentatonic, major, minor, blues, mixolydian, etc. Again, you will have to develop your ear for this. A good way to do this is by practicing all the different scales and developing an ear for each.

When we film our next lesson we’ll try to film this process per your suggestion.

I would explain it the same way, and I would also add that part of the arrangement process is choosing what feels natural under the fingers and going with that. It’s not always necessarily getting it to sound exactly like the recording, but it instead what seems to work organically on the piano.