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    Vocal Arranging
    Vocal Arranging
    Vocal Arranging
    Ebook151 pages1 hour

    Vocal Arranging

    By Tijs Krammer

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    About this ebook

    "You know the range of the voices, you know the song you want to arrange and you know who will get to sing the lead. What will be your next step now? Will the arrangement be homophonic? What options you have to write that catchy guitar riff? How do you really make the bass really groove? Arranging is a big challenge. Even if you're familiar with music theory, you'll encounter many dilemmas in writing for voices. Arranging is a craft. The good news is: you can learn this trade. Tijs Krammer helps you by sharing his lifelong experience and showing the possibilities with practical examples."

    Whether you are inexperienced as an arranger and don't know where to start, or are already advanced and don't know how to proceed, you will be inspired by Vocal Arranging.

    The book contains the following chapters:
    1 Voice Types and Voicings

    2 Rhythm

    3 Chord Symbols

    4 Writing Harmonies

    5 Arranging in Layers

    6 Accompanying Parts and the Bass Part

    7 The Structure of an Arrangement

    8 Notation

    This book is aimed at people with a lot of musical experience. It is intended for conservatory student and graduate musicians, but also for advanced amateurs who are not afraid of music theory and chords. We assume that the reader is fluent in reading music, in both treble and F clef. We also assume that they can play the piano and know their way around chord symbols.

    This book will help you write for voices. Maybe you've never written an arrangement before and you want to give it a try. Or maybe you've reworked a few pieces but know that you're missing some skills. Or maybe you've written a lot for instruments and you're looking for knowledge about voices. In all these cases you can be inspired by this book.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTijs Krammer
    Release dateJul 26, 2023
    ISBN9789083351445
    Vocal Arranging
    Author

    Tijs Krammer

    A singer, conductor and arranger, Tijs Krammer is best known for his singing association with the internationally famed vocal group Montezuma's Revenge. Having studied singing at the Utrecht Conservatory in The Netherlands, Tijs pursued his musical education with Jos van Veldhoven at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying choral conducting, supplemented by a private course of arranging with Bob Zimmerman in The Netherlands and with Phil Mattson and Michele Weir in the us.TijsFounder and conductor of the Utrecht group Leeuwenhart, Tijs won the first prize at the Dutch Choral Festival, a major two-yearly a cappella festival in The Netherlands, with this group. In 2008 Tijs is interim conductor with the prize-winning jazz choir Dekoor. Until recently he was conductor of the vocal group Vocalicious. Currently he conducts the youth vocal group The Jump and the vocal world music ensemble Pangaea. With the latter he won in 2013 the Balk Top Festival, in recent years the most important Dutch festival on vocal pop and jazz music.Tijs is professor at the Conservatories of Rotterdam and Amsterdam teaching Conductor Vocal Pop & Jazz and he is one of the professors at the conductors course The Ward Swingle Cursus. Having written arrangements for internationally renowned groups including Femmage, Intermezzo, The Gents, Frommermann and Montezuma's Revenge, he has regularly been teaching courses in arranging, most of these organized by Balk.Tijs' arrangements are partly privately published and partly published by Music Shop Europe, Molenaar, ChorusOnline, Ferrimontana, ZoecMusic and Humm A Cappella. For any questions concerning any of these arrangements or for any arrangement orders, please send an email to tijs@krammer.nl.

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      Book preview

      Vocal Arranging - Tijs Krammer

      English books of Tijs Krammer published by Alfred Music Publishing:

      Harmonic Warm-Ups

      Choral Conducting Technique

      Apps for iOS and Android by Tijs Krammer:

      Playing Piano Chords

      Maestro – Conducting

      Tijs Krammer

      Vocal Arranging

      ISBN 9789083351445

      © Copyright 2023 Humm Publishing

      Sartreweg 166, 3573 PP Utrecht, The Netherlands

      www.hummpublishing.nl

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      1   Voice Types and Voicings

      Clefs

      The Range of the Voice Types

      Voicings

      The Lead

      One Part for All Men

      2   Rhythm

      The Idea of Swing Feel

      Swing Feel in Practice

      Four-Four Time and the Backbeat

      Six-Eight Time

      Three-Four Time

      Choosing the Right Time Signature

      Precise Rhythms

      3   Chord Symbols

      Triads

      Additions

      Four-Note Chords

      Slash Chords

      Five-Note Chords

      Finding the Chords of a Song

      4   Writing Harmonies

      Close and Open Voicings

      The Right Chords

      The Number of Additions

      Five-Note Chords With Four Voices

      Chord Progressions

      Parallel Octaves and Fifths

      Parallels in the Middle Voices

      Singable Parts

      Alternating Singing in Unison and in Harmony

      5   Arranging in Layers

      Homophonic

      Possible Textures

      One Layer

      Two Layers, with the Melody in a Separate Layer

      Two Layers, with the Bass in a Separate Layer

      Three Layers

      Layers are Perceived Separately

      Four or More Layers

      6   The Accompanying Parts and the Bass Part

      Notation of Sounds

      Commonly Used Sounds

      Horns

      Accompanying Parts on Lyrics

      Chords in Accompanying Parts

      Arpeggios

      The Upper Accompanying Part

      The Range of the Bass Part

      Sounds for the Bass Part

      Simple Bass Techniques

      Walking Bass and Latin Bass

      7   The Structure of an Arrangement

      The Structure of a Jazz Standard

      The Structure of a Vocal Jazz Arrangement

      Jazz Endings

      The Structure of a Pop Arrangement

      Pop Endings

      Choose Your Best Ideas

      Small Variations are Hard to Memorize

      8   Notation

      The Layout of a Vocal Score

      Keys and Accidentals

      Intelligible Harmonies

      Beams and Syncopations

      Notation of Swing Feel

      Lyrics

      Jazz Articulations

      Glossary

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      Vocal arranging means reworking an existing song for choir or for vocal group. In most cases you write three to five voice parts and there may also be instrumental parts, for example for piano or band.

      Why would you want to write an arrangement yourself? Well, there are many reasons. One may be that you cannot find the right arrangement of a particular song you want to perform with your group. This could be because your group’s voicing is less common and existing arrangements cannot be used. Or perhaps you want to perform a unique vocal version of the song.

      Arranging is fascinating. When I was twenty, I sang for the first time with a vocal group and I was immediately captivated by it. The idea that you can determine exactly where all notes will be placed! I remember that during the second rehearsal I’d already decided that I would write something. The song choice was easy, it had to be Night and Day by Cole Porter. I worked on it every day for three months. It was a brain teaser, but I had to get it done.

      Arranging is wonderful. it’s a reason to dive into a song you admire. You get the chance to be musically creative. And it’s so satisfying when it is actually sung. During the day you feverishly write the notes and at night you sing it with your group. And when it works out well, you get such an incredible kick.

      Who is this book for?

      This book is aimed at people with a lot of musical experience. It is intended for conservatory students and graduate musicians, but also for advanced amateurs who are not afraid of music theory and chords. We assume that the reader is fluent in reading music, in both treble and bass clef. We also assume that they can play the piano and know their way around chord symbols.

      This book will help you write for voices. Maybe you’ve never written an arrangement before and you want to give it a try. Or maybe you’ve reworked a few pieces but know that you’re missing some skills. Or maybe you’ve done a lot of instrumental arrangements, but now you want to write for voices. In all these cases this book will inspire you.

      Subjects

      Each section of this book deals with a particular topic of arranging. Therefore, the book can be used as a course, but also as a reference. You can read it from front to back and absorb all the ideas. Or maybe you’ll just play the musical examples for inspiration. Or you can look up a specific topic when you get stuck writing.

      This book is designed to take you by the hand in your first steps in arranging. Instead, what it provides is a structured approach to the topics that occur when writing musical/choral arrangements. Integrating these ideas into your existing knowledge is left up to you.

      To write good arrangements, you need a lot of theoretical knowledge, but also skill. These are developed through regular practice. Learning new skills therefore requires active participation. Play the musical examples on the piano and sing the vocal parts. Think of exercises to do and connect what you are learning in this book to the arrangements you are working on.

      Examples

      Songs by George Gershwin and by The Beatles are used as musical examples throughout. This is because we are assuming that they are familiar to the reader. It is much easier to understand an arrangement if you can compare it to the original. The Gershwin songs include Summertime, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, They Can’t Take That Away From Me and A Foggy Day. While The Beatles songs include Yesterday, Let It

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