Consider Your Arrangements

When you’re preparing a song, either for performance or just for casual environments like song circles or gatherings, there’s quite a bit of choice in choosing elements of vocal arrangements.

When we talk about the arrangement of a tune, we typically mean the order and choice of song elements.  Those elements include verse/chorus (or refrain) placement, the use of dynamics (louder, softer, note or word accents or emphasis, crescendo or decrescendo builds or “swells”), tempo(s), and of course the key you choose for the song.

When instrumentalists speak about arrangements, they typically are referring to the order of the stanzas, relative to the placement of instrumental solos or breaks in the singing.  For example:  Intro, Verse 1, Verse 2, Chorus, Instrumental solo, Verse 3, Chorus, vocal tag line, “outro.”  For a singer, though, the arrangement can include key, dynamics, phrasing, tempo and even note rhythms.  

When you’re building a song arrangement, consider all of these creative choices that are available to you for making a singing arrangement.  And don’t forget the placement of your breaths, and notice how that will affect the phrasing you choose.  Phrasing is also a choice you make in your singing arrangement.  Phrasing is the unit of meaning found in the lyric sentences.  For example: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound.”  Phrase choices could be either:

Amazing grace! (breath) How sweet the sound.

                        OR

Amazing grace how sweet the sound! (one breath for the whole phrase).

The breath break indicates the end of the phrase, or unit of meaning.  In the above example, “Amazing grace!” is one idea, and “How sweet the sound” is another idea.  In the second example, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound” is ONE idea.  The breath breaks adhere to the punctuation assigned to the phrases.

Try it with your own lyrics you’re working on.  Place the punctuation (breath mark), in various places on a line of lyric and see how it changes the meaning.  That’s part of your vocal arrangement.

Make use of dynamics like word emphasis or accents, build the intensity by swelling the volume in a crescendo (growing louder) or bringing it down using a decrescendo (growing softer).  Those choices are all part of your vocal arrangement.

With the use of these song elements, your vocal arrangement will include verse and chorus order, placement of the instrumental solo, dynamics and phrasing.  Give yourself a chance to experiment and try different arrangements and see how much your song is changed!

Thanks for reading!   See you next time for all things Folk Diva.  If you have a suggestion for a blog topic let me know.  You can email me HERE:  newfolkfusion@gmail.com

Love and Blessings,

Susie

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Award-winning recording artist, Broadway singer, journalist, educator and critically-acclaimed powerhouse vocalist, Susie Glaze has been called “one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass and folk music today” by Roz Larman of KPFK’s Folk Scene.  LA Weekly voted her ensemble Best New Folk in their Best of LA Weekly for 2019, calling Susie “an incomparable vocalist.”  “A flat out superb vocalist… Glaze delivers warm, amber-toned vocals that explore the psychic depth of a lyric with deft acuity and technical perfection.”  As an educator, Susie has lectured at USC Thornton School of Music and Cal State Northridge on “Balladry to Bluegrass,” illuminating the historical path of ancient folk forms in the United Kingdom to the United States via immigration into the mountains of Appalachia.  Susie has taught workshops since 2018 at California music camps RiverTunes and Vocáli Voice Camp.  She is a current specialist in performance and historian on the work of American folk music icon, Jean Ritchie.  Susie now offers private voice coaching online via the Zoom platform.   www.susieglaze.com