Music

terence

Son Montuno
I recently saw a piece that clarified something..

Orchestration.. Laying out an original piece of music


Arranger ... Creates new piece from existing original..

Which begs the question.. if they do it by themselves, are they the "lone" arranger ?
 
I recently saw a piece that clarified something..

Orchestration.. Laying out an original piece of music


Arranger ... Creates new piece from existing original..

Which begs the question.. if they do it by themselves, are they the "lone" arranger ?

is this a coincidence :)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tonto (see Adjective #2)
 
I recently saw a piece that clarified something..

Orchestration.. Laying out an original piece of music


Arranger ... Creates new piece from existing original..

Which begs the question.. if they do it by themselves, are they the "lone" arranger ?
I want some of what you're drinking!

Seriously, though. I find those descriptions of orchestration and arranger to be very misleading and not very accurate.

Can I see the piece you're referring to?

Orchestration has to do with which instruments are used, and what notes they play within the harmony, at a given moment in the piece. For example, if there are two trombones and two trumpets in the band, the specific notes assigned to each instrument at a specific moment is orchestration.

The arranger, 99 times out of a hundred, is also the orchestrator ( sometimes in large orchestral or film soundtracks one person will arrange and the other will orchestrate, but that's rare and almost never happens in Salsa ). So, yeah, usually it is the Lone Arranger. :-)

An arranger determines how a song will progress throughout the course of the piece. How the song will begin and end, when the brass will come in and what they play, when the piano and bass will double up on a line, shifts from one rhythm to another, creating percussion breaks, writing the mambo section, etc. etc. Saying an arranger "creates new piece from existing original" is kind of vague. An arranger can make a new arrangement of Bilongo -- or arrange a new song that was composed last night.

Sometimes, arrangements are a collaborative effort, worked out on the spot or in the studio on the spur of the moment. I have heard that Eddie Palmieri sometimes works that way, sitting down at the piano with a few other musicians, trying different notes and ways to play parts -- and then someone else writes it all down

Sorry, don't mean to be a wet blanket, but that's my two cents.
 
Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition from the original piano score of Mussorgsky. Neil Hefti arranged April in Pairs for the Count Basie band.

The one makes very little changes to an existing layout (melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically -- only texturally) while the other takes a skeleton (the tune) and lays it out with all those things in mind.
 
I want some of what you're drinking!

Seriously, though. I find those descriptions of orchestration and arranger to be very misleading and not very accurate.

Can I see the piece you're referring to?

Orchestration has to do with which instruments are used, and what notes they play within the harmony, at a given moment in the piece. For example, if there are two trombones and two trumpets in the band, the specific notes assigned to each instrument at a specific moment is orchestration.

The arranger, 99 times out of a hundred, is also the orchestrator ( sometimes in large orchestral or film soundtracks one person will arrange and the other will orchestrate, but that's rare and almost never happens in Salsa ). So, yeah, usually it is the Lone Arranger. :-)

An arranger determines how a song will progress throughout the course of the piece. How the song will begin and end, when the brass will come in and what they play, when the piano and bass will double up on a line, shifts from one rhythm to another, creating percussion breaks, writing the mambo section, etc. etc. Saying an arranger "creates new piece from existing original" is kind of vague. An arranger can make a new arrangement of Bilongo -- or arrange a new song that was composed last night.

Sometimes, arrangements are a collaborative effort, worked out on the spot or in the studio on the spur of the moment. I have heard that Eddie Palmieri sometimes works that way, sitting down at the piano with a few other musicians, trying different notes and ways to play parts -- and then someone else writes it all down

Sorry, don't mean to be a wet blanket, but that's my two cents.

Thank you for the informative post. I always thought that there were differences between arrangers and orchestrators, but could never put my finger on it. Now, things are clearer. :D
 
Thank you for the informative post. I always thought that there were differences between arrangers and orchestrators, but could never put my finger on it. Now, things are clearer. :D


Thats what I like about this site.. you actually, sometimes, get people who know what they are talking about !

P.S. Just drinking my Colomb. coffee .
 
Oh it's just like falling off a bike. You never forget how! LOL
Ha! Good one...

I'm sure it's still all up there in the Curtis cranium, brain cells stored with information and knowledge, lying dormant, waiting to be woken up again. They're hibernating. Yeah, those arranger brain cells are just hibernating.
 
Back
Top