Composer, Arranger, Lyricist or Instrumentalist? Which is more important?

[greybackshadow]

Came across this question sometime ago and thought I would post it here to seek for more opinions.

I'm a composer and arranger myself. To me, the composer is most important, then followed by either lyricist/arranger. I think the one that does the most tedious job is the arranger then followed by the lyricist.

I know some of you would say that all of them are equally important, but without the composer, there would be no melody. An arranger could also take on the role of an instrumentalist, but the arranger could also notate out the scores and hire instrumentalist to play.

Everything is important, but in my opinion, its Composer, Lyricist, Arranger, then Instrumentalist.

Which of these do you think is more important?

 

[bangbangbang]

composer is important but I have seen some composer can't even play his instrument well
can only strum chords ... ??? *sigh* be a musician then composer

dun decompose

 

[centralcatchment]

I think it all depends.

Here is for me the classic example of the great composer meets lousy arranger: Leonard Cohen's original version of Hallelujah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Fkuq5Lf0Q

Sounds bloody awful right? No wonder everybody wanted to cover that song, because they could do it better than Leonard Cohen himself. In fact I suspect the reason why Leonard Cohen's songs are so well covered is because almost anybody can sing a Leonard Cohen song better than Leonard Cohen himself. But the thing is - it doesn't matter that the arrangement sounds like a cheap karaoke version, and the instrumentalists sound like shit. A great song is still a great song. If you've created a mess the first time there will always be a Rufus Wainwright, a John Cale or a Jeff Buckley to fix it for you.

But there are other circumstances where the arranger is king. For me the example here is Dr Dre's "the Chronic". There's almost no songwriting there, it's a rap album. Snoop Dogg (or Snoop Doggy Dogg as he was known at that time) doesn't write meaningful lyrics. But the arrangements were so good that they pioneered a "west coast g funk rap" sound which is still very influential today.

And there are other times where the composition, arrangement and the instrumentalist cannot be separated from each other because of the way that the music is created. Foremost example is bebop. Or even the music of Sonic Youth. Then there are bands that emphasise the technical virtuosity of the players, like the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

And at the other end of the spectrum, there is Iggy Pop's "No Fun". His players all have limited technique, but Iggy's punk attitude is so classic that the whole thing works on its own. So - is it that "No Fun" is a great song in spite of it's crudeness and simplicity, or is it that "No Fun" works because Iggy's such a great performer?

So while I still think that composition is really important, in a larger sense it is the general architecture of the music that you want to create that affects which of these things is the most important.

 

[bangbangbang]

in the mando/canto pop, arranger is king

 

[greybackshadow]

it doesn't matter that the arrangement sounds like a cheap karaoke version, and the instrumentalists sound like shit. A great song is still a great song.

It's either the composition/lyrics that make it great in that case. In these cases, it's most likely the composition.

The arrangement for Leonard Cohen's original version of Hallelujah is an old arrangement, released in the early 80s, which to me is pretty good being done at that point of time. "Dream a little dream of me" by Ella Fitzgerald is one of the best arrangement at that time, but even that song was produced in the late 80s, reaching the 90s. To me, everyone now is at the very least, a little bit influenced by modern music, and thus some may find it hard to appreciate older music, especially those old mandarin songs produced during Teresa Teng's time.

So while I still think that composition is really important, in a larger sense it is the general architecture of the music that you want to create that affects which of these things is the most important.

I totally agree that composition is like the foundation of a piece of music. In fact, even arrangers need some basics in composition to be able to write out the melodies for the instruments to play as accompaniment to the vocals.

Then there are bands that emphasise the technical virtuosity of the players, like the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

For this, its mostly orchestra, where we need highly skilled players to bring out whatever the composer indicated in the music score sheet. This is especially important when playing classical music, since recording is impossible during Bach's era and no one exactly knows how Bach wanted his music to sound like except for all the music directions indicated in his music score.

Still a sensitive touchy topic, but seems like we're getting somewhere!

 

[centralcatchment]

A few things.

First, you can tell whether an arrangement is great or not, and it doesn't really depend on the era. In fact, since the mid 60s, it has been possible to get great sound from a studio, and it has not changed since then. There were a lot of great sounding albums that came out of the 80s. Even indie bands like REM and Sonic Youth managed to make their records sound great. So when I say that Leonard Cohen's version of Hallelujah sounds like shit, my opinion is that it sounds like shit, even when you consider that this was the 80s. For Hallelujah, both the composition and the lyrics are great.

Second, I don't think that Dream a little Dream of Me was from the 80s. Ella Fitzgerald was already an old woman by then.

Third, the Mahavishnu Orchestra is not actually an orchestra. why don't you try googling them to find out what I'm actually talking about?

 

[greybackshadow]

Third, the Mahavishnu Orchestra is not actually an orchestra. why don't you try googling them to find out what I'm actually talking about?

I was literally referring to an orchestra, that's why I was emphasizing on the skills of the musicians being very important, as you mentioned about the technicalities of the player. Not just a particular genre, but for all genres and styles, especially for those playing in an orchestra.

I googled "Dream a little dream of me" and it was from 1931, but Ella Fitgerald's version was release in 1989. And goodness, there're lots of different versions for this song!

There were a lot of great sounding albums that came out of the 80s.

Totally agree that lots of great sounding albums came from the 80s. Michael Jackson and Madonna produced great pieces!

 

[centralcatchment]

No, it's pretty unlikely that Ella Fitzgerald's version came out in 1989. Jazz vocalists are not on top of their game when they get old. Even if she did record something in 1989, it wouldn't be her definitive version.

Here's an excerpt from Ella Fitzgerald's biography in wikipedia: "In 1985 Fitzgerald was hospitalized briefly for respiratory problems,[19] in 1986 for congestive heart failure[20] and in 1990 for exhaustion.[21] In 1993 she had to have both of her legs amputated below the knee due to the effects of diabetes. Her eyesight was affected as well."

The version that comes up when I look for ella and dream a little dream is a duet with Louis Armstrong. That's probably the 50s. For obvious reasons, Louis Armstrong did not record anything after 1971.

I partially agree with you when the technical aspects of the player are most important when we're talking about classical music.

But not orchestral music: orchestral players is mainly about maintaining a good minimum standard: orchestra players are not soloists, they mainly have to obey instructions but they don't have to be fantastic virtuosos. Literally they can 滥竽充数. The technically difficult stuff is for the soloists, or the concertos (ie if you are the piano in a piano concerto) or if you're playing chamber music (ie string quartet).

The Mahavishnu orchestra I mentioned was a jazz combo, so technically that's chamber music.

 

[greybackshadow]

I typed in Ella Fitzgerald, and on the right side, there's Dream a Little Dream of Me 1989, but maybe that's just the released date of the album!

I partially agree with you when the technical aspects of the player are most important when we're talking about classical music.

Classical music is pretty technical. Tried writing it before, hard to make it sound good and yet not breaking any rules.

So far we've discussed on the composer, arranger and instrumentalist. Any inputs on lyricists?

 

[centralcatchment]

Not really. I'm not a real lyricist.

I have written at length about the various aspects of music in the past, including some threads that you yourself have started:
http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?272576-Any-tips-on-arrangements

I have tried to get my general thoughts in music together in one place so it does sound a little bombastic at first, but after that it's all there so I don't have to repeat myself.

http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?285411-Ken-Lim-and-The-Business-of-Con-Artistry
http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?294155-Help-Identify-Chord-Pattern-(Broken-chord)
http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?288721-Any-Songwriters-Lyricists-here-Let-s-talk!-D
http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?274942-Calling-LASALLE-music-students-for-advice!-)

To me, composer, arranger, instrumentalist and lyricists are all part of the system. But that's not all there is to the system. There is also the audience, the journalists, the critical reviews, and the culture of the scene at large. So of course when we think about this it will be a bit complicated.

You will notice that there are some flame wars in the threads, sometimes between myself and bombthebasses and whatever bombthebasses wants to call himself these days. Some of them center around the issue: do you have the right to talk about music before you have actually "made" "real" music.

Making music and talking / thinking of making music are two activities that go hand in hand and you usually don't have one without the other. If you only concentrate on the "practical" stuff you will end up with vapid bimbonic music and not much substance. If you talk too much without actually having gone through proper training, you might lose track of reality. But you can start talking about music from day one. You still need to form your own opinion about what is "nice" or not "nice". That is vital and sadly a lot of teachers don't encourage that.

As for lyrics - you will notice that music publications, when they do interviews of the musicians, or they do reviews of the music, you realise that they can talk more about the lyrics than the music. So there's actually plenty of stuff out there written on lyrics. You can go read them yourself. avclub, rolling stone, pitchfork, etc etc. Yes maybe too much of the angmor perspective but maybe there's also a lot of journalism for canto / mando pop, although I’m aware that somehow it’s mainly the westerners who like to intellectualise the music. It’s as though Asians are allergic to critical thinking about the music.

Maybe the most explicit thing I have written about lyrics is here:
http://www.soft.com.sg/forum/showthread.php?218103-Please-Help-Review-My-Lyrics-)

So basically in summary there is a triad – your lyrics, music journalism, and the way you conceptualise your music. All these three things are feeding off each other. Maybe you add the fourth thing – how your audience (assuming you actually have an audience) is conceptualizing you / your music. Other than that I won’t go into the details. If you want to read about lyrics any music magazine / music blog out there will do a so much better job than me.