Song Arrangement

[angelixangel]

Hi,

May I know is there any tips to arrange the accompaniment for a song? Up to this date, I have wrote around 4-5 songs, together with the help of my friend. However, the thing is that since I am quite horrible at writing accompaniment for it, the recordings taken so far have only the melody (me singing it).

So, I would like to have some advice on how to start making accompaniment for my songs and have an idea normally which few applications are commonly used to pen down melodies and accompaniments. (for example Sibelius)

Have a nice day!

Regards,
Angela

 

[Necrome]

it depends on what kinda arrangements you are doing. are you looking to produce a demo, for archiving, or a full-on CD quality track?

 

[angelixangel]

Um, it is actually more of a collection of my own work since I am still taking it quite slowly. Also, if there is ever a chance for me to use the songs in the future such as some Audition, I might use it too. Since, I aim to be a professional singer-songwriter one day...

 

[Necrome]

Do you play any instruments?

 

[angelixangel]

Um, yes. Viola and Piano.

 

[Necrome]

if it is for your own archiving, just master the piano accompaniment first, figure out when to use arpeggios, when to play on the higher registers and when to thicken up chords with more notes/colours (e.g. 7th, 9th, 11th, 13th etc.). arrangers and songwriters are vastly different technical fields, and arrangers normally need a huge investment in workstations/synths/hardware/samples to work with, which shouldn't be your concern if you're looking to write songs instead of arrange songs.

 

[angelixangel]

Okay, I get it. Just that my theory have not been all along. By the way, does the different rules being applied in music theory composing apply to song composition too?

 

[Necrome]

i totally don't understand what you are saying...

 

[angelixangel]

Um, I mean like in music theory, for the part-writing section, we are not allowed to use parallel fifth. In this case, do I need to follow the rules?

 

[soft]

angelixangel

You might want to check out Band-In-A-Box ( http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.demos.htm ). Since your goal is to create music backing for your songs, this might be easier.

 

[angelixangel]

Hmm... shall start working on simple piano accompaniment before exploring into the software. Thanks anyways!