I get a lot of people who hear my a cappella group perform for the first time asking me how I take a song people grew up singing and convert it into something that echoes the original, but at the same time sounds completely different.
There’s nothing glamorous or exciting about the actual arranging process itself; it’s just a matter of connecting piece A to piece B or laying brick one over brick two, until the pieces work together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. Asking someone how they arranged a piece is like asking them built their own wooden outhouse. No, too dignified. Perhaps arranging is more on the level of building a DIY lawnmower or a brick wall. Conceptually simple, and yet not something everyone can or ought to dive into after reading a few guide books and blog posts on the subject. But by your third brick wall, you certainly start seeing improvement.
Perhaps “how do you do that?” is rhetorical. The asker doesn’t really care what I say as they listen to some answer that sounds exciting, and what they really mean is that the song exceeded their expectations. That’s all well and good, but what about those who are genuine? They should know that my methods for arranging are all wrong, and no one should ever follow them. But in order to clear up any confusion regarding the difference between what I practice and what I preach, I'll outline how I make things happen.
In theory, a cappella arranging has steps of preparation, thought and careful execution of every voice part, and in total you can go through about a dozen steps. I don't like steps: the fewer the better. My step-by-step process for arranging goes more like this: motivation and production. No brainstorming sessions or planning needed.
Why motivation? It’s all you need to do anything. Without that motivation, an arrangement is the kind of project that just falls by the wayside as real life takes over. You need to feel that desire to click, drag, click, drag, type something, click, drag, repeatedly until you’ve reached the end of the piece and hope it’s not all bad. Feel it and don't lose it. Motivation to me also means fear of disappointing others, so I end up pulling the plug on most of my projects. But that's just reason to make more. Perhaps that’s the answer people want to hear: I made it my personal mission to dedicate a substantial portion of free time towards something most people believe is dull and a lot of effort expended for something that doesn’t really matter. It's not related to my educational, career or philosophical aspirations; it's purely for "recreation."
After motivation comes production. You set a day, and say you need the score done by then. If you aren't working on production, you need better motivation. Simple as that. There's no in between — either you're hammering it out note-by-note or the arrangement is stuck on measure five forever. Production doesn't end until the song is performed for the first time. It's a fairly important step.
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