A cappella arranging: Deciding who sings what in a song arrangement | Choir With Knut | Ep. 8
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 вер 2018
- We're ready to start deciding what each vocal part is going to sing in each section of the choral arrangement! We'll look at how to distribute the melody and bass lines, and what sort of things you should think about when deciding on which voices should be singing what!
Choir With Knut is your number one resource for learning how to arrange for choral and a cappella groups! Through informative videos, you’ll learn about the voice types, how to structure a vocal arrangement or composition, how to go about arranging for voices/singing as opposed to other instruments, and all sorts of related topics, tricks and tips!
Scripted, filmed, and edited by
Knut Olav Rygnestad
Music by
Knut Olav Rygnestad
Intro and credits animations by
Ingmar Kamalagharan
Café scene filmed by
Ingmar Kamalagharan
Body double
Laurie Belgrave
Special thanks
Anil Kamalagharan
Didier Rochard
Manuela Twrsnick
Marcel Hunziker
Marit Røkeberg
Script revision and
assistant director
Therese Ramstedt
Produced and directed by
Knut Olav Rygnestad
Pictures:
LCV (Guy Bell, Carsten Windhorst)
Sing Tower Hamlets
Casta03
Pixabay
Carl Lender
#choir #acappella #arranging #arrange #choral #vocal #voices #acapella
I love the “subscribe” piece at the end. Sounds so epic. How could you not subscribe?
Haha, thank you; I figured it would be more fun to do the calls to action as a choral piece than just saying them 😂
Some how I missed this video. Love the opening!
You're a legend. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Thank you for your kind words! 🤗
you deserve more suscribers. thanks for your dedication!!
Thank you very much for your kind comment! 😀
Do you have a particular section in your group that you prefer to give the melody to? :-) If so, why?
What would you recommend for (amateur) arrangers who don't have a band to test the arrangements out on? Do you think working solely on notation software enough? Is there a software that provides (kinda) realistic vocal? I'm quite bored working with the midi that can't really pronounce the lyrics.
Hey! This is an interesting question! When I started arranging, I was largely just exploring it in software and didn't have access to a band or choir myself! While it did get me started, it's definitely not ideal to work on arrangements in notation unless you use it to plan an arrangement that you'll produce with samples in a DAW later. Most samples, and particularly used those for voices, can't give you an accurate representation of what the music will actually sound like, since they're not able, at present, to correctly interpret features such as syllables and vocal effects like glottal stop vs. no glottal stop. There's one choir plugin I know of called "Requiem" which makes an honest attempt but it's fairly limited and will sound very classical. I was lucky to have joined London Contemporary Voices in my last year in university, when I first got interested in vocal arranging, and they were skilled singers who needed arrangements. Of course, not everyone has this luxury! However, there may well be some local singing groups that you could contact! I imagine many of them are always on the lookout for new music and arrangements to program if they don't exclusively perform classical music, and will probably let you try out some arrangements if you ask nicely; they may even need an arrangement and let you do it for them if you offer. Community choirs are extremely common these days, at least in the United Kingdom, so that would be my best advice for getting singers if you don't already know some and/or sing in a choir. But, as I said, I did start just in software myself, and it's a good way to start exploring different instruments and get used to how the notation MIGHT sound in a live performance. 😉
These techniques daunt us so much! We just kind of tell the lead to start singing and then harmonise and re harmonise accordingly. Is this wrong? We sing one part per person so it's really easy, but now I'm doubting it.
It might be okay depending on the material, though I'd need a bit more information to be able to make a recommendation... is it all done by ear? Does the lead singer/section sing the melody throughout, or does it change? Also, is it done a cappella, with backing track, or with accompanist/band? Finally, how many parts are you using in total? :-)
Knut's Music Alright, first up, lemme thank you so so so much for taking so much interesting and helping so much. You're so awesome!!!
So, the answers-
1. Yeppers, the lead sings throughout.
2. Absolutely everything is done by ear.
3. We've got a backing track that's also our voices. We're doing the main chords in this track so we don't need to sing them throughout.
4. There's 5 parts- There's the beats, the lead, the sighs, the sighs in bass, and the leads in alto. We thought of doing a soprano part, but it isn't really required.
A huge thank you once again. You're the awesomest awesomely cool person I've met!!
@@vanaleesahaaria1735 Ah, I see! If you're using a backing track, the live vocals should probably just be focused on melody (which you can do in block harmonies, maybe interjected with some unison) and possibly countermelodies/call and response, as the backing track will do the background work. I'm afraid that I don't know what "sighs" would be in this case; could you explain? :-)
Knut's Music
First up, thanks for the reply! I really really appreciate it!!
We might have to do the whole thing again now.
The sighs here refer to the sighs in the original song, they're pretty important, so we want to keep them. Thank you so much!! 😊
@@vanaleesahaaria1735 Ah, I see; they're literal sighs! X-D Well, if they're important, keep them! My advice is pretty general; I don't know the song, so you may be in a better position to gauge what's important to keep and what can be taken out. There are less limitations when you use a backing track that you make yourself, though, as you can effectively make as many parts as you want in the backing track; only the live vocals have to be arranged so they fit the amount of live singers. I'd say that as long as it feels comfortable to perform, then you're probably on the right track! :-) I hope that's helpful!
"Do not make basses sing the bassline through all song or they might get bored" : why noone listens to that, and each arrangement of pop songs has bullshit bassline that never changes and is boring as hell :v
If the singers get bored, chances are that the audience will get bored too! 😉
@@KnutsMusic as a very low bass i love the basslines LOL
@@johntangggg It's good that you do, since it's usually the bass singers' job to sing the bass line! 😜 I try to give the basses a little bit of the melody or something a little different in each arrangement I do, though, just to switch things up a little and make sure it's as interesting as possible for them!
As a bass singer, I'm less concerned with singing a repetitive bass line than I am a BORING one.
"September", by Earth, Wind and Fire, is repetitive, but fun as hell. Luckily, for some 4-chord songs that have a really simple, repetitive bass line, I was allowed to "dress them up" a little, if I felt like it, as long as I didn't detract from the whole arrangement.