Alan Coady's Musical Blog

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“One overlooked layout decision – a thousand repeated sentences.” (Ancient proverb from the Province of East Lothian).

Publishing houses have some advantages over instructors when arranging ensembles for schools:

• Not teaching 50 lessons per week
• Having in-house proof-readers to spot errors in the notes, fingering, position markings, expression marks and matters of general layout – known in the trade as geography.

However, we do have one advantage over publishing houses – the opportunity to test out parts on the very pupils who are going to be playing the piece. If the parts are ready in plenty of time, pupils can have a dummy run through their part before multiple copies of it are printed. Errors spotted after copying would have to be altered by hand on every relevant part, or pointed out verbally - wasting valuable lesson time. The alternative is an expensive reprint. I’ve often found that hurried proof-reading can amount to little more than seeing what I thought I wrote. Going through parts with pupils can flag up many helpful matters.

Years of doing this has led me to include certain layout features:

• Rehearsal marks at every junction in the music
• Aligning new phrases down the left side of the page
• Avoiding a change of page during a run of fast notes – causing the eye to have to move around 25cm in a fraction of a second
• Written warnings of pending technical demands – position changes; contraction/extension of hand; particular techniques required (slide, pivot, plant etc.)

Possibly the most helpful layout trick is that of indenting (or separating) sections so that theycan be found quickly:

• When returning to a passage in the middle of the piece (D.S = Dal Segno = from the sign)
• Jumping ahead to the coda (closing section)
• Separating tunes in medleys
• Creating exercises where short passages are extracted from the piece for concentrated practice

The following few points might summarise this approach:

• Information not on the page must be given verbally
• Anything which is said can be forgotten
• Get as much onto the page as possible to ensure it goes home with the pupils

On occasions when I have offered arrangements to colleagues in other authorities, some have mentioned that such layout features are not to be found in the big, bad world and ask if I might be putting at a disadvantage those pupils who intend to study music when they leave school. It is a valid point, but my feeling is that these pupils will not be as disadvantaged by the inclusion of such features as others would by their omission.

So, how much arranging goes on in an average session? My current annual concert diet is as follows:

NBHS: Christmas Concert (x2), Burns Supper, Spring Concert – occasional item for prize giving – one or two items per event

Knox: Christmas Concert, Spring Concert – one or two items per event

MGS: Christmas Concert, Summer Concert – two items per event for large group and occasional small group items; occasional music for P7 parents evening and/or prize giving (usually small group or solo).

Campie PS: Musical Evening – large group mixing P5 – P7 usually three or four items

Wallyford PS: Usually one concert in the summer term. Last session we inaugurated a short concert where former pupils (now at MGS) perform alongside pupils from the primary – eight items. Reassuringly, participants have been asking when we can do it again.

East Lothian Guitar Ensemble: One concert per year – two items in previous years. We have now increased our rehearsal count from two to six and may offer more items – or simply more substantial ones.

I tend to use the same items in all three secondary schools although not all in the same year. As MGS always requires two items (one in each half of the concert), they tend to be the trail blazers for new arrangements. If they go well - I re-use them. I also know how best to rehearse these works in the future.

When does the arranging take place? Group teaching results in very few free periods as it is unlikely that all pupils in the group will be absent simultaneously. The period of exam leave (festival of sudoku) affords some time. Other than that, I tend to arrange in the same manner that I encourage pupils to practise – to make use of any free moment, no matter how small. A spare two minutes may not be long enough to rework musical ideas, but it can profitably be spent of matters of layout, all of which help to clarify thinking when more time becomes available. My own personal preference, although frowned upon by most educationalists, is to sit down and finish an arrangement in one go – even it this means five or six hours without stopping. Constant stopping and starting reminds me of my old Amstrad PCW (which, strangely, I remember with some affection) where not only did you have to reload files from a floppy disk but also the programs and even the operating system. It's easier to remain switched on.

There can be few composers/arrangers who use pencil & paper in preference to software. There are many reasons for this:

• having written the score (conductor’s version showing everyone’s notes), the parts (what each individual player sees) are extracted automatically and do not have to be written individually – when writing for a large ensemble this is a saving of dozens - if not hundreds - of hours
• ease of rewriting sections or fixing errors
• use of cut/copy/paste to save time especially where many people are playing the same notes or rhythms
• the possibility of making several versions of the same work*
• the fact that an audio version is created at the same time and does not have to be recorded in real time once the arrangement is finished
• a change of key requires only “select” and a few clicks rather than a complete rewrite
• page layout considerations are can be juggled right up until the last second before printing parts e.g. to facilitate page turns while playing
• electronic beats tangible when it comes to storage, retrieval and distribution of scores/parts/audio files

The default choice of most writers is Sibelius and can't be many departments in Scotland who do not have it loaded onto several computers.

It’s undeniable that many traditional skills are being lost as a result of software. The question is - do we still need them? To be honest I remain uncertain. I belong to the generation which grew up with the skills** which are now evaporating. Were we to have no access to computers we could survive, although it would be a massive chore. Without access to software many young people might struggle. However, the same is true of all professions. Crimean-style surgery remains an option to this day, but few would choose it.

The arrival of a cut-price student version of Sibelius means that more and more pupils have the package on their PC at home. Many, whose first instrument is guitar, are likely to try and write a guitar ensemble piece in the inventing component of Standard Grade. Perhaps, as part of their training, I should give them arrangements of pieces they have played in past concerts, with passages deleted and see if they could fill in the missing parts. One skill to be learned here is that compositional economy comes through adapting existing material. Pieces which have this feature tend to sound more organic and coherent. As a defence against the temptation of plagiarism in their course work, it might be better if a copy of such exercises was also left in the department for staff.

* Ken Johnston's website will allow you to see a good an example of this. Ken, a music teacher at Knox Academy, is an extremely gifted and much sought after choral writer.

** e.g. transposition – changing key - either by rewriting or even while playing, which is known as transposing at sight. Club band keyboard players and church organists tend to excel (no pun intended) at this.

So what exactly is arranging? It is not composing in that the basic material already exists – although it might be about to undergo massive transformation. Many people mix up arranging with transcribing. Were I to take, for example, a Mozart string quartet movement and rewrite the parts for guitar this would simply be transcription – even if I changed the key (transposition) to a more suitable one for multiple guitars. Transcription is an art in itself but it is more to do with accuracy than creativity. For something to qualify as an arrangement, some changes have to take place in the music which will benefit the intended instrumentation – although the melody is usually retained. Below are some possibilities:

• Changing the general style of the accompaniment
• Changing the speed of the accompanying parts relative to the melody*
• Reharmonising some of all of the melody**
• Adding counter melodies
• Adding rhythmic figures to increase the drive of the arrangement***
• Combining the melody with another known melody e.g. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen with The Pink Panther
• Transferring a melody which was on top into the bass and transferring the accompaniment to the top (and vice versa)
• Using accompaniment ideas from a different historical period to the melody e.g. a hip-hop version of Greensleeves
• Using accompaniment ideas from a different culture to the melody – Mhairi’s Wedding with a samba backing

* either underpinning a soaring tune with an agitated accompaniment or sedating a very active melody with a more serene, spacious accompaniment

** this has a similar effect to changing the adjective with which a noun is paired i.e. the sense is retained but nuances of mood are modulated. For example, a person’s immobile behaviour could variously be described as catatonic; serene; sedate; focussed; watchful; edgy; stunned

*** in tunes which originally featured drums, rhythmic figures have to be included to compensate for their removal

Exactly how one comes up with ideas is difficult to pin down but contributing factors include:

• Keeping within the reading and playing range of pupils of varying ages
• Choosing keys which feature resonant areas of the instrument (this is often caused by notes causing matching open strings to vibrate sympathetically)
• Choosing voicings (order and spacing of notes) of harmonies which lie naturally on the instrument
• Making up for the limited sustain of guitars by adding material in the hope of avoiding any drop in intensity

Nothing enables one to spot a good arrangement as keenly as having heard (or even bought) many poor ones. This sounds very negative but is very common in medical research where function is studied via malfunction.

Instructors running ensembles have two basic choices when it comes to finding suitable music – buying or writing arrangements. My personal preference is to write them, for the following reasons:

• Economy – this saves departments (i.e. the public purse) a fortune
• The levels of difficulty can be more finely tuned*
• The range of styles can be wider than many publishing houses offer – in many cases it can be difficult to source music outside the Western European tradition**
• My own technical advice, articulation choices etc. can be written at source and not pencilled later onto dozens of individual parts
• Rehearsal marks can be placed at all significant junctions in the music – allowing pupils who have lost the place to re-enter as soon as possible***
• Alterations can be made to the arrangement – even after rehearsal have begun (either to simplify or to extend)
• TAB can be offered in addition to traditional notation
• The page layout of parts can be altered to save awkward page turns and reprographic expense
• I will have an audio file on my laptop for use in lessons
• Play-along midi files can be offered to pupils at a variety of speeds for home practice****
• Keen pupils can be offered parts other than their own – for extra experience at very little expense – this way their understanding of the piece will increase significantly*****
• The melody part can be extracted and added to the bank of solo repertoire
• Pupils who show sudden promise can be offered an upgrade to avoid boredom – within the confines of retaining the balance of parts in the group as a whole
• Arrangements can be passed onto colleagues i.e. electronically and they print their own parts as required
• Storage and retrieval of arrangements is electronic - saving space and also the planet

* Few published arrangements have parts sufficiently graded for ensembles containing pupils from S1 to S6

** The guitar ensemble, although very common in Lothians’ schools, is a relatively unusual outfit and it can be difficult to find suitable music

*** I tend to use numbers as opposed to letters. This is because warnings will be announced while everyone is playing. The letters B, C, D, E, P, T & V all rhyme - as do A, J & K - and this can cause confusion. Let's not even start on M & N.

**** audio CD versions can also be produced although this is a little more costly (midi files are free)

***** very occasionally a pupil will ask for a copy of the score to see how the parts all fit together. This may be of some help in their own arranging tasks in SQA music courses. It may also help them to understand the term “litigation” if I discover they have sold it as their own :-)

I’ve put forward a couple of new ideas for consideration in the primary schools I visit:

Practice Guidelines For Parents of New Pupils

At the time when enthusiasm is at its keenest, it might be a good idea for households with little or no experience of learning instruments to have description of how best to spend practice time. When it’s written, I’ll post a copy of it here.

Settling In Report

Rather than wait until June before offering parents a written description of strengths and recommendations, a short interim report might prove helpful. If a pupil has survived until June, things are probably going well enough. Where problems occur is after the honeymoon period, where application replaces novelty, and it seems like a good idea to let parents have an early report on their investment.

I have always thought it essential to keep in tune with the beginner’s mind experienced by our pupils. This is not straightforward. Although I can claim to know what they are going through, I can’t truly feel it. I need another field in which to experience not being in control of the speed of things or being unable to see the underlying structure of the subject. A reminder of the unrest that such feelings can cause is not readily available to me on an instrument I have played for 35 years.

So, I have decided to try and learn to speak Polish. I know nothing of Slavic languages and so the beginner's mind element should be present. It may also prove helpful one day as well as being an enjoyable challenge.

Many people might wonder what kind of admin tasks are relevant to instructors. Some tasks are daily/weekly such as keeping a register of attendance and record of work or keeping up with email correspondence. Some are less frequent such as reporting. Others are annual, and one of these is a census of pupils, which we submit to our coordinator, Peter Antonelli. When the testing process is complete, places offered/accepted and timetables updated, we refresh a list of pupils in all our schools together with information such as year group, approximate grade and details of any SQA courses being followed. Where appropriate, it is noted whether a pupil is in possession of a school/authority or privately owned instrument. In addition to this information being necessary for the efficient running of the service, such statistics are also helpful in national surveys of instrumental instruction e.g. by the Heads of Instrumental Teaching Scotland - an organisation whose curious titular word order neatly avoids an unfortunate and judgemental acronym.

At times like this the schizophrenic nature of an instructor’s post comes into focus. We are responsible to the PT Music (or faculty head) in any given school, to the management of that school, but also to the local authority. Although there is no conflict here, I suspect that instructors have more opportunities to see the big picture than if they were employed solely by one school.

I’ve spent many odd moments of this week finishing an ensemble arrangement for the first of six East Lothian Showcase Concert* rehearsals, which falls this Friday. Ironically, I heard this piece on Radio 3’s Making Tracks on the way home from one of last year’s rehearsals. No, I don’t have the memory of an idiot savant (only one half of that) I hunted down the piece and converted it from saxophone quartet version to guitar ensemble.

I’d like to go into arranging in greater depth later, but for now I shall describe how the East Lothian Guitar Ensemble comes together. As with other ensembles, invitations are extended to pupils who might benefit from such an experience. However, how does one decide who plays what? In an orchestra, the destiny of each player is predetermined. Trumpeters rarely play the harp part - unless they've been in the pub during the interval. In a guitar ensemble each part could, theoretically, be played by any player. The criterion is level of difficulty and there are a few ways to deal with this.

Streaming

This approach is very straightforward. A four-part arrangement is ranked in order of difficulty and the group split into four streamed sections, equal in number. There can be complications regarding sound projection. For example, many of the younger players will have ¾ size or cheaper guitars. Some of the advanced players may have upgraded to a more expensive guitar, capable of producing more sound – and they will play out with more confidence. Numbers may have to be adjusted to address this possibility.

Apprenticeship

In a piece where there is less contrast in the level of parts, each section contains a few seniors who act as audio beacons for younger players.

The Personal Approach

Pupils are given parts which suit their strengths e.g. those with keen ears are given the tune; good readers are given parts with rhythmic complexity or problems of extended range; those who are nifty movers are given more technically demanding parts; rockers are often given parts where the ability to hold down a steady and possibly repetitive rhythm is required - without becoming bored and losing focus or even self-esteem.

The last of these options suits situations where a performance is called for at short notice. The danger of playing to the strength of pupils is that they are not stretched. Pupils should have experience of many types of part and of the musical responsibilities of these parts in the piece as a whole. For this reason, I like to keep a log of the distribution of parts so that e.g. a good reader is not imprisoned on bass parts for ever. This log also proves to be very handy for more practical matters when concerts arrive – more of which another day.

*The concert takes place in the Brunton Hall on Friday 16 March at 7:30 p.m.