James Lee Stanley
Today I want to talk about arranging for one guitar.I actually studied orchestration and arrangement at Los Angeles CityCollege (during it’s musical hay day) and at Cal State at Northridge,so I can actually arrange for full orchestras, but given the economicsof touring during the Bush Debacle, I travel alone and consequentlyarrange for one guitar and one voice.
Oneof the first things that set me free as a performer was the discoverythat I didn’t have to play all the strings all the time. The first timethat I simply played one note and sang against it (a song from my RipeFour Distraction CD entitled Everyday, by Rick Ruskin (www.liondogmusic.com)and I) was like a release from prison. The song is in D and starts onthe sixth string on a high F# and the walks down chromatically to a C#which is the third of the A (or 5) Chord.
(I’msure everyone knows this but just in case, as an example, if a song isin D you can refer to the D as a one chord; the G as a four chord; theA as a five chord and so on. This is just numbering the scale and makesit easy when playing live, to communicate to musicians who might notknow the progression and this also works across transpositions. Nomatter what the key, the tonic is the one chord, etc.)
Ithen play just the fourth, third and second strings in a descendingmotif starting at the fourth fret and then I finish the verse and gointo the chorus, at which point I play a full D maj7 chord and a full Achord. When that full chord kicks in, it sounds like the band arrived.
Thisis the beauty of playing only one or two strings as you begin a song.It leaves you someplace to go in terms of volume and fullness. Youdon’t have to play all the strings all the time. I can’t believe howmany years I played guitar before I discovered that this was allowed bysolo performers. Silly. Anything that you can do with your voice andguitar to make the song interesting and compelling enough for theaudience to pay attention to the entire performance, is okay.
Itis important to think about the structure of the arrangement. If youjust strum and sing, sonically the song never goes anywhere. It remainsthe same texture throughout. (which can also be a conscious choice, butyou better be able to sing so well that you can keep the songinteresting for its entire length). I think of the arrangement as atrain gathering momentum to the chorus where you are at full steam,then back down to less intensity from the guitar, either by playingmore softly or playing less than all six strings.
Afun thing to play in these parts are tenths. Played on only twostrings, this is simply the root in bass and the third up an octavefrom its usual position. You know a chord is essential do mi so playedsimultaneously. You simply bump the mi up an octave and only play thosetwo notes; the low root and the high third (e.g. G on the sixth string,third fret and the open second string B). Any two notes in thisconfiguration creates the impression of a full chord but it isn’t sodense as a full chord and leaves you room to go someplace else to go tobuild the songs intensity.
Dynamicsplay a large part in making a song interesting. Traditionally chorus’sare bigger than verses in terms of volume and sonic complexity. Even ifyou only strum thru the whole song, if you play the verses at differentvolume than the chorus’s you will achieve some dynamic interest. If youplay and sing the entire song at the same volume it will not be asinteresting or as compelling as it would be if you give it some dynamicchange.
Andthe last chorus is the finale and should be the biggest and the mostinteresting or at least the most compelling. So leave yourselfsomeplace to go. A finale is a payoff and the audience wants and needsthat and so does every performance. Here is the roadmap: a structure,an arc, the implication of a destination, the momentum of going towardsthat destination and the payoff of the arrival at that destination, thefinale.
Keep this in mind when you structure an arrangement and when you structure a set.
This article is reprinted with permission by JamesLeeStanley. Pleasefind the original article and support James at datamusicata.com
