OK, so where were we? Before I went on that little Group track tangent I was talking about “speed production” or creating music on a short timetable, specifically for live performance.
Once I’ve got the basic ideas together, the next step is to create a quick arrangement. The purpose of the arrangement is not to create a totally meaningful flow from beginning to end but rather to lay out all of the elements that you know (or suspect you might) need for your performance.
I shortened a recent arrangement I made and added locators as an example:
The arrangement kicks off with drums and percussive sound effects. There’s a bunch of variations – there’s simpler bits and parts that are quite busy. There’s some thought into the order that things happen in, but not too much. After that, you get the same drums and effects repeated with the main bass line. Next a bit of bass and effects with all of the drums removed, followed by the big bass drop.
After that, there’s some bass by itself. Any other element that I think I might want isolated for the performance, I just tag on to the end. Again, this isn’t a real arrangement – it’s just a layout for an audio file that contains all the elements you need.
The real arrangement is going to happen in the performance set. We’ll talk about this more in an upcoming tip. But we’re not quite ready yet. There are still a couple of steps before we jump back into performance mode.
