How Do You Go About Arranging From Recorded Rehearsals

[warwick.hoy]

So one of my bands; which is pretty much just an aggressive improvisational band is ready to start working out arrangements. We've played several shows with the completely improv'd format and we've gone from really mellow free and ambient jazz to face melting loud noise aggression. This format seems to work out well as it creates an interesting juxtaposition to the acts around here that are for the most part ABABbridgeAout. People seem to dig the improv and are dedicated to coming out and watching each show because they know they are going to see something different each time. We still want to do the improvisational thing and will probably rely heavily on that; but we figured that we could create heads and arrangements for jumping off points for improv and reprisals. That way the more dedicated fans will have something familiar every once and awhile.

We have hours of recordings from our rehearsals (which are all improvised as well) to pour over and quite honestly it's a daunting task. I suck at arranging. Usually I'm never happy with what I come up with as it usually sounds ubiquitous,...overdone,...normal,...boring,...etc, etc, etc. I figure having the recordings will be an aid, but I have no idea where to begin. The arranging will certainly be a collaborative effort,...but I'm looking for suggestions for putting these together.

I have a bit of voice leading and theory training. My thought was to sit down with the recordings,...label them according to date and piece (with an actual name to follow), identify the key signature and the meter and chart out the chord progression or riff (on staff paper). That's about the best I can come up with.

Sorry if this comes of as self indulgent,...but I was hoping to get some direction from any of you that may be better equipped at arranging.

[adrianlee]

Man, my project is the same way. Our bassist is a huge can fan so we do a helluva lot of improving then listening and arranging (hours and hours of it). We record it and then we sit, listen and pick parts that we think would work. Its a pain in the ass. I like it the finished result, though. We generally just play....we have parts, A B C B longgggg jam C End or whatever. We have nothing set in stone, though. We never say, ok, we're going to play this 8x. It's just, we're gonna play this until we get bored of it. That's when you bring in the head nod. Everyone knows it, everyone loves it. Everyone should use it.


Earthless talk about it. 'the cosmic nod'
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsud095hTWM[/youtube]

[warwick.hoy]

We definitely have similar ideologies. We originally started out trying to write songs but we had more fun jamming, so it basically just became a laziness,...arranging is too hard type of thing so lets just get loud,...make noise and groove. I'm actually quite excited to try to put something together and it seems that the best thing for us to do is buck up and put in the work. I have a feeling I'll be spending more time at the rehearsal/recording space. I don't want to do anything that is so concrete that there isn't any room for improv. But definitely want to have some parts that would wind up being familiar to the audience.

I listen to a lot of Phish and while they are great arrangers and songwriters (with the help of Tom Marshall) my favorite moments are always when an extend musical jam culminates in the reprisal of a song or they go back to a refrain or they start a song that you know is going to lead into a beautiful jam.

That Earthless clip was cool. I'll definitely be checking them out.

I think our drummer is going to put together sort of a greatest hits of some of the best raw tracks from our rehearsals and create a torrent with them. You can definitely hear a progression of quality from the first recordings to the most recent.

[Rygot]

Sounds a lot like us as well...

start out jamming completely clueless, lots of shrugging and nodding, once everyone gets going it flows and we get a few solid parts to repeat once or twice with improv/looping thrown in. Record hours of it and try listening and picking out parts and think that you can't mix and match because it wouldn't flow at all.

By far the most difficult thing to do in a 3 piece for us so far...

[rbtr]

You should try listening to some old jazz records, and more specifically some old be-bop records. I'd suggest Maiden Voyage by herbie hancock, and Miles Smiles by Miles davis

What you'll find is that the compositions are really free, almost sparse. But like most jazz it boils down to a "head", you play the head, you jam out over the chord progression until you are tired of it (that's where the nod comes in) and then everybody plays the head again. However with bop it's a little more complicated, because everything is VERY loose. If you wanted a better concrete example you could listen to something like Miles Davis' birth of cool, or Hancock's headhunters. Birth of cool is way more structured, but can give you an idea of how jazz can be structred. Headhunters is the funk bible, but gets some really loose jams worked over some really great riffs.

tl;dr listen to jazz, and try that approach.

[veteransdaypoppy]

dude the nod is everything.

[Mudfuzz]

It depends... a lot of times i will go over recordings and pick out the parts that stand out the most and if there are anyways to tie them together, sometimes a abrupt shift really works, sometimes not. Basically though I always end up relearning all the parts and then playing then in different orders and keys to see if it jives.. The other thing I do with improv is to start out with a raga format. Most of my instrumental stuff is more raga like then song like actually, it is both freeing and a challenge at the same time.

[warwick.hoy]

It depends... a lot of times i will go over recordings and pick out the parts that stand out the most and if there are anyways to tie them together, sometimes a abrupt shift really works, sometimes not. Basically though I always end up relearning all the parts and then playing then in different orders and keys to see if it jives.. The other thing I do with improv is to start out with a raga format. Most of my instrumental stuff is more raga like then song like actually, it is both freeing and a challenge at the same time.

An interesting take on the Raga; Mud.

I need to start incorporating more drone type stuff like that,..(That's why I have a Shiva,...should probably use it more).

When we first started doing this it I often wondered if the feeling I had was the same as Jackson Pollock when he first started painting small dots on large canvases. It is freeing doing the improv thing. No rules to stifle,...no resolving the 7th BS (actually I find myself relying on the rules a lot,...but breaking them is the best).

We have one jam where we just play whole notes for however many measures and just let it evolve from that; I have no idea where the guitar is moving and he had now idea where I'm going. Sometimes we land on a P4th and sometimes we land a minor 2nd and everywhere in between. Some people might cringe and go "oooo,...that's really bad" when we hit a dissonant interval. I'm fine with that though.

[Wizard]

don't think of it as arranging persay, in the traditional sense.

One of my bands would write all of our songs by recording our jams. Me and my buddy Pete would go over them and choose little riffs and licks that each member played, and sometimes whole sections if we were on, and learn them on the respective instruments. We'd than compile a database of riffs from that jam to jam on again, and we'd record a shorter jam devoted to each riff we selected. Slowly, we'd narrow the riffs down, and than peter and i eventually narrowed down an hour long jam, into a 3 minute song.

Try it that way. It's my favourite!