Wow - this is a great style to try

[Rob Sherratt]

We're planning to have a worship concert in few months. There's about 14 songs that we would like to perform by a real orchestra. I contacted some of the producers, and in some cases they said some parts were not even recorded by real strings and so on. So all they have it's a keyboard chart. There are some scores to purchase for other songs, but they don't seem to fit what we have available. How does this work normally? Have you guys done this before?

Hi Tania,

Wow! That's ambitious. If you want to perform the songs with a real orchestra you need to prepare an orchestral score which has individual parts for each instrument transposed to the appropriate key for that instrument. It's a lot of work, probably best done with a program like Sibelius which you can also use to audition the arrangement. You could start by recording a suitable style based or improvised arrangement on the Pa2x/Pa800 and then export the MIDI into Sibelius.

The only full orchestral contemporary music score I have is for the theme tune from "Mash". As you are finding out, there is little full orchestral scored music available for contemporary songs.

We sometimes have a visiting chamber strings orchestra in Corfu. For traditional hymns, the violins play the tune and any descant, viola picks up the alto part, cello plays the tenor part and double bass ... plays the daddy. I never have to produce an arrangement, they read the 4-part score from the books I mentioned.

They can also play from fake sheets with tune (played by violins) + chord symbols. I start off a percussion rhythm (no auto-accompaniment) and I play an intro and a pattern based improvised piano accompaniment. Then the double bass player copies the appropriate bass line rhythm like you and I play in the left hand, the cello plays an accompaniment alternating between an octave and fifth above the bass note, and the viola improvises an accompaniment based on the appropriate chord. Then I stop playing and just concentrate on pressing the drum fills and variations at the appropriate time.

Playing pattern piano (aka David Sprunger, "play piano today") helps a lot if you know what I mean.

But most orchestra players do not meet together enough and so can not improvise in that way. So you have to print out individual parts for each instrument. If it's a wind instrument you must know its natural key and the chances are you will have to transpose for them.

Sam (AssyrianPianist) does these arrangements a lot, so does my nephew James who is a composer. But it's a lot of work like I said. It's not something I would take on because of the time commitment required. And I can't afford Sibelius.

Best regards,
Rob

[Sam CA]

Hey Tania,
I've been doing this for the past 10 years. People give me audio tracks, and i lift the score off of a stereo track that you would normally listen to in you car or home stereo. It's actually a very time consuming process. It takes anywhere from 4 to 12 hours per song depending on the complexity of the arrangment. I always write the conductor score first, and then export the individual parts. Further editing is required to make the parts suitable for a concert, where you wouldn't want to have a violinist or what have you turn the page at a weird moment. There's a lot more to watch for....I mean a lot more. You should really consult this with someone who knows music in your church, because it can get pricy real fast if you don't know what you're doing. If you don't have a perfect score, you'd have to use the rehearsal time to edit mistakes, and it'll cost a few more rehearsal to get things right which wasn't planned for initially.

The way it works is that you would give the tracks to the right person, and he/she will write the score and make it fit for your instrumentation. For example, If there's a solo oboe in track 6, but there isn't an oboist available, then someone else will take care of the que...First you need to find out what instruments you're going to have available. Then your music director must figure out who's singing what..and all that. It's not that hard to get this going,but if no body in your church has a clue about this, it could get frustrating.

[TANIA]

As you are finding out, there is little full orchestral scored music available for contemporary songs.

Rob, i've been making lots of phone calls over the past few days. Unfortunately, it's like you said. I even talked to some people from "Maranatha" about this. They have a few orchestral score, but nothing we could really use in our church. They said the same thing. It's not practical to buy the score first and then hire the musicians to play that. It's the other way around.

[TANIA]

You should really consult this with someone who knows music in your church, because it can get pricy real fast if you don't know what you're doing. If you don't have a perfect score, you'd have to use the rehearsal time to edit mistakes, and it'll cost a few more rehearsal to get things right which wasn't planned for initially.

The way it works is that you would give the tracks to the right person, and he/she will write the score and make it fit for your instrumentation. For example, If there's a solo oboe in track 6, but there isn't an oboist available, then someone else will take care of the que...First you need to find out what instruments you're going to have available. Then your music director must figure out who's singing what..and all that. It's not that hard to get this going,but if no body in your church has a clue about this, it could get frustrating.

Sam , that helped a lot. Apperently, we can't buy the score off the shelf. Do you mind telling me about the price of writing scores? How many Rehearsals could over 14 songs? We're thinking of a 10 piece string section, 4 brass, 1 flute and oboe, and the rest would be our own band that plays regularly every sunday. It's a drum, 2 keyboards, guitar and a bass.

[Rob Sherratt]

Tania,

I contacted my nephew James about this and am awaiting a reply.

I think there may be a problem for any one person doing the amount of work you require in the timescale you have set. There could be 3 days work involved for every song. I think you can work out for yourself how much time, effort and cost is involved.

One approach to reduce the cost of score generation would be to divide the effort as follows:

a) Multitrack record a MIDI arrangement for every song. One track for every different instrument. You and your band would preview each arrangement to make sure it's what you want, and that all notes and timing are perfect.

b) Then, send each multitrack arrangement to either Sam or James or someone else with experience using Sibelius. They would do the necessary transposition and score setting for each instrument, and then send you the scores back. I guess this would be charged at a rate of about 1 day's labor for each song.

Best regards,
Rob

[Sam CA]

[quote="TANIA[/quote]
Apperently, we can't buy the score off the shelf. Do you mind telling me about the price of writing scores? How many Rehearsals could over 14 songs? We're thinking of a 10 piece string section, 4 brass, 1 flute and oboe, and the rest would be our own band that plays regularly every sunday. It's a drum, 2 keyboards, guitar and a bass.[/quote]

No you can't buy the scores. There are a few websites that sell orchestral arrangements, but they don't come handy at all for the most part. There's no standard orchestral setting like there used bo be when Bach wrote the passion... . Nowadays, every church has different number of musicians, and of course a different budget for events like this. That's why Maranatha or any other production does not invest in publishing scores. Even if you buy it, you still have to give it to someone to rewrite it for your instrumentation. Most of those scores call for a much bigger orchestra than what you're talking about.

[Giner]

Yes great - Latin Rock 1 & 2 are fantastic backings for Santana's "Smooth" and "Black Magic Woman" - just love them - always have since PA1XPro days...

Pete

Hi Pete,

Yeah, love those latin styles. For Black Magic Woman I use 'Fusion' slowed down to a tempo of 65. You might want to give that a try. It always amazes me how the feel and characteristics of a style change when you move away from the 'stock' tempos.

Cheers, Giner

[macboy]

Hoi Giner !

Great post. I indeed agree with you that if you experiment with the tempo (from 120 to 65 for example) you enter a new arrangment world !