My thoughts
I am close to finishing this arrangement so if I put it in writing maybe it will whoop my butt into finishing it for tomorrow's rehearsal. How's that for manipulating your own psyche? Well, I'm wasting valuable time. :)
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The band played my arrangement of House of Gold last night and I was fairly happy with the outcome. It is always a roller-coaster of emotions when you get a chart played that you have been working on for weeks or months. You know what it should sound like and actually, you hope that your musicians will take that "Sibelius" clay and sculpt it into something new and beautiful. More often than not, it takes time and you have to be careful that you do not pull out too much hair from you head. Mine is thinning as it is. It is really about fine-tuning your writing so that the parts match the players and this can take several tries. Each chart I write for this band seems to be a better fit. Always a work in progress but a passion, and not really work.
Have another fire lit under me. I am going to rearrange some of my big band charts for 3-horns and go back and take some of my hand-written charts and get 'em on the ol' computer. There is a student group in London, ON called London Funk that is pretty good and they are looking for some new repertoire. Happy to supply it. The charts will also be useful for my After Hours Big Band. Sometimes we need a smaller group to let the majority of the horn players get the "axe" off their face for a few minutes during longer gigs. If I get enough of these bad boys, I may split up my arrangements online into 3-horn and big band charts. Ohhhhh, lofty goals.
Let me start by saying leading a big band is hard work. When you go see a big band (and please go see a big band!), the conductor wiggling his or her bum in front of the band may look like s/he is just along for the ride, but please realise that the wiggle is probably a nervous twitch. Yes, dealing with all the conflicting personalities and musical visions, divas and divos, wrong notes and rhythms night after night, may just drive someone to a nervous breakdown. Man, I love jazz and I love big band repertoire but I could do without the drama. Now, I say this but I admit, I was that trombone player in the section giving the conductor grief a few years ago ("Ahhhh, another Dave Wolpe chart? Really?"). At the time, I did not see the big picture and I did not appreciate how difficult it is to manage 20 different musicians. When I can, I apologise to those leaders when I see them. Back to the present situation - each conductor has to decide what approach s/he is going to take. For me, a band is not a democracy. While I want to know everyone's opinion, I need to make the final decision on the band's musical direction. Others may take a more democratic approach to leading their bands. For me, that is akin to too many cooks. Well, I could edit this blog, as it is a little haphazard but it is late. Hopefully, you get the gist.
Playing in a small group tomorrow. Been a while since I played some standards and really, I mean really, played jazz. I often do it within the confines of the big band and it can be hit or miss. If you are not familiar with the melody of a big band chart, it is more difficult (I feel) to sell a solo, as it can be detached from the arrangement. In a smaller group, the melody can really be the thread that holds the music together. By "the melody," I mean the rhythmic, melodic, stylistic, and dynamic aspects of that melody - not just the notes. You really need to know the tune inside and out and then you can hint at that melody. Looking forward to doing that.
As I write more and more music, I get a little touchy when musicians second guess the composer's instructions. "Oh, he/she did not really want the band to go from piano to forte. That would sound ridiculous." Well, generally, composers/arrangers put great thought into their writing and we should give them a little credit. On the flip side, once you have an arrangement, you are free to interpret the music any way you like. But please, do not tell me that you can get inside the composer's head, unless you have experience performing the music with him/her personally.
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Dr. Michael KearnsMusician, educator, husband, father, web designer ... my life is like a mosaic with each piece vying for my attention. Archives
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