A few words on arrangements

If you have read a few of my posts, you may have noticed that I pay attention to arrangements pretty often.

In this age of pop music becoming more and more digitally created, with melodies more simple, on average, than only about 20 years ago, the value of human creativity and musical thinking is more valuable than ever, and should be valued and cherished.

I wanted to say this now since so many releases I have recently hugely enjoyed – from Jenn, Frigg, Tern and others – feature precisely that musical imagination that’s so sorely in absentia these days.

It’s one thing to be able to write good melodies, but it’s another thing to be able to create the “mental movie” around the melody, and that’s what arrangement does. Imagine a Mr Blue Sky, a God Only Knows or a MacArthur Park without everything, all those innovations and details, that goes on in those pop classics.

The same goes for trad and folk music. You can play a tune flawlessly and it’s okay, but if you can spice up that soup with your own, well measured ingredients, you’re serving something more than just soup.

It’s a delight every time I hear music that tells me that the creators have the ability and willingness to do more than just play well.

When they make the music glow with ideas and emotions expressed through the ways they arrange their music, it also tells me that us humans are still here and not giving up.