King of Stage

Without waiting for Cliff to say anything, Ronan directly took the initiative to get to the point.

"Ollie thinks the first verse should be played with the piano as the main instrument, and I think the guitar should be used, and that's our disagreement."

Simply use one sentence to name the focus of the controversy, and then Ronan looked at Ollie, "Ollie, I will say my opinion first, and then you will say yours. Let's join the discussion together, what do you think?" Before Ollie protested, Ronan pre-emptively settled the situation.

Ollie rolled his eyes in protest.

Ronan couldn't help chuckling, "I'll take it as your agreement." Then, he looked at Maxim and Cliff again.

"In the back of my mind, hopefully that creates a sense of progression."

"Start with a cappella, strip off all the embellishments and embellishments, then the guitar cuts in, then the bass, then the drums, including the drum kit, here you can also switch different layers, for example, first the tom, then the bass drum, just like this layer by layer It piles up emotions in a way that fits perfectly with the melody and lyrics."

"Finally, when the chorus cuts in, let the piano become a means to enrich the three-dimensional sense and depth effect of the entire auditory sense, and release all the accumulated emotions."

"The clarity and brightness of the strings, as an aid in the introduction stage, can reduce the sense of existence as much as possible without destroying the balanced structure of the song, and at the same time can be perfectly combined with the emotions conveyed by the lyrics; while the fullness and thickness of the keyboard sounds, Being able to go deep into the emotions in the chorus part really allows the deep-seated uneasiness in the emotions to settle down."

As he spoke, Ronan's eyes gradually brightened, and his thoughts that were not clear at first gradually became clear——

For Ronan, he has never systematically studied the knowledge of arrangement, and he can only capture inspiration by feeling and intuition for many things, but it is difficult to express it accurately and clearly in words; however, tonight is a Opportunities, through expression and discussion, can continuously emerge in my mind many thoughts on the use of musical instruments, requirements for melody texture, and positioning of song style.

Little by little, it gradually became clear. This is a very interesting process, some ignorant, some vague, but overall, the direction is correct.

Ronan couldn't help but also became excited.

In fact, in the process of song creation, composing and arranging are two different things.

For most ordinary people, it is often easy to misunderstand that "composition is simply creating a vocal melody or creating the main theme of a musical work", but in fact, the academic explanation should be to complete all the work in music, and Creating music that can be played is composing.

In the period of classicism, before the invention of computers, the concept of composing was equivalent to completing all creative work. For example, a composer should first write the main melody of a musical work, and then match the created melody with a harmony that suits him. The main theme is matched with a suitable instrument, and finally all the melodies created by oneself need to be applied to actual instruments or singers, so that the music work can be fully presented.

Arrangement, on the other hand, is a brand-new concept formed after the music system gradually improved and became commercialized. Especially after the popularization of computers in the 1990s, music creation no longer depends on real bands entering the recording studio to complete live performances and actual rehearsals. To give the composer inspiration and make adjustments on the spot, all the work can be done directly on the computer, and the original effect of the instrument can be restored as faithfully as possible, so the arrangement process is gradually independent.

After the music industry is gradually industrialized and commercialized, each job is further subdivided and specialized. The creation of a song can be assigned to different people. For example, one person is responsible for creating the melody and harmony of the song, and one person is responsible for creating the keyboard. Parts of musical instruments, one person is responsible for the creation of parts of electro-acoustic instruments, etc.,

And that's all the work of the arranger.

It is precisely because of this that the process of contemporary music production can be divided into:

Composers are generally melody writers; lyricists and arrangers—the work content of arrangers can be subdivided into multiple positions, such as recording engineer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer, and so on.

In the above situation, it is possible that different people are responsible for all the duties; it is also possible that all the work is completed by one person.

All in all, composition in the contemporary music industry is to simply create the vocal part of a song, or a specific part of the instrumental melody; while arrangement in the contemporary music industry includes follow-up complex work, writing Singing, adjusting chords, selecting and matching musical instruments, using some effects, exporting music files, etc.

It can be seen that an arranger is a position similar to that of a producer. First of all, he needs rich knowledge of music theory, and even professional knowledge of musical instruments; secondly, he needs a keen sense of touch, knowing the style of songs, market positioning, etc., and whether the music can be popular. It depends on this link; once again, creative inspiration is also needed, how to extract different styles of the original song according to different performers.

To put it simply, the same song can be arranged in ever-changing ways, even from pop to rock, jazz, folk, etc. There is no problem; and the same song, after arrangement, can be interpreted by different singers Different styles are more popular in the Internet age: truly brilliant cover songs need to be re-arranged, not karaoke.

On the "Voice of America", "American Idol" and other talent shows, the singers will adapt the songs. This kind of arrangement process can be regarded as a secondary creation process, which includes three links.

First, re-create the original work, change the instrument, change the style, change the structure, etc.; second, adjust according to the style of the performer, and complete the arrangement on the computer.

Finally, during the live performance, according to the stage effect, the melody of some instrument parts is selected, and the live band performs the actual performance, while the other part is conveyed by the tape, which also makes it possible for the live performance to be played alone with the piano. visual effect.

Objectively speaking, the difficulty of composing and arranging music is extraordinary, and it is definitely beyond the reach of ordinary people; but relatively speaking, composing is more dependent on talent, while arranging is more dependent on the richness of knowledge structure.

After the full commercialization of the entire music industry, the status of arrangers has risen further. Even the four major Grammy awards have specially set up an award to reward arrangers, which can be seen.

A top arranger can turn a mediocre song into a good song, and a good song into a classic.

Returning to Ronan, it is obvious that he has only touched the threshold of arrangement, and in the final analysis, he still relies on inspiration and talent to complete the conception.