Question:
How does one go about arranging a piano song for guitar? Especially one that doesn't really have a rhythm to speak of. I am referring to the Sarah McLaughlin song, In The Arms of The Angels.
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It depends on what you're starting with, and how you want it to end up.
Starting from piano music (and by that, I mean a transcription of what the artist does), I start by moving things into the guitar's range. Guitar music is written one octave higher than it actually sounds, so the E on the first ledger line below the bass clef of the piano music is actually the guitar's open sixth string. Then I look for things that can't be done - chord voicings that are easy to play on the piano are sometimes impossible on the guitar... I'm looking for a way to move one or more chord tones an octave to make things playable. [Hint: leave the highest notes where they are if you can]. Having an actual transcription to work from is frustratingly rare.
Starting from a recording, I first listen for what I think is important. That might be a melodic riff, an accompaniment pattern, a particular rhythm, or all of the above. I'll do a quick transcription of those elements and work out how they might be fingered, and build around them. In November I did an arrangement of Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" for a classical guitar student; I took the slightly syncopated single piano notes before the lyrics start as the most important element, and built from there.
Starting from the most commonly available music - artist album books, known in the trade as piano/vocal/guitar books, I concentrate on the bass clef. The arrangements in these books are as a rule pretty bad - the soprano line in the treble clef always doubles the vocal line, and the "guitar" part of these books is invariably a chord diagram of an open chord (which sometimes doesn't match the standard notation below it!). As a rule, these books will fill out chords for the piano only at beats, so the interesting stuff - the patterns that might actually resemble what the artist did - are usually found in the bass clef. This week a student brought in a Taylor Swift book, and we did a credible arrangement of "December" working only from the bass clef.
After you've got your starting point, you need to figure out what you want it to sound like. There are several different ways you can go...
If you're just looking to accompany yourself, you can use the rhythms (either transcribed or from the bass clef of a P/V/G book) to build a chord accompaniment for strumming. Depending on the complexity of the song, you might need to adjust rhythms - some things are trickier than others to sing and play at the same time.
If you want a fingerpicked accompaniment for singing over, you'll want to come up with arpeggio patterns that you can sing over. The big thing to pay attention to is how many beats are in each chord; if you've got a tune that has a 12/8 feel and you decide on P-I-M-A-M-I triplets, any chords that last an odd number of beats have to be dealt with - I'll work out those transitions first, and the rest of it pretty much falls together.
If you want to do a solo guitar arrangement, you can take one of two approaches: chord melody, or classical style.
For a chord melody arrangement, pay attention to the vocal melody. You'll want those notes to be the highest ones in the chords. I'll use the original chords as a starting point (from piano music or a transcription) and build voicings that put the melody note in the highest register. I teach my students to do this by starting with a "tool kit" of ten voicings:
For major chords, the formula is 1-3-5; the highest note will be the root, third, or fifth. Using an F chord as an example, you could play xx3211 (putting F "on top"), xx7565 (putting A on top), or xx-10-10-10-8 (putting C on top).
For minor chords, you have 1-b3-5. Using Fm as an example, you have xx3111 (F melody), xx6564 (Ab melody), or xx-10-10-9-8 (C melody).
For dominant 7ths, the formula is 1-3-5-b7, so you have four choices. For F7, xx1211 (F), xx3545 (A), xx7868 (C), or xx-10-10-10-11 (Eb).
Pay attention to range - you might need to play a chord in the next octave, like xx-15-14-13-13. Any chords outside the basic major/minor/dominant have to be spelled out, but these ten voicings give you a starting point for most tunes.
Armed with the voicings, I apply them to the melody. Melodies will often have non-chordal tones, and I do those as single notes to begin with. That gives you a basic chord melody pattern that sounds like the song... and then I start adjusting.
The ten basic voicings have you moving around a lot. I look for ways to include notes without moving so much. For example, if the chord is F and the melody goes from A to C and right back to A, instead of using the xx-10-10-10-8 voicing to put the C note on top, I'll go xx7565 -> xx7568 -> xx7565. A little experimenting gets you something playable, and it helps learn the fretboard while you're at it!
[Quick explanation of the tool kit choices: in chord melody, I always use four-note chords for the first pass. While smaller chords can be used, or bigger ones, having a sporadic six note barre chord tends to make a chord melody sound a bit disconnected... like you aren't sure about that part. So I always start with four voices, and add or subtract as the song dictates.]
For a classical approach, I start with the vocal melody line, and figure out the points where it needs fattening up. Here I'll go directly from soprano to bass - I'll figure out what bass notes will work best, following the original chord accompaniment to begin with. I'll fill in the basic bass notes with a walking bass line where appropriate (here a bit of understanding of counterpoint will go a long way), and then I'll look at places that still sound thin, and fill in with one or two more voices.
For that particular tune, I haven't listened to it in a while... but as I recall it's a lot of block chords on the piano. If I were arranging it, I'd go fingerstyle, and probably add a few notes to get a flowing bass line.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
If you are arranging the tune for a vocalist with a different range from Sara's, keep a capo handy.
That is all I can add to NoteBoat's post, which I plan to print out & study. Thanks, NB.
"You can't write a chord ugly enough to say what you want to say sometimes, so you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream." - Frank Zappa
Thanks for the lengthy and well thought out reponse to my question. That's what is great about this forum.
I'm looking for a fingerpicking arrangement of this song. Working from the bass clef is a good idea. Unfortunately the bass clef in Angel is pretty sparse. I do play the Taylor Swift song that you mentioned, Back To December, but using chords. Maybe I'll use the bass clef and come up with a fingerpicking arrangement for that song as well. The song has a nice little riff in it to be worked in. I'd be interested to see what you came up with for that song.
As far as Angel, I can't seem to get a grip on this one. I may just have to use the noodling around approach. Its something to keep working with. It will keep me busy for a while.
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