Especially if you're doing esoteric or very intricate arrangements. (The Dap Kings are great too) Since you're playing someone else's music, and many of those horn lines are so familiar they've become part of the song, you may as well just transcribe them directly as originally played and score it out for the section.Īs a guy who subs a lot in several different bands and on several different horns, I can firsthand say that if I show up on your gig and you have a book for me that's well arranged and organized I'm going to like you and the gig a lot more than if I'm just expected to wing it. Some of the most classic horn writing you'll hear is from James Brown, Ohio Players, The Commodores, Tower of Power, Earth Wind & Fire, the Brecker Brothers etc. Of course it always depends on the situation and there is no real right or wrong way, just your personal taste. But on an uptempo pop or r&b tune, voicing fast moving lines in close harmony sounds cheesy as hell and just sounds out of place. On a ballad, voicing big lush extended chords behind the chorus or to set up the bridge can be really effective. And depending on the period and the genre, you'll find that a huge amount of what you write will be unisons with some (only) occasional voiced out things to add emphasis. One thing I think you always have to keep in mind in this situation is that you're writing for rock, pop, soul and/or R&B, NOT jazz. However, have a listen to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings if you want to hear some great soul horn section arrangements - I did transcribe the horns to 100 Days, 100 Nights for my band - it was the only way, it's so bloody complicated! I would work on that before you start doing anything fancy with scoring. If you listen to a lot of classic soul horn sections, there is nothing complicated about the arrangements - they mostly all play the same lines, but what is absolutely critical is the timing - hitting every entry crisply and together. Typically, trumpet picks up the top line, tenor follows an octave below, bari usually follows the bass rhythm, if not the actual bass line, and trombone - well ideally, as little as possible as they can easily dominate, especially if the player does a lot of slide notes. What numbers are you doing? I've usually found that listening very carefully to the original will give you some ideas, and you take it from there. I tend not to write too much down as in a gig you usually can't see it anyway, or it falls off the stand, and anyway no horn section ever looks cool with a battery of music stands in front of them.
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