Vocal Arranging

"You know the range of the voices, you know the song you want to arrange and you know who will get to sing the lead. What will be your next step now? Will the arrangement be homophonic? What options you have to write that catchy guitar riff? How do you really make the bass really groove? Arranging is a big challenge. Even if you're familiar with music theory, you'll encounter many dilemmas in writing for voices. Arranging is a craft. The good news is: you can learn this trade. Tijs Krammer helps you by sharing his lifelong experience and showing the possibilities with practical examples."Whether you are inexperienced as an arranger and don't know where to start, or are already advanced and don't know how to proceed, you will be inspired by Vocal Arranging.The book contains the following chapters:1 Voice Types and Voicings2 Rhythm3 Chord Symbols4 Writing Harmonies5 Arranging in Layers6 Accompanying Parts and the Bass Part7 The Structure of an Arrangement8 NotationThis book is aimed at people with a lot of musical experience. It is intended for conservatory student and graduate musicians, but also for advanced amateurs who are not afraid of music theory and chords. We assume that the reader is fluent in reading music, in both treble and F clef. We also assume that they can play the piano and know their way around chord symbols.This book will help you write for voices. Maybe you've never written an arrangement before and you want to give it a try. Or maybe you've reworked a few pieces but know that you're missing some skills. Or maybe you've written a lot for instruments and you're looking for knowledge about voices. In all these cases you can be inspired by this book. A singer, conductor and arranger, Tijs Krammer is best known for his singing association with the internationally famed vocal group Montezuma's Revenge. Having studied singing at the Utrecht Conservatory in The Netherlands, Tijs pursued his musical education with Jos van Veldhoven at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying choral conducting, supplemented by a private course of arranging with Bob Zimmerman in The Netherlands and with Phil Mattson and Michele Weir in the us.TijsFounder and conductor of the Utrecht group Leeuwenhart, Tijs won the first prize at the Dutch Choral Festival, a major two-yearly a cappella festival in The Netherlands, with this group. In 2008 Tijs is interim conductor with the prize-winning jazz choir Dekoor. Until recently he was conductor of the vocal group Vocalicious. Currently he conducts the youth vocal group The Jump and the vocal world music ensemble Pangaea. With the latter he won in 2013 the Balk Top Festival, in recent years the most important Dutch festival on vocal pop and jazz music.Tijs is professor at the Conservatories of Rotterdam and Amsterdam teaching Conductor Vocal Pop & Jazz and he is one of the professors at the conductors course The Ward Swingle Cursus. Having written arrangements for internationally renowned groups including Femmage, Intermezzo, The Gents, Frommermann and Montezuma's Revenge, he has regularly been teaching courses in arranging, most of these organized by Balk.Tijs' arrangements are partly privately published and partly published by Music Shop Europe, Molenaar, ChorusOnline, Ferrimontana, ZoecMusic and Humm A Cappella. For any questions concerning any of these arrangements or for any arrangement orders, please send an email to tijs@krammer.nl.