When is an Arrangement Finished?

I have written before about how the last stage of arranging a song is a matter of cleaning up all kinds of apparently minor details to make the lines more naturally singable. I refer to this process to myself as ‘combing’ the chart: the metaphor feels apt as it’s about untangling things and making it all smooth and shiny.

Every time, by definition, there comes a moment when the arrangement doesn’t need me to do this any more. I always know when I’ve got there, and often wonder exactly how it is that I know.

The obvious, externally verifiable, means to identify a finished arrangement would appear on the face of it simply to be that you sing through all the parts and don’t feel the need to change anything. But in fact that tells you that the chart was already finished when you started that sing-through, and that you didn’t actually need that final check.

And in real life, that almost never happens. Instead, I’m likely to say: this is going to need one more sing-through tomorrow, and then when I come back and do it after a night’s sleep, I make two or three tiny changes and know that it’s done. I guess the question then moves on to: how did I know it still needed that final sing-through?

This is partly a judgement from the number and nature of tweaks made in the sing-through before last. If they are more substantial and/or numerous than the typical ‘finishing touches’ run, it suggests there may be more subtle refinements still available that will only become perceptible now the more significant ones are out of the way.

But it’s also in part an intuitive process. There’s often a faint, nagging sensation at the back of my brain when the chart still contains bits that are potentially awkward (and therefore expensive of rehearsal time). That is not necessarily a reliable indicator that I need to keep working as I’m often not consciously aware of it until it goes away. The feeling of my brain clearing when I’ve found and fixed those moments does often accompany the decision that a chart is finished though.

So, as in many arranging processes, the answer comes through a combination of analytical, technically overt processes and holistic decision-making that is not entirely accessible to conversant awareness.

I have one final bit of method to ensure that I don’t deliver a chart that still contains hokey bits in it. Ever since I was arranging Happy Together, and Jonathan looked across the room and said, ‘You could make that bit more interesting,’ I have never let an arrangement out of the house without running it past him first. He very rarely finds things to query these days, as I know the kinds of things he would pick up and fix them before he sees them, but it is still a comforting ritual to play it through to him, and talk through some of the problem-solving processes involved.

And if you are a baritone, you can thank Jonathan next time you see him for your line in Verse 3 of Happy Together, which is indeed now more interesting than the harmony line in the original Turtle’s version that I was working from.