A musical arrangement is either a piece of music that has been rewritten with additions of new material or a compositional “sketch” that has been reworked for the gratification of the sensibilities of writers, composers, producers, performers, or listeners. An arranger does this – adapts music to enhance its affect.

A music arranger adapts original music to suit other purposes, such as to meet needs of TV shows, stage productions, film productions, or to suit any other such use. An arranger may adapt music to instruments not previously intended, as from piano to guitar or vocal to instrumentation. Adaptations may or may not include additions of new materials, may or may not incorporate another musical style, adjusting original classical music to jazz or adapting an a cappella piece to full orchestration. Pop music arrangers often create instrumentations of new material, adding them to recordings after the fact through mixing processes.

Computer software, samplers, and synthesizers now allow more people to write and arrange their own compositions. However, musicians who perform only, such as vocalists, rely heavily on arrangers for music production, and to adapt songs to suit personal styles and limitations. Arrangers will reorganize songs to fit particular formats of style, length, or situation for which they are to be used, by deleting or adding vocalizations, accompaniment, or instrumentation.

Arrangers not only customize original music and lyrics, but sometimes are also composers, who add new melodies, instrumentals, and lyrics to emphasize or enhance melodic or lyrical style or content. Some will attain a music contract to compose complete new works, such as film scores. Composers of are exceptionally adept in adjusting, stretching, and varying sounds of short or lengthy passages of music to meet constraints of visual scenes and sequences.

Arrangers are often musicians themselves, playing piano, trumpet, guitar, drums, etc. Multi-talented composers-arrangers-performers are often well-versed in various styles of music – jazz, R&B, classical, Latin, gospel, hip-hop, folk, pop, and more – and have developed notable careers writing, playing, recording, and collaborating with other musicians.

This article provides an overview of arrangers. If you would like to submit an article about arrangers, please feel free to do so here at Media Positive Radio.