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LOTR Songs Piano Arrangements
3pm, Sunday, September 27, 2020
Current mood: calm 
As detailed in my separate LOTR Songs section I finished the second tranche of my musical settings of Tolkien's poems from the Lord Of The Rings in late 2019. This left me with lead sheets for all 44 of the songs you will find if you open the book. (All the songs except the two that more properly belong in the "Songs From The Silmarillion" which is a separate project.) I needed to produce a proper set of arrangements if I ever expect anyone to perform these songs and I was unwilling to commit the time needed to produce full orchestral arrangements due to the Tolkien Estate's lawyers refusing to grant me permission to use JRR's words. For the time being the Estate have the upper hand, but the day will come when their copyright will run out and at that time my settings may legally be performed. To prepare for that day I needed to produce some sort of arrangement and so I decided to go the simplest route and produce a full set of arrangements for piano and various voices.
I have being doing musical arrangements since the year 2000. In that time I have produced a sizable catalogue of arrangements for various ensembles including two albums for rock band, numerous songs for choirs, various tunes for Celtic band, 1 long piece for mandolin orchestra, 1 string quartet, 10 pieces for solo piano, an album of songs for Martian quartet, (singer, piano, bass and violin), various duets, 21 songs for full orchestra, (including the 19 from the first tranche of my LOTR settings), 2 pieces for brass band, several pieces for pipe band and a raft of songs for piano and voice, including 19 songs from "Songs Of Travel". I don't claim to have the arrangement skills of Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, but I have certainly come a long way since I first set out to compose "The Jacobite Quartet"!
Like every good modern muso I can happily play any song from a lead sheet and you might think that in order to generate a piano accompaniment all I need do is play the piece from the lead sheet and write down all the notes. However it is not that simple. There are various reasons why properly thought out arrangements are superior to playing from lead sheets and they are a big part of why jazz is not popular with the mainstream.
- Lead sheet playing brings errors
No matter how accomplished you are at following the written chords there will be times when they are not entirely correct.
Sometimes there will be a passing note in the vocal line that jars against the chord even though the notes around it are fine. When playing block chords on the guitar this is not an issue as there is nothing you can do about it but when playing arpeggios on the piano there certainly is! You can micro-manage the notes within your arpeggio to accommodate the jarring vocal note. You can even change the chord half way through an arpeggio, regardless of what the lead sheet says, without disturbing the rhythm and feel of the bar. - Lead sheet playing does not pursue the optimal
When playing straight off a lead sheet your ambition is to get a decent part down. You don't have the time to experiment with a multitude of adjustments to see whether you can improve the track. If the part is true to the sheet and it fits with the other parts it will do! This is fine but it is often possible to find a better arrangement if one has the time and inclination. For example:
You can choose to start your arpeggio on a different note of the chord or to omit a note from the arpeggio entirely in order to better harmonise with the melody if you have the time to experiment and if you can hear the difference anyway. This doesn't mean the simple part is wrong, it just isn't optimal.
You may find a really good bass line or good harmony line which doesn't quite fit the lead sheet. At these points the master arranger can choose to alter the lead sheet to accommodate it but this option is not available to the player. - Lead sheet playing lacks variety
When playing from the lead sheet you naturally gravitate to an arrangement that works and is comfortable to play. When you find that you tend to stick to it. "If it ain't broke don't fix it." right? Sure, it's always best to get something that works but it can get pretty boring, especially if there are 3 or more verses.
In order to introduce variety into an accompaniment there are many tricks, for example:
Switch between arpeggios and block chords. Use 3rds interleaved with a lower note. Play the chord in a different register. Play the chord with quavers instead of crotchets. etc... - Lead sheet playing lacks complexity
As I mentioned above, one tends to find an arrangement that one is comfortable playing. This is understandable and it is not wrong but it is not going to challenge the performer nor spark interest in the brain of the jaded music listener. For the record I do not support complexity for its own sake but I do think it should be pursued when it is appropriate. Complex emotional or intellectual themes require a complex arrangement. There is no way you are going to get the sort of complex arrangement found in classical music from a lead sheet. Jazz musos produce complex arrangements but they are from Jazz theory not from the intense microanalysis of each bar required for classical composition. - Lead sheet playing does not allow for other parts
When rehearsing or playing live with other musos from the lead sheet you will generally be concentrating on getting your own part down and making sure that the ensemble meshes together, it is highly unlikely that your group will have the time or inclination to experiment with altering other people's parts for the betterment of the whole.
The master arranger, however can and does do these things. He can try parts an octave higher or lower. He can try to double the melody in 3rds or 6ths. He can double the bass line. He can place two parts off beat to each other. He can double or halve the number of notes per bar. etc... - Lead sheet playing doesn't know when to be silent or minimal
If you are a musician playing from a lead sheet it is your job to play. This is fine but sometimes it is better to be silent. Other times it is best to pull back your line for the improvement of the piece. These things are very effective when it is appropriate but when will that be? It is highly unlikely that a musician will choose not to play. It is the job of the arranger to make such decisions. If you have no arranger you have no decisions.
For these reasons there is no substitute for a properly notated complete arrangement. It is time consuming to micro-analyse each bar and experiment with numerous approaches but it is only with such painstaking work that one can attempt to produce something divine. When, eventually, you have removed every sub-optimal aspect of the piece it is then fit to be judged alongside all the other properly arranged works. When you compare these to pieces from lead sheets they are instantly far superior. This is similar to comparing studio albums to live ones. There are excellent live albums around but they are no match for the studio version when it comes to accuracy, clarity, balance and tone.
The completed work (sorry I can't show you the detail...)
It is essential to use one's imagination in coming up with an arrangement. Often one will be required to compose for instruments that one does not play or write a vocal line that one cannot sing! This is essential practice and do it one must, HOWEVER, there is nothing like writing for an instrument that one DOES play. When you play the instrument you know what can be done and how it should be done and you just write it out. Furthermore, you will achieve greater and better complexity as an arranger by writing what you can play, (or nearly play), than you will by using your imagination. You only need to listen to the piano sonatas written by concert pianists such as Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt to see this.
I began learning piano at 10 but although I continued to play it off and on throughout my life I did not devote myself to it with the passion that I did with the electric guitar until the last few years. Consequently I did not develop my technical skills to a high level. I could play Beethoven's Pathetique sonata, sort of, rather slow and riddled with mistakes and certainly not at a concert standard. I could sight read to an average level but certainly not with the facility of professional pianists.
When I set out to match it with Vaughan Williams in my "Songs Of Travel" arrangements I was very daunted. I couldn't even play all his arrangements so how could I compete? Where would I find the inventiveness and complexity that he brought to the table? But I put my doubts on hold and just had a good old fashioned go. I managed to find enough difficulty and complexity to get me started and give me heart. After a while I stopped worrying about competing with RVW and just wrote what worked best with the singer. Sometimes this was quite simple but other times I had to dig deep to find something complex and hard to play. I pulled out diminished chords, fast scales, arpeggios, big chords and other tricks to sound like the piece deserved to be on the concert platform. I couldn't play most of this stuff but I was able to get an idea of what worked by playing the arrangement through my computer's crappy wave-table synthesizer. Later when I found a pianist with the skill to play it I found that it indeed worked as I expected. Huzzah!
I didn't even own a piano until a few years ago when I inherited my father's. I had been using a crappy electronic keyboard for the past 20 years which allowed me to write songs and test harmonies but it was no substitute for a proper piano! That keyboard has been sitting locked away in a cupboard ever since I took receipt of my father's piano... I realised that my piano skills were not up to snuff so I began practising most days and no doubt my playing and understanding of the instrument has greatly improved as a consequence. I have written various piano pieces since then and although my skills are better than they were, they are still not approaching the concert platform.
Probably I will never be at the playing level of great composers like Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin and consequently it is difficult to write piano parts as difficult as those that they contrived. Nevertheless every improvement helps and I can certainly produce a big sound now and even though I can't play the fastest stuff I can at least imagine it. The other consideration is that it is not necessarily necessary to produce very fast and difficult material. What counts is whether it is satisfying to the audience. You only have to sit in the audience for the slow movements of Dvorák's Symphony #9 or Schubert's String Quintet to appreciate that it is not fast stuff that is best appreciated.
When it came to producing concert piano arrangements for "the Lord Of The Rings" I was not daunted because a) I had already overcome the problem with "Songs Of Travel" and b) I was not competing head to head with a famous pianist like RVW.
I believed that the songs were the important thing and that complexity and difficulty should only be used when necessary and that difficulty would never need to be employed for its own sake. Every step of the way my goal was to set Tolkien's words to the most appropriate effect. If the song was humorous I went for a funny accompaniment. If the song was grand I went for big chords. If the song was tragic I went minor key with some major interludes if appropriate. If the song was threatening I went minor and diminished chords and the deepest bass. If the song was reflective I went slow and beautiful. If the song was martial I pulled out the trumpet and drum fanfares and even the pipes!
In the end there is very little in the accompaniment that is virtuosic. It is not easy to play but it should be pretty straight forward for any professional pianist. I hope that I have struck a balance that is good for the audience: not too hard and not too easy. Certainly I am happy with what I have done!
It is amazing how much one learns when one is forced to do something numerous times. In the beginning it took me 2 days to finish one song but by the end I was doing two per day. Admittedly I was mentally exhausted after such days and struggled to get going in the morning, in fact I was unable to start until the afternoon, but I worked through to midnight towards the end.
When you understand that you just have to keep at it then that is what you do. I paid attention to little else while I was working on this project.
In less than 2 months I arranged 44 songs. A total of 209 manuscript pages. Yes Schubert & Mozart and the others did more but for me it was a lot of work and I still find it a satisfying achievement!
A final word for those who want to know what software I use to compose. It is Midisoft Forte Standard. A relic that hails back to the 1990s and this version is dated 2006. It is old, clumsy and bug-ridden BUT it works the way I want a notation program to work. Other more modern programs, such as Sibelius, do NOT! I don't recommend this program to people because it is so full of bugs and I'm not sure whether you can even still buy it. In a perfect world I would be able to buy the perfect notation software or at least a close approximation... Sadly I must continue with a cantankerous, ratty old thing , but that thing has brought me this far and, no doubt, all the great composers of the past would have cut off their left testicle to have it, so I shouldn't complain.
I am happy with my work on this project. My hope is that you, the listener, will one day have a chance to hear these arrangements. When that might be I cannot say, such matters are in the hands of Tolkien's Estate and more importantly, in the hands of the gods themselves.
So until that day comes I am: Warren Mars, the unknown composer. Hold the faith dear friend.
Job done!
Currently listening to:
String Quintet in C major by Franz Peter Schubert