You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Getting Arranging Gigs

Episode Date: May 6, 2019

Peter and Adam talk about their experiences on getting gigs arranging. Wanna send a SpeakPipe of your own? Check out the bottom of the page at http://www.openstudionetwork.com/podcast.Today's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? What's that little screen over there? You got extra screen. Are we doing old school? Yeah, I'm watching soap operas while we record this. Are those really still wrong? My stories. Only in Español. I'm Adam Anas.

Mejamo is Pedro Martinez. And you're listening to The You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Coming at you's today's episode of The You'll Hear It podcast is sponsored by the Oxford American. Go to Oxford American.org for a very special offer. That's OxfordAmerican.org slash Y-H-I. That's right. Things sound a little different in my cans today.

I like that. Well, actually, no, I don't like that because it's a little loud, but that's okay. Oh, it's a little loud? I got you, buddy. Oh, you can control that. I can control you right here. Andrew is out of town, our producer. So old school, I'm producing.

We're self-produced. Yeah. So we don't have to worry about different camera angles because we only have one today. Like, remember when the podcast was crappier? That's when I produced it. That's not true. Okay, maybe. No, but if you have any questions, comments, or complaints, send those to Adam Annett at Open Studio Network. All right, we have a speakpipe. This is from Charles.

Peter, Adam, what's happening? It's Charles out here in Atlanta. You two have done a great job of giving those of us who play tips on how to get and keep gigs. My question today is, for those of us who arrange. Do you have any tips for those of us who arrange on getting and keeping arranging gigs. Well, the keeping is probably pretty self-explanatory. Do a good job. Meet your deadlines. But getting the gigs can be something of a challenge at times.

So any suggestions you two have would be greatly appreciated. As always, you're doing a fantastic job. Keep it up. Thanks. Wow, what a great question. I don't know if a lot of musicians realize how much work there is out there for arrangers. There's quite a bit. you know before I came on to open the studio

in more of a full-time capacity I was doing I mean I was really building like a nice stable of people who were hiring me for a lot of arranging I just don't have enough time to keep it going now but yeah there's a lot of work out there if you're if you're good at it and you're fast and you're easy to work with yeah and I think that there was a thought a few years ago well really shoot 25 years ago now when it was like

the machines are taking over the machines are taken over and that there wasn't going to be any more need for arrangement. And things did change, I think, from the times when you had, well, I remember, like, you know, my dad when he was a kid, so we're going back to, like, the 50s and kind of 60s, he played in a, like, a studio orchestra, kind of a studio band. It was more of a band, but it had a few strings. He played violin in, like, when he was in high school, in, like, the NBC station in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they-

The local station had their own band. and had their own and for certain shows. And it was live. It was all live. I mean, I guess they did record some things, but it was mostly live. But there was like a staff arranger who was probably the piano player or whatever. And he'd just make these charts topical to whatever was on the news or whatever little show it was. And I mean, but every town had that.

And then the bigger cities had bigger orchestras and different bands. And there was so many live situations. And there wasn't the opportunities for recorded music along with. So, I mean, it was just constantly in need of new things. Yeah. So that did change. But I mean, yeah, there's still a lot of things. I mean, people love music and they want to have their music played for different combinations of instruments.

And that's really where arranging comes in as opposed to composition. Yeah. I mean, Charles, to help with your question about getting arranging gigs, I can kind of give you a brief background of how I started in it and sort of got my name around. It's really just throwing your hat in the ring to do arrangements. Yeah. And then proving that you can do them well and playing with a lot of instrumentalists that are going to need arrangements. So, like, I started with when I was in Aaron Bodie's band, and she would work with David Halen, who's the concert master here at the St. Louis Symphony, string quartets or even larger string, you know, string orchestras or whatever. And I just made it known like, hey, I want to do these string arrangements.

It was all for like, you know, jazz stuff for like pop standards and and you became like the jazz stringy guy. Well, this is the thing though. So another thing with this is understand where your strengths are. Like my strengths are not, you know, arranging Mozart for different ensembles or orchestrating, you know, classical stuff at all because I'm not a classical musician. But, you know, I can do jazz and gospel and even, you know, more pop and rock arrangements for R&B, for orchestras, for bands. Hip-hop? You did a little hip-hop thing for the Cardinals last year? I did a hip-hop thing for the Cardinals. That was really fun.

It was a game-changer. That was literally the name of the arrangement. But no, it's like know what your strengths are. Know that that's something that we can do as jazz musicians that classical musicians really can't do as well as us is these jazz arrangements. Right, right. So know that. And I would say, like, start hiring string players,

start hiring players of ensembles that you want to work with in your own thing and then make arrangements for them. They'll be impressed with your arrangements if they're good and then be like, you know, they'll file that away. He's like, all right, well, now we need a, we need an arrangement of amazing grace for this church service. And like, I know that guy Charles is good at it. So like, let's do it.

Yeah. And that's, yeah. And so since he was talking about getting and keeping arrangements, and he was right, he's like, well, he kind of answered his own question on the keeping part, do a good job and keep your deadlines. And I think you and I are both really good at one of those, too. Hey, I always keep my deadline.

It's just changes. No one knows what the mad rush is up to the deadline. That's right. It's not really into their business. That's right. No, but I mean, of course, those are both important, but doing a good job is the most important. Communication is the thing. Because look, deadlines are going to on both sides.

You know, they're going to push it up. They're going to pull it back, you know, communication. But yeah, I think getting it, your idea about, especially talking about the actual players, a lot of people don't think about that. It's not about impressing them. It's about working with them, getting to know them, letting them know. and I'm kind of reiterating now what you said and because they are the ones who are talking to the people that are going to actually

be making the decisions and we always assume oh there's so many great arrangers these big ensembles already know no they're always looking for people because you're saying you don't maybe arranging Mozart is not your specialty well that's good because they already have an arrangement of Mozart he wrote it out already yeah yeah so they don't need

that as much but but what are we always hearing like orchestra's always like we want to do different things and they don't have people on staff there they can do that so they're looking and And then there's so much, I mean, not to offend anybody out there listening, but there's so much, it's just an area of music that there's a lot of crap. Tons, smaltzy. Yeah, really just bad quality. We can make them sound cool.

Yeah, yeah. And they want quality arrangements. There's just a lot of good stuff. Now, part of that is because, you know, if you're not efficient at doing this, you can literally be working for less than minimum wage. You can get yourself into an illegal employment because the amount of time it takes to do it, especially when you're starting out, you're kind of investing, I think. for the future to when you get to that place where you can just sit down and bang out something really good in a couple hours. But when you're when you're when you care about you really have to look at as an investment to put your best thing. And then you get it into some ensemble, some orchestras, some different situations that are going to have an ongoing situation to hire you.

They'll be like, wow, you know, Adam really really nailed it on that that thing. I bet he could do this or whatever. And they don't usually, I mean, they're so used to mediocrity and below that you come up with something good. You can really, you know, kind of ride that as long as you can. can take it. Yeah, that's a great point. And one of the, one of the keys to keeping these gigs or getting more gigs or getting word of mouth that you're good at this is to also understand the situation that you're arranging for. Yeah. So oftentimes, like, I've arranged for major symphony orchestras with, like, two weeks notice, three weeks notice, and I know that they're going to spend a total of five

minutes rehearsing the arrangement before they play at one time. Right. So I'm not going to make that arrangement crazy hard to read a bunch of different change like time, tempo changes, time changes. I'm going to make it super readable on one rehearsal and throw in a couple of really hit moments so that it's memorable. You know what I mean? Or maybe set a vibe that I know is something I can do that, you know, maybe they don't have. But understanding the key to keeping these gigs and getting more of these gigs is that you need to make it easy for the people running these these ensembles. Yes.

That's your job. You need to make it easy and make them look good. That's right, because that's what they're really asking for. I mean, and sometimes they actually can't, there's somebody there,

they can't do it, but they don't have time or, or all the pieces together. Right. And so I think this thing of knowing what you're writing for, not only the instrumentation,

obviously you have to know that, but what the occasion is or is this something, like, you know, I did it a, well, that was actually, was that, no, that was a composition.

I did a commission. I mean, I don't look at them, I don't know about you, I don't look at the composition and the arrangement that differently. I mean, it's like not in terms of the work. You know, obviously you have more leeway in a commission, but I did something for a laramble sound.

And that was like, that's the time to like go into different times. I mean, if you're feeling. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So that, but that's about knowing the situation. Know the situation. Yeah, if it's a chamber orchestra that's avant-garde and is going to spend time, they're going to, they probably spent a week on your piece.

Yeah, and they're not going to tell you, make it really fussy and a lot of time changes. But you got to know that. That's part of you doing. doing your due diligence. And then, yeah, if you're going into a situation that's going to be like in a big stadium or whatever, it's got to have punch, it can't be this little thing that's just so delicate or whatever, like you'd have in a small chapel. And that's really how, I mean, I know that's more along the lines of keeping it,

but that's also along the lines of getting it. You've got to go into that first meeting or whatever. And it's kind of a little bit more mercenary than some of the other things that we do. Like you've got to let them know, yes, I can bang this out. And when they're like, well, we need it by four days from now. And you say, all right, cool, I can do it. know that you're not going to have a bunch of time, but be confident that you're going to do something simpler,

but that's going to be effective. Because all that other crap you're going to write, no one's going to hear that anyway in that big situation. That's exactly right. In that big situation, a lot of those little details get lost anyway, especially if it's a pop arrangement and there's someone singing in,

there's a drum set, you know. And I think that's the reason you get a lot of these really good opportunities and you're getting more is because, and I'll just say a quick example as we move to the end of another brilliant episode, I might say. Like, you know, you take what you, some of your compositions and some of your arrangements for your group, the 442s, which is a very exposed, well, it's getting bigger now with drums and different things,

but there's times where it's very, you know, small and exposed and like you can hear all the things and very delicate, can be, and a lot of range to it. You write in a certain way, then when you write something that's going to be played in Bush Stadium coming out of like crappy speakers all over the place with timing or whatever, I don't know if you even overtly thought about that, but it came across in what you wrote so that it's going to work for the situation. Broad strokes, yeah, I did think about that. I mean, that's one of these things that you have to be aware of.

So, Charles, really, you know, just as if you were, like, wanting to get in on a jazz scene, get on these scenes with these instrumentalists that need arrangements, also talk to them about what makes it efficient, you know, in a one and done kind of situation, right? In a studio session where it's like, we have a 20-minute rehearsal for the piece, and then we're going to, you know, track it in an hour.

Like, talk to the violinists about, like, what makes this easy to read? what makes this hard to read. You know what I mean? That stuff is super valuable. Yeah, because you always want to think about, especially there's always some kind of like time or money or number of players or deadline. You know, there's always, rarely is there like, we want you to do an arrangement and it's

an unlimited budget and we don't care what you do. We're going to love it no matter what. And get it to us when you can, you know, things that have never been told to an arranger, you know. Can we give a, I have an ultimate tip here. Yeah. At the end. Okay.

But we're not there yet. We're not quite there yet. We're close. We're close. We're very close. But remind me about that ultimate shit, because it's one of yours. Okay, good. Actually, it's one of your dads.

Okay, good. Let's call it one of my. Okay. He's giving me other things. But, yeah, no, I think that that's good, and I think we nailed it as usual. Don't forget to go to the Oxford American website. That's Oxford American. Hey, sign up for their e-newsletter.

It's great. Sign up for the... It's free. It's free. It's free. To let you know what's coming out. Look, I mean, just to let you know, they have a little bit of an ulterior. Can we let them know about that?

Sure. The Oxford American's ulterior motives with that free newsletter. What? They think people are going to sign up for that, consume some of their beautiful content, and then want to subscribe later on. Well, yeah. Oh, is that how it works? Okay, good.

Yeah. But it works. What are we doing this podcast for, buddy? Our health? Yeah, so they'll come back tomorrow. Yeah, but then when you do go to subscribe, come back to Oxfordamerican. org slash YHI for a very nice little deal. Yeah, absolutely.

And, hey, thanks, Charles. Charles is actually a really good transcriber for Open Studio. Ah. Oh, this is that, Charles. Yeah, drummer. Oh, nice. Yeah. So thanks for the speak.

pipe. Keep the speak pipes coming, everybody. We got a flood of them this week. Exactly. And we love them because we love hearing from you. We love answering your questions. Go to you'll hear it.com to leave us your voicemail. We call it a speak pipe. People are getting into the speak pipe name too, by the way. I know. We are promoting that company. We've got to find out something about that company. Maybe we do the speak pipe sponsorship. And this is no pressure or anything. But just so you know, Adam's correct, we have been getting a ton of speak pipes. But at a very high level. I mean, Charles is right up there at the top. But all of them have been pretty. good. So no pressure, but bring it,

but bring it strong. For real. Okay. Okay, so our ultimate tip. Yes. This comes from Peter Martin. This comes from Bill Martin. And that is if you're writing for strings, don't mark your bow marks in the actual notation software, write them in

by hand with a pencil. Yeah. So that it looks like an actual string player made those bow markings. And the string players that read that chart will then respect them more. Exactly. Exactly. Thus making you look better because they'll actually play them. They'll think that a real violinist made these bow markings

and a real actual rehearsal situation even though it was just the arranger marking the movie by hand. And then ultimate tip number two that goes with that too is like do them in pencil, don't do it in pen. Because you think, oh, then they're going to change them, but you probably want them to change them. Unless you have some bad players. But they

won't be that confident to change them anyway, so you can still have them in pencil. Pro tip number three, if you don't know what bow markings are, don't write anything. Exactly. And until tomorrow. And until tomorrow, you'll hear it.