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Topic: Pedal steel arrangement |
Robert Murphy
From:
West Virginia
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Posted 2 Nov 2022 8:13 am |
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| How do you go about arranging parts for original songs? For me it’s 1. map out the chord changes measure by measure. 2. Find the two or three places on the neck where I can smoothly make the changes and 3. select the strings which best carry the melody/harmony. I do mostly backup and fills. Thanks |
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Howard Parker
From:
Maryland
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Posted 2 Nov 2022 8:20 am
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Listen..Listen..Listen.
What are the other parts and players doing? What are the lyrics, mood, feel?
Where are the places that I should NOT be adding a part?
It's about the art and what best serves the art.
h
_________________
Howard Parker
03\' Carter D-10
70\'s Dekley D-10
52\' Fender Custom
Many guitars by Paul Beard
Listowner Resoguit-L |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 10:37 am
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I agree in principle with what Howard said. Additionally, there is the issue of what the songwriter and producer wants, if the question pertains to recording.
I play in a band with a songwriter/leader who doesn’t really know what he wants from the steel and leaves it almost entirely up to me to decide. It’s mostly Not Country. I usually will play as tastefully as I can all the way through the song, playing chord backup, fills, and solos. Sometimes I listen back to recordings of our live shows and I can figure out what’s working and what needs to be pulled out. Other times I know right off the bat.
So my approach is always to experiment with something/anything before deciding “no part at all” is the best thing. If the straight steel sound isn’t right for the song, I’ll add some fx. If there are background vocals going on, I try to stay out of the way of that.
A lot of what the guy writes is not very harmonically interesting one-chord verse and chordal riff chorus stuff. So the steel becomes more of a layer of sound, rather than a singing instrument. Not exactly what I had in mind when I started playing 6 years ago, but it is a challenge, and a gig is a gig... |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 3 Nov 2022 1:16 pm
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Remember Jeff Newman's "Show me what you can't play".
I recorded a lot of song demos for "retired" Nashville songwriter and producer Jimmy Peppers. There's a lot of songs that have lead instrument on intro, break and ending only. |
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