Arrangement Strategies for Finishing More Music

Arrangement Structure

Arrangement is one of the most overlooked aspects of music production both on YouTube and in online courses (myself included). It’s just not as glamorous or exciting as exploring new techniques or getting a vibe going at the start of a track. Instead, it involves a lot of trial and error & is much harder to show in a short 7 minute video. 

That being said, it’s just as vital a part of the process as any other and actually quite an easy one to get to grips with. In the next 3 blog posts & accompanying Patreon video, I’m going to give you loads of tools to help you take your 16 bar loops and initial ideas & expand them to full arrangements.

The Production Process

Before we dive into any arrangement strategies, I thought it would be very beneficial to visualise the production process as a whole. It then becomes easier to understand each stage a track needs to go through to get to it’s final destination i.e release. 

Early Production Phase - Expanding Initial Ideas - Arranging To A Full Track - Final Edits & Mix - Mastering - Artwork - Distribution 

I think most people probably get stuck somewhere between the funnest part, which is the early production phase, and hardest part which is expanding their idea to a full arrangement.

Here, the initial creative burst which had you dreaming of dropping your track main stage at a huge festival has started to wane a little. The cool pitching, reversed snare technique you were testing out has worked it's magic, and now you need to figure out how to turn your initial idea into something that actually represents a complete piece of music.

Whats most important to remember at this stage is that you want to keep pushing the track forwards & make decisions for the track as whole. This is not the time to go back and mess with a snare tone for an hour! 

Copy and paste sections, mute different instruments to see how they affect the vibe. Focus on audio editing techniques and basic mixing and try not to drift back into production as much as possible. Don’t worry, we will cover loads of audio techniques in part 2 of this arrangement blog series 'Progressing Existing Elements'.

Track Structure - Patreon Video Series

An idea I keep coming back to, is to create 3 distinct sections that can be used as basis for further developing a track. I showed this technique in a patreon series a while back where I built out an Intro, A passage and B passage.

Having three sections like this gives you a great idea of how you want to begin the track, the main drop idea & also a way to progress the tune later on. 

This is just one strategy you can use to instantly break free of 16 bar loop hell without spreading the track out too quickly. This is another common mistake people make, where they try to flesh a track out too early without having enough ingredients to work with.

Track Structure - Learn To Build Common Types Of Sections

Even if you have your own ways of arranging, learning to build the different sections that commonly make up a dance track can stop you getting stuck at the early production phase.

For 90’s jungle this would typically be:

Intro - Often dominated by lush pads, atmospheric textures or samples. Minimal percussion & strong use of FX. Introducing elements slowly. 

Build - Energy begins to rise. Often quite stripped back to allow the drop to have maximum impact. Drum rolls, reverse elements & risers towards a crescendo.

Drop - Maximum energy, bass Impact, drums, core rhythmical or hook elements. 

Variation - Drums switch or progress, bass development, introduce new elements like pulse percussion layers (hats, shaker).

Switch - Much more extreme variation, takes the track in a different direction with lots of new elements.

Breakdown - Energy drops and then slowly builds again, needs to be different from the intro, often eludes to elements in the second half of the track like vocals, filtered bass & FX. 

Second Drop (Variation) - Wants to be similar but evolved from the first drop. Bass variations & layering, drum variations & FX.

Stripped Back - Just drums, bass & FX. Great opportunity for more experimental techniques with drum FX or bass layering. Provides a break for the ear from other main track elements like pads, chords or samples. 

Outro - Can bring back earlier elements but nothing new added, slowly fade energy. Remove drums, bass, instruments 1 by 1. 

I think this is a great place to start for arranging & hopefully provides a good way to visualise the process and understand the task at hand! Next time we will dive into ‘Progressing Existing Elements’ and then finally to ‘Adding New Elements’.

I hope that these three blog posts will give you more than enough tools to finish your music! I’m going to follow these up with a Patreon video heading towards another feedback stream with Alex in a month or two.

Cheers everyone,

George ✌️