I’ve recently started something that has helped me in arranging songs. I’ll take the hymn or Children’s Songbook song I want to arrange and print it out in the key or keys I want it to be in. Since lds.org does the key changes for you, it makes it so much easier!

So, here’s what I do. I print it out and put it on the keyboard in front of me before I pull out my composing music paper. I play it through a few times adlibbing an arrangement. If I come up with a different melody for a phrase or chord to accompany the melody that sounds interesting, I write it on the sheet music I printed out. This gives me a few ideas for when I start to write it out.

Sometimes you’ll think of good ideas before you are writing out your music so this makes sure you get some of them down before you forget it. I have done this and it is a sad thing! It can be messy and crowded to do it this way but it has helped me 🙂

I was trying to find a transition between two verses and what I was coming up with was pretty boring and frankly, not fitting right. So I played the arrangement up to that point and stopped as soon as the verse was over. I closed my eyes and started singing in my head what would sound good. I was able to come up with a beautiful sound the first time I tried this.

I’ve definitely heard music in my head before but this time it helped to stop at a part I was stuck on and try to get my brain instead of my fingers to figure it out.

I’ve been working on a song in 6/8 time. Toward the end of the song I had a measure where the melody had 3 eighth notes then a dotted quarter. It didn’t sound right. I mean, it wasn’t a bad sound but it wasn’t interesting. When I switched that up and played the dotted quarter first then the 3 eighth notes, it not only sounded really good but it had a different feel than other parts of the song. It was just what that part of the song needed. Try out switching rhythms!