Orchestrating a Paul Desmond solo as a sax soli - Big Band Arranging SECRETS REVEALED

[@blendedplanet]

Elliot, you're concisely offering tasty nuggets of balanced theory and practice that make creative lights turn on. Typical response to your videos is "omg - THAT'S how it works! I wanna go try this right now!"

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Thank you! You get it!

[@SharpElevenMusic]

oh and let me add that this passage that you use here was always one of my absolute favorites, I like so much this sequence that pushes upwards and resolves right at the end. Tension and release, what a beautiful example of that

[@MegaPiano2010]

Great fun to watch you work, Elliot! Lot of great tips here

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Thanks Gary!

[@alisonmelogt]

I have learned a lot from you! For me these "hands on" videos make learning much easier!

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

I am so glad! That's exactly what I was hoping people would take away.

[@kevinhagen8373]

Great job

[@etilec]

Your videos are always very interesting. Something different would be latin or ballad arrangement!

[@MikeJamesMedia]

Nice, Elliot!

[@aarongrooves]

I just binged a bunch of your videos. You have some amazing content! And your arrangements are slammin! Also, congrats on the teaching jobs!! I hope that comes with even more musical freedom and a lab. But teaching can be such a weight sometimes lol.

[@MichaelUpmore]

Great videos, please don’t ever delete them! I am very grateful. I hope you make more of them. I have a question about Alto2 bar 35 .. the dotted 8th is a Eb but two notes before that it is a F, with the alto1 playing the same tone in both cases (Ab). Tenor1 playing the same Eb as the alto2 on the dotted 8th. Have I missed something or should the alto2 play a F?

[@pelonso533]

Excellent video, every videos of your channel. How i work when i make Voicings, Is to hang down the notes using Alt+ (number of interval) then, when i finish the Voicing, i Select it everything, copy, pick on the staffs where i Will put the notes AND use "Explode" tool , then the soft put each voice in its staff

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

I've tried doing it that way, but I guess my brain doesn't work that way. That IS a great procedure that works for a lot of arrangers. When I studied with Jeff Jarvis, he wrote parts with that method, using the explode tool.

[@art.tarakanow]

Yeah, this is really a great tool, I use it a lot. However I feel necessary to go through each part and do a "spell check". Make the accidentals more readable and also double check for awkward repeated notes or large interval skips. Sometimes I have to tweak a few passing chords to make each line more linear, especially in these kind of Soli sections

[@franciscluster]

Hello from France ! Please could you make a video explaining what harmonization settings Michael Brecker used when he played multi-voices solos with his synthesizer sax, what strange chords he developed? For my part I am in the process of writing an arrangement (non-commercial for pleasure) for symphony orchestra + big-band from a piece by Bill Evans on solo piano, if you are interested I will send you the video link when it is will be finished in a few days I think, I would need your advice on corrections ? Congratulations for your very informative videos that I just discovered today! (sorry if it's wrongly written in English, I'm French)

[@tooter1able]

Congratulations on the teaching gigs. The few lessons I had with you helped immensely. Will contact you

[@SharpElevenMusic]

Great tutorial Elliot! Really nice to follow you along the process. And this bit sounds amazing already, can't wait to record this! Let me share this on our page, all saxophonists that play in sections and big bands should know some about these inner workings

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Please share! And thank you for being so patient with this project. I finished the Charlie Parker song WAY faster. It was easier to get a project like this finished when I wasn’t teaching full time!

[@SharpElevenMusic]

@@PandemoniumBigBand Icompletely get that dynamic, as I'm also trying to juggle between part time teaching, playing gigs as saxophonist and being a father... an then some KZbin :) Appreciate you doing this a lot! I can already envision the result of it and it will be really cool and different from the usual sax soli's, which a re typically bebop oriented from the leads perspective

[@realcalvins]

can you please do a woodwind doubling video. like guidelines, techniques, who to assign each instrument things like that.

[@markmetzler9108]

Thanks for the PD tour! That was interesting and fun to boot. The frequency of the posts are not nearly as important as the content quality. Keep up the great work. Wish I could be a fly on the wall for your classes.

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Thank's Mark! I've got another two videos in the works. I really want to get back to more regular posts.

[@SharpElevenMusic]

In case anyone worndered how the full version of this turned out, here it is as part of the Desmond 100 year anniversary homage: kzbin.info/www/bejne/foHJfnV9epajrKc

[@monsterjazzlicks]

Have subbed!

[@michaellessel5532]

Hi Elliot, I’m extremely new to arranging for big band and I’ve run into an issue that I was curious if you had any pointers for. I’m fairly well versed in music theory but I’m having a hard time deciding when you arrange certain parts of a piece of music in a certain way. For instance, I started arranging a piece and decided to begin with the melody played by sax soli but it sounded terrible! And when I had the saxophones play the melody in unison I had no idea what I should make the trumpets and trombones do. Is there any general pointers I can consider when making the decisions on how to arrange the parts?

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

The short answer is… you don’t need the trumpets, trombones, or saxophones to play all of the time. Unison saxes might be all that you need for that figure.

[@michaellessel5532]

@@PandemoniumBigBandthanks!

[@sarge8761]

I understand this comment is off topic, but I just want to make sure of something. If a melody is to be harmonized with closed voicing over a slash chord, instead of leaving out the root, do you leave out the note that's in the bass? example: C9sus4/Bb. If the melody note is F, would you harmonize it like D, C, G (leaving out bass note)? Or would you harmonize it like D, Bb, G (leaving out root)? Not sure if this is a good example or not..

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Try it both ways and see which sounds better to you. I think the answer depends on the particular phrase or slash chord.

[@yannschwab8816]

On a minor 11 with the 11th on top, why not use a 9th as the second voice ? I see you generally stick to one extension per chord, is it a stylistic choice ?

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

I am using 4-note voicing. It’s usually sounds more like the chord when you’re hearing 3 chord tones, 1 extension… in my experience. When I voice out the full band in a tutti voicing, then I’ll sometimes use both the 9th and the 11th.

[@leonli7394]

Nice video Elliot! Btw do you offer 1on1 online classes? May I have your email please? Thank you!!!

[@PandemoniumBigBand]

Email is in the video description! [e-mail]

[@leonli7394]

@@PandemoniumBigBand Great！I have send it to you！