Re: Alternative approaches to arrangement/composition?

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

That's a very interesting topic, Marcus. I don't find you post "vague"
as you are actually presenting the "adding/subtracting approach". I'd
like to chime with "the complimentary approach" then. When you have an
idea for a musical part you can focus on coming up with something
different that complements, kind of "fills in" what you left out in
that first part. I have found that less musical clues you put into a
piece the more awarding will the listening experience be, given the
listener gets the piece. The challenge is to find the balance between
how much you can hold off from and where you may start running the
risk of loosing the story-telling dimension.

Another exciting approach is to compose without an instrument. Use a
comfy sofa and make up the parts in you imagination before physically
playing them. Or to use two-handed instruments/setups. Like a keyboard
divided into a left hand sound patch and a right hand sound patch.
Then let the two hands jam together like two musicians. Can be done on
guitar too if tapping instead of plucking.

Playing monophonic instruments, or single-string melody playing with
guitar, can also be fun if you focus on "playing chords". You will
then have to build arpeggios into the melodies in order to imply the
chords that isn't really played. Making the listener "hear" something
that isn't there "hands-on" is the trick here.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.perboysen.com
http://www.youtube.com/perboysen



On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Marcus Kirby <marcusloops@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> I generally loop guitar, get the skeleton of the drums/bass, then
> arrange via adding/subtracting.
>
> Does anyone have any different philosophies/methods that they use for
> arranging and composing? Borrowing techniques from different fields,
> maybe something like compositions based on "game of life" or art, or
> whatever.
>
> Sorry for being vague, but I don't even know what exists.
>