How to Arrange Anything, Step 2: Color In the Outline

By Anne Sullivan

Your arrangement starts with finding the basic structure, the outline of the piece. That’s what I described in last week’s blog. If you played that basic structure, it should sound like the piece you are arranging, but it most likely won’t sound the way you want. It’s too basic. So imagine your piece is like a coloring book, and let’s find the crayons and color it in. The good news is that you have a nearly limitless range of colors in your harp crayon box. The challenge is choosing. 

In this second step of arranging, our aim is to create melody and accompaniment parts that sound more like the harp music we usually play, not quite as empty-sounding as our starter version of our arrangement, but not so hard that we can’t play it either. Basically, you want to add notes to each hand to make each part sound fuller and a little “harp-ier.” Here’s how to do it:

1. Look through your old music and find three pieces that you like that are fairly easy for you to play.
2. Look at the left hand parts of each of those pieces. What patterns do they use? Are there chords or arpeggios? What rhythms do you see? Which parts are easy to play and which parts are more difficult?
3. Next look at the right hand parts. When the right hand is playing the melody, does it also play chords or intervals? Are there big rolled chords or sharper, more accented ones? What else does the right hand do as it plays the melody?
4. Now, choose two of the left hand patterns from your pieces to use in your arrangement. You will likely have to change the key, and you may have to adapt the rhythm a little. Try using one of the patterns for the verses and the other for the chorus, just to create a difference in sound between the sections.
5. Lastly, add to the melody of your arrangement, using the right hand parts from your other pieces as models. You can choose where you might want to add lots of notes, just a few notes, or maybe not add any notes at all for variety.

Now you’re ready to try playing your arrangement in its new colored-in version. Tweak it until it sounds the way you want. One last suggestion - don’t get carried away and try to add any special effects yet. Focus on the melody and accompaniment, the most important building blocks of the piece. We will get to the “harp bling” next week!