Arranging

One of the biggest things I wanted to improve on during this project is learning about arranging specifically for rock bands. I have played in a wedding band for Music for Scotland so I have some experience in creating live versions of covers but for this project I had the opportunity to focus on specifics rather than in a wedding band setting where I was learning 45 songs this time it was just 7 songs. This meant I could focus more on specifics of the arrangements. I started by watching videos of the original artists playing the songs. I started with ‘Foxey Lady’ by Jimi Hendrix. I first found videos of Hendrix playing the song and took notes of how they arranged the song, taking specific notes on dynamics, tempo changes and structure. Then I found sheet music for the 3 instruments in the song. I noted where instruments cut out and come back in, and made sure all dynamic markings and structures were the same in all the pieces of music. I then took this knowledge to the practice room where we tried playing the pieces like the sheet music but slowly developed the arrangements to fit the instruments that we have in the band and to fit the specific players in the band. This led to our version being still feeling true to the original piece but with some slight arrangement decisions that made our version our own. I felt like making the songs sound like our own was important as anyone can go listen to the recording of Hendrix playing ‘Foxey Lady’ but if we make the song our own then they must come see our show to listen to our version hopefully leading to more people coming to our gigs.

One of the key parts of my decision making in regard to arrangement was adding Dylan into the band. This was due to the band sounding not as full and missing key parts of the songs especially when I stopped playing rhythm guitar and started soloing. I felt like the mid-range was an issue, so I recruited Dylan into the band to play bass. I knew the current bassist Roo is also a guitarist, so he played the rhythm guitar parts which filled out the sound. Another key arranging decision I made was changing the song ‘Going Down’ with the song ‘Worried Dreams’ I originally felt like Roo’s rhythm guitar could imitate the sound of a piano and create the same effect there is in the song. Unfortunately, we tried many ways of playing it and with many different effects on his guitar, but nothing seemed to give the same drive the piano did in the original song.

'Still got the blues' before Dylan joined

'Still Got the blues' after we got Dylan

Our arrangement of 'Foxey Lady'

The video we used as a reference (Hendrix, 2020)

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Foxey Lady (Live In Maui, 1970) (2020) Youtube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv97c3W6lw8 (Accessed: January 18, 2023).