Customer Reviews

Arranging Concepts Complete: The Ultimate Arranging Course for Today's Music (Dick Grove Arranging Series)

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This book is chock-full of good information, and the accompanying CD is definitely an added bonus. Ultimately, it deserves a spot on the shelf of any arranging student. However, some of the material is dryly presented in the form of tables which the student is advised to refer to, instead of being explained as a concept from which the student can base his/her own decisions (ex. the chapters on voicings in fourths, clusters, and plural chord relationships). Also, I would not advise this book for those interested in arranging for strings...this book focuses solely on saxes, brass, woodwinds, percussion and the rhythm section.

On the plus side, the book gives a solid chapter on "Working Procedures for Writing an Arrangement", and its discussion of harmony and orchestral color in terms of "density levels", "octave span" and "weight" is refreshing, easy to understand, and unique.

This book will definitely augment (pun intended) your arranging knowledge, but if you're just starting, I'd highly recommend "Modern Jazz Voicings" by Ted Pease and Ken Pullig, "Arranging for Large Jazz Ensemble" by Ken Pullig, and/or a good jazz theory book as a starting point...the denser parts of this book will make more sense after that.

A very detailed mathematical aproach to band arranging. Useful tables to cover all practical situations, mostly from the point of view of horn section arranging. Somewhat light on in terms of rhythm section arranging. This book doesn't aim to teach you WHAT to write, but if you already have some experience in band arranging and are familiar with extended chords and basic harmonic and melodic concepts, it will help to guide you through the labyrinth of endless musical possibilities. Band arranging from a jazz (thus also blues/rock/pop/show music etc) perspective, not so much concert band or wind orchestra.

Arranging Concepts is a complete reference source for answers to most basic questions confronting an arranger, composer or orchestrator. As a student of Grove's, it was absolutely essential as one of many of his publications I needed in my library. Dick's program, texts, classes and assignments gave a complete immersion in composing as a trade. He was a great teacher. This book sums up the basic language of composing. Sadly, many of his other works are no longer in print. But, I am very glad I have much of that library. It's invaluable to any musician. And, yes it does not answer every question. If you can also find Modern Harmony, Modern Harmonic Relationships or the very difficult to find Advanced Modern Harmony, consider yourself very fortunate.

I had the feeling there must be some suplimentary material I was missing while trying to read this book. Alot of ideas that had no explanation. Basically I gave up trying make use of this book.

It has some of the usual stuff included in books on this subject, like instrument ranges. For me, there were just too many ideas without a clue as to HOW to do it. You might as well say "try to make good sounding songs" "try to keep your melodies interesting" "use discipline, and good judgment in your arrangment". If you are a fan of this style of advice and teaching, then you will love this book.

Dick Grove was a master teacher, and during his life generated reams of didactic material. For those of us lucky enough to sit under his teaching he was an amazing and inspiring mentor. During my year at Dick Grove School of Music he generated dozens of pages of teaching material weekly. We would carry around thick three ring binders which got heavier every week.

Having said all that, this book is just a small segment of his vast reservoir of thinking on music, and should be seen as only a part of the picture. You would probably need to get more of his books in order to to fill out the picture. Also, this material may have been intended to be used in his classes, which would account for the minimal explanations. I also think that he was always moving forward in his search to explain music, and this book may be a snapshot of where he was at this point in time, but not where he ended up.