I have been playing synths for a long time but I feel stupid - what is an arranger? Sounds like a character out of Lord of the Rings.

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"Rock While You Can"
http://www.lastband.com

Hi Billy.

In general, an arranger keyboard will have styles (rhythms, dance beats, etc) and auto-accompaniments to the styles that play the bass lines, drums, brass, guitars, ANY instrument parts.

Arrangers are a great thing for a single or duo act.

Ed

In the most basic of terms, an arranger is a keyboard that allows a player to play cords in the left hand and get a full accompaniment with drums, bass, guitar or some cord instrument and some other filler instruments. Every time you play a different cord, the accompaniment would also move to play that cord.

If arranger keyboards are used properly and to their fullest potential, the advantage of having such a feature is that one person could sound like a live and happening band as opposed to sounding like some one playing keyboards to a backing midi or MP3 recording.

I am sure that other members would give a more detailed explanation of an arranger.


TTG

Hmmm...... a canned, repetitive, pre-arranged backing track triggered in real time vs. an exact, solid, recreation of an existing arrangement on MP3 or sequenced, while the player has the ability to embelish at will using two hands to comp the same way we do in a live band ...... tough choice. I use both methods, but I think it's even more believable when I play my own bass lines, piano chords and sing the melody.

In essense ... "WE" are the arrangers, and we use all sorts of tools to enhance our performance of the melody, whether sung or played on an instrument. In short - the arranger is all the "stuff" behind the melody.

In human terms: a composer is someone who thinks of a melody and the chords to underline the melody. An arranger is someone who turns the composition into a piece for orchestra, so the drummer, guitarist, bassplayer, hornplayers etc. will know what to do. An arranger gives the drummer, bassplayer, guitarist and pianist some freedom by not exactly writing down every note, but for instance just the chords and indications for breaks etc.
In keyboard terms an arranger is an "orchestra" that doesn't know what to do, untill the keyboardplayer tells it what to do by playing chords - so in the words of Uncle Dave: WE are the arrangers.
But fortunately we players have help from professional musicians who give us templates for the arrangements, called styles. The human arranger has the help of a professional drummer, we have the help of a professional drummer playing his part as a template.
The Arranger-players have to play the melody, the chords and play the buttons for breaks, fill-ins and multipads (short sequences you can compose yourself, or you can use - mostly simple - templates). And so we can sound like an orchestra.
I like the arranger because it gives me more freedom in my playing and inspires me, because I am not playing all by myself anymore.


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drdalet

[This message has been edited by drdalet (edited 11-30-2004).]

Well said, Dr.

Think of an arranger as one of those $89 toys from the Mart. It plays beats and cool sounds and lights up and...

As you get further up the arranger food chain, things get more and more sophisticated; sounds get closer to and sometimes exactly as the high-end synths. Beats are more realitic and sound real. Backing rhythm chords and stabs are top-notch. Other features make the art of making music simpler and more realistic. Arrangers can help you create a song idea or record an entire piece.

Arranger - the vehicle for putting musical parts together into a cohesive unit. In this case it's a machine, not a person.

I have been wanting to ask this question for long but deemed it is a stupid question.

Thanks to everybody for sharing your own understanding.

An arranger is all of the above, plus...
...a tool that enables me to sound convincingly good, to people who don't understand what's really going on....namely that I can't really play.... :-))
or maybe,
....a tool that makes an amateur musician (sometimes pros too) very happy, and manages to feed many a people in this forum.

Try one Billy, I think you'll like It.