The most repeated advice I’ve heard about becoming a better musician is “listen to music.” As a musician, I listen to a lot of music already, so that’s like telling someone with asthma they should breathe in through their nose. That’s not the issue.
What we need to learn is how to listen actively and transpose or document what we’re hearing. I suck at transposing anything other than a vocal line. Instead, I created a way for me to map out what’s happening in a song or piece then analyze what’s happening from there. This is just my method, though. I’m sure there are tons of ways to do this, but for some reason, music teachers all over YouTube and the blogosphere think telling folks to “just listen” is enough.
Here’s Aisha’s Method to Mapping Out A Musical Arrangement!
The Tools You’ll need
A good set of headphones and an audio interface, if possible.
You don’t want to listen through computer speakers or other bluetooth speakers. The music needs to be in your ears so you can hear each instrument in the mix. An audio interface will help you hear even more intricacies, but you can live with just plugging into your computer headphone jack.
A good music player
I use Capo, but Spotify or Apple Music will be OK for general mapping as long as you can mark the time easily. Capo allows you to slow the music down, has a scrub bar that’s divided up into seconds and measures. It can even let you isolate certain ranges so you can just hear the bass if you like.
Notebook and pencil with a good eraser
I use graph paper because it’s easier to line things up vertically and horizontally, but you can mark your own vertical lines, too. An eraser is essential because you’ll definitely change your mind about what you think you heard. If you like to live dangerously, use a pen!
Now that you’ve got your supplies, I’m going to outline the steps. Below is the final analysis; feel free to hop back and forth between the steps and image to help you understand what I’m doing. For this example, I listened to Barry White’s “Love’s Theme.” It’s a short orchestral piece, it’s a bop, it’s fun, and it’s disco. I recommend going for the shorter pieces and songs with this process. If you want to tackle a bigger work that’s more than 5 minutes in length, I recommend score reading. You’re going to be listening to this song over, and over, and over. The shorter, the sweeter.
Step One: First Pass, Instruments and Form
On your first listen, write down each of the instruments you hear as they come up. You can group sections together and isolate voices that you think are important. In Love’s Theme, I put “Drums” together to mean it’s a drum kit. If I wanted more, I’d list down each drum. I also grouped together the string section and horn section, but isolated the flute is it has a nice little solo. The harp is also isolated because it’s used especially in transitions.
If you can do it at the same time, mark down the form sections. I used A B A1 (A prime), etc. Love’s Theme has a couple drops that I marked as such because so many of the instruments literally dropped out. If you’re listening to a song with lyrics, write down verse 1, chorus, refrain, etc. Do what makes sense to you.
The other element you can pay attention to is motifs, or in this case, themes. There’s the main “Love’s Theme” in this piece which gets repeated and played by other sections and instruments, which I marked with hearts. In other songs, you can write down “loop 1” or “walking bass” or “motif 1” depending on what its function is in the music.
Step Two: Build the Scaffolding
Take out your paper, your pencils, and your erasers. At the top of the page, write the song title; you don’t want to forget what the heck all these squiggles represent. Beneath the title, mark out evenly spaced minutes and seconds starting at :00 to minute or 30 seconds before the song ends – you’ll want space for any big finishes.
Listen to the song again, then underneath the time slots, mark down the song form. In “Love’s Theme,” the intro starts at 00:00, then the A section comes in at around :30, etc. I also put in a “DROP” because that’s almost literally what happens, most of the players drop out and there’s a big crescendo into another A section. The superscript T’s represent a transitional element – the harp does beautiful glissandos into the next section.
After marking the form and time, list out the instruments on the left side of the paper. Skip every other line so that you have visual space to see what’s happening. You can mark whole sections like “strings” or “drums,” and if you need to call out a particular solo you can either write that into the timeline, or give the soloist their own line. “Love’s Theme” has a couple solos from the flute and French horns that I called out in their own lines.
Step Three: Listen, Listen, and Listen Again
Listen to just ONE instrument or group at a time. I like to start with the drums or string section because they’re usually the most consistent. Mark down when instruments come in and when they drop out. Here, I used X’s and O’s. I also marked when a section played the theme of “Love’s Theme”, specifically the A section, with little hearts. That’s typical of orchestral works: a theme will get passed around the different sections. Sometimes you’ll here a sporadic element, like the flute solo, and can easily mark that while you’re listening to the strings which are still playing, and playing, and playing.
You might be thinking “There’s ten instruments here! I’m going to have to listen 10 times!” Thankfully, you were most likely blessed with a brain that loves pattern recognition so by now, after listening three or four times, you’ll know where the drops are, when the harps come in, when the horns come in because you were so smart and marked the top with the time slots and form sections. You’ll just scrub to 1:40 seconds, just before the DROP and listen for when the horns come in, right?
Step Four: D.C. Al Fine
You’ve got this paper with all kinds of markings on it. What do we do with this? I like to make notes on another sheet of paper about the song – particularly when certain instrument sections come in, motifs and loops, how those motifs get passed around, how the song uses silence. I also like to pay particular attention to transitions – how does the A section move into the B section? I’ll mark transition elements like glissando, drum fills, whooshes, that thing where the snares sound like a machine gun. You can go a step further and mark down the chord progression. Be as general or granular as you want. You can also just analyze one section to help you figure out how those instruments work together. What does the cello and bass do in response to the violins and violas? What does the snare do in relation to the kick or cymbals?
The closer attention you pay to parts, arrangements, and transitions the better able you’ll be able to translate those elements into your own composing. Look back at these sheets to help you troubleshoot. Get those patterns ingrained in your brain so your thoughts and visions flow easily to your fingers.