John Hendow

I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few weeks preparing for upcoming shows with both of my bands. In the case of the Dudley Manlove Quartet, many of our songs are requests from customers who hire us for private events. Those requests tend to us to recreate a specific arrangement of a song. Case in point for this week is the request for “Love is All Around”, originally performed by The Troggs, and recently reworked by Wet Wet Wet. The customer that made this request specifically asked us to refer to the newer version.

Here are the steps I took in working up the arrangement:

1. I find the song on YouTube or Pandora and give it a listen from end to end, observing the general arrangement and noting any especially challenging aspects. I don’t attempt to do this with my guitar in hand; I just focus on hearing what the song sounds like.
2. I sit with my guitar and start to determine the basic framework of the chord structure. I sketch it out using a free software application for music notation called “MuseScore”. I can usually establish the general framework of a song in a few repeat listenings.
3. If we’re changing the key of the song – which we do pretty frequently – MuseScore can do that automatically after the score is written, but I like to know that in advance because sometimes it makes the song much more difficult to perform in the new key. Once that’s locked down I proceed to the details. For “Love is All Around” the recorded version of the song is in Bb. I was tempted to move it down to A because it would sound so much better on guitar using open string crossings, but we decided to keep it in Bb.
4. Most songs we perform have idiomatic passages and solos that need to be performed verbatim. I’m very detail-oriented for these elements and explicitly transcribe solos. Putting the effort into really decoding the solo makes a big difference in performing it with authenticity. The song I was transcribing for this event doesn’t have a solo, but there is a little descending guitar lick before the chorus that required a few repetitions to play smoothly. It’s just parallel 6ths, but I want to get the same phrasing as the recording.
5. Finally, I publish the finished score as a PDF and print a copy for the gig. Usually by the time I’ve gone to all the trouble of writing out the score I’ve already memorized it, but there is something reassuring about having it as a reference before we hit the stage.

By the way, when I first starting doing this process back in my early 20’s, this seemed impossibly difficult and took me a long time. I’ve been transcribing my own parts for a long time and it’s become a big part of how I approach learning music, and after you do it for a few years it becomes much easier. Jazz musicians will tell you: transcribe transcribe transcribe. I completely agree! It’s a very good way to really understand a composition or solo.