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Arranging: Small Ensemble and Horns

Author: Jerry Gates
  • Overview
  • Syllabus
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Whether you are writing for jingles, soundtracks, or pop songs, knowing how to write/arrange for smaller bands and larger ensembles is crucial to your success. Arranging: Small Ensemble and Horns explores the properties of the trumpet, trombone and alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and approaches the techniques and melodic embellishments that will give you a basic understanding of writing/arranging for these horns as a section. You will focus on applying writing processes for 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-part horn combinations; skills that can be applied to both live instrumentation and sampled or synthesized sounds. One can't write effective sequenced parts without knowing what real players would characteristically play on these instruments. This course will provide you with a greater understanding of the possibilities and sounds that the horns as a section can add to your arrangement.

By the end of this course, you will:

  • Learn to identify chord symbols
  • Understand trumpet and trombone instrumentation
  • Understand the instrumentation breakdown of saxophones
  • Write within a given key and transpose to fit a specific instrument (unison writing)
  • Understand and complete an arranging process
  • Understand melodic development
  • Write two-part and three-part soli sections
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Online Summer Term Starts June 25th

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Course Info

For-credit tuition: $1,400
Non-credit tuition: $1,200
Credits: 3
Duration: 12 weeks
Catalog #: BME-131
 

Course Faculty Down arrow

Jerry Gates
Jerry Gates Associate Professor in Contemporary Arranging, Directed Studies in Arranging, and Contemporary Twelve-Tone Composition.
Jeff Perry
Jeff Perry Berklee faculty since 1997, and currently teaches arranging in the Contemporary Writing and Production department.
Jeri Sykes
Jeri Sykes Composed music and designed sound for theater and film, and has written several commissioned works for performing ensembles at Berklee.
Jerry Gates
Jerry Gates Associate Professor in Contemporary Arranging, Directed Studies in Arranging, and Contemporary Twelve-Tone Composition.
Jeff Perry
Jeff Perry Berklee faculty since 1997, and currently teaches arranging in the Contemporary Writing and Production department.
Jeri Sykes
Jeri Sykes Composed music and designed sound for theater and film, and has written several commissioned works for performing ensembles at Berklee.
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Student Comments Down arrow

“I have always loved the idea of writing for horns and writing multi-stave parts, but I’ve never been able to get my ideas to work on paper. This course gave me a great foundation for writing lines and crafting ideas that can be played in a the real world!” - F. Gros
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