{"id":5625,"date":"2018-12-09T16:52:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-09T21:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wilktone.com\/?p=5625"},"modified":"2023-03-31T12:04:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-31T16:04:02","slug":"the-first-noel-big-band-arrangement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/?p=5625","title":{"rendered":"The First Noel, Big Band Arrangement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">North Carolina got hit with a blizzard overnight and it&#8217;s expected to continue snowing through tomorrow. Since I&#8217;m fortunate to not have lost power (yet), I&#8217;ve been putting the finishing touches up on a big band arrangement of &#8220;The First Noel.&#8221; Here is a MIDI demo of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/The-First-Noel.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you&#8217;re curious, I do most of my composing\/arranging directly into Finale and the above playback file is Finale&#8217;s playback. For the rhythm section parts I create a Band-in-a-Box MIDI file and open it up with Finale, then copy and paste the parts I want into my big band score. That gives me a quick and easy rhythm section playback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It takes too long to fix all the weird import errors when I try to import a Band-in-a-Box solo into Finale and since the chart will soon be played by real musicians I didn&#8217;t worry about plugging in solos in the demo. There are three soloists. The first 16 bars is alto sax, followed by 8 of trombone and 8 of trumpet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This tune was interesting to work with and arrange. It&#8217;s an unusual tune, the same phrase repeats and then a refrain follows that is very similar to the original phrase. Creating a swinging big band arrangement of that form presented some challenges. Because each of the three phrases in the &#8220;tune&#8221; are so similar, it would quickly become repetitive to have every phrase of the chart be based on the same phrase. I broke up that pattern in four different ways. First, I changed up the reharmonization for the refrain (third) phrase. I also wrote a new 8 bar section to use as an intro, interlude, and coda. During the solos section I inserted a bridge based on the bridge to &#8220;Frosty the Snowman.&#8221; Lastly, I modulate to new keys, on the shout chorus every phrase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assuming no weather related setbacks, the Asheville Jazz Orchestra will premier this arrangement at our annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/174810633473824\/\">Stan Kenton Christmas Concert this Friday night<\/a>. If you&#8217;re in western North Carolina that night, please come on out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Carolina got hit with a blizzard overnight and it&#8217;s expected to continue snowing through tomorrow. Since I&#8217;m fortunate to not have lost power (yet), I&#8217;ve been putting the finishing touches up on a big band arrangement of &#8220;The First Noel.&#8221; Here is a MIDI demo of it. If you&#8217;re curious, I do most of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/?p=5625\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The First Noel, Big Band Arrangement<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15350306,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1364,1378],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composition","category-jazz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peFHCc-1sJ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15350306"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8650,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5625\/revisions\/8650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilktone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}