How To Write A Big Band Arrangement

From Start To Finish

My musical journey started in the same way as many, picking up an instrument at a young age and slowly working out how to play it over a number of years. Although I didn’t start out on bass, it became my main instrument somewhere along the way and was actually a conduit that introduced me to the world of big band arranging. Like many young bassists, I fell in love with the greats, specifically Marcus Miller and Jaco Pastorius. Both of which were monstrous technicians on the instrument but were also equally impressive composers. Incredibly, when I was a teenager I had the chance to meet Marcus on one of his trips to Australia where he gave me a piece of advice I’ll never forget. “To be a complete musician you have to play, write, and teach.” From that point on I started writing and never looked back.

Being an avid lover of big bands, I was consistently being inspired by the arrangers of the Basie band as well as others like Charles Mingus and Gordon Goodwin. Eventually that love landed me at the University of North Texas where I was introduced to the jazz arranging tradition. The only problem was, I had no clue what I was doing or how to actually tackle writing for such a large number of players. 

In my first year I befriended a slightly older student, Drew Zaremba, who was frequently writing for the One O’Clock Lab Band. Being completely unaware of the process of writing big band charts, I once asked Drew how long it took him to compose one of my favorite pieces of his. Shockingly, he told me only 15 hours, which seemed like a miniscule amount of time for such an immense amount of writing. However, as I went through the various college arranging classes, I started to see how such a feat was possible.

I was introduced to a whole slew of techniques and processes which over time created my arranging workflow. Some were planning orientated and focused on the big picture, others were micro tasks that fixated on specific intervals and note choices. Eventually it led to me being able to churn out a high quality big band chart in a very short amount of time. A very useful skill when you need to turn around a chart quickly. 

Unlike other resources I’ve written, this particular page focuses on the arranging workflow. It takes into consideration many of the other topics I’ve covered, but places them together so you can see how they interact to create a full big band chart. There’s no one correct way to approach writing music and what I’ve based this page on is simply how I tackle the task. Hopefully it will help you in your writing process and at the very least provide an example of a professional arranger’s workflow.

Step 1: Getting Started

How many times have you opened up a streaming service like Netflix to be bombarded by hundreds of movies and TV shows? Quite often in my experience, unless I go in with an idea of what I want to watch, I end up scrolling through the menus for about half an hour before I eventually give up and do something else. This experience is actually quite similar to starting an arrangement. If we dive into writing a piece head first but haven’t given any thought about what we actually want to create, often we can get overwhelmed with options and potentially never finish what we started. To avoid this from happening we have to create some sort of plan, something we call an event list in the arranging world.

Although it may seem somewhat counterintuitive, the more restrictions you place on your writing process, the more creative you’ll become. Event lists allow you to moderate the amount of restrictions by giving you some sort of framework to work off before writing a single note. The trick is to balance the amount you plan to still allow for some level of spontaneity in your writing. I usually approach an event list by putting in constraints like tempo, key, form, style, and block out key components of each section, e.g. melody, shout, soli etc. That way I have a rough guideline to follow but can still lean on my creativity with areas like embellishing the melody, composing counterlines, and chord progressions. If you want to read more about event lists, check out this resource.

Step 2: Picking A Section

With an established plan we need to work out what section we want to tackle first. There is no right or wrong place to start and you definitely don’t need to begin writing the intro and finish with the outro. If one particular section inspires you, start there. As you write more of the sections, the arrangement will naturally come together and you can take the time to smooth out any transitions. Personally I love shout sections so I often start there when I write a chart. If you want some ideas on the common big band sections many arrangers use, check out this resource.

Step 3: Chords Or Melody?

Now it’s time to get creative, arguably the hardest part. You can start writing in so many different ways with the most popular being harmony or melody. To take a harmonic approach, you look at the chord progression and find an option you like the best. That may involve creating a progression using a technique like functional harmony, or reharmonizing an existing progression with various substitutions. One of the major benefits by focusing on the harmony is that you can quickly establish a tone for a section. It also provides a wonderful foundation to create instrumental lines later on too. If you want to learn more about harmonic techniques to help you get started you can read these resources: the trick to writing a functional chord progression, harmony techniques that arrangers often forget about, how to make any chord progression sound “jazzy”, and a game changing substitution technique.

However, you may like starting with the melody. If you are composing something new, that is as simple as putting down a couple of notes you like. However, in arranging it is likely you already have a melody, in which case it may look like embellishing and displacing the line to fit the context of your arrangement. From there, you can add counterlines and focus primarily on the voices interacting with one another. If you want to learn more about writing melodies and countermelodies, check out this resource.

Step 4: Harmonization/Voicings

Regardless of whether you start writing with melody or harmony, inevitably you will address both at some point. Once that is the case you can move on to which lines to harmonize and start working out target notes, voicings, and passing chords. To help locate incorrect notes more quickly, I often start using a sketch made up of two grand staves where one is for the saxes, and the other for the brass. Remember that not all lines need to be voiced out and that unison is very effective. If you want to learn more about voicings here are a couple of resources: the key to writing for any instrument, everything you need to know about 2-5 horn voicings, a crash course in big band voicings & the rhythm section, and what to do with non-chord tones.

Step 5: Rinse & Repeat

With one section now completed, take a look at your original plan and select another section to start working on. The best part is that with one section under your belt, you have started to establish the tone and feel of a piece. You can use this to your advantage when writing other sections to help create a coherent feeling across the entire arrangement. The more you write, the more you’ll know what fits and what doesn’t quite feel right. Follow your gut and eventually it will all come together.

Step 6: Formatting 

Eventually you will complete every single section and have a full big band sketch. However, in this format you won’t be able to bring it into a rehearsal and have it performed. What you need to do is take it from the sketch format and explode it into a full score. From there you have to format and check the score and all of the individual parts. It can be a lengthy process and I’d recommend putting on a good album or podcast to keep you company while you complete the monotonous task. Once the formatting is finished, all you have to do is print and tape the chart so it is ready for the rehearsal and/or client. If you want more information on how to format a chart, here’s a resource on the topic.

The Takeaway

Writing a big band chart can feel like an impossible task if you’ve never been told how to do it. However, the process itself is quite simple and like anything in life just takes time to get used to. As every big band chart is unique, the information on this page has been kept rather simple to accommodate whatever type of music you want to write. There is no right or wrong way and these steps should be quite malleable to whatever you want to throw at them. If you’re just starting out and need help with any particular step, I’d highly recommend checking out any of the linked resources mentioned as they will walk you through a more detailed process for each section.