Our group consists of Myself (Soprano), Louise (Alto), Erin (Mezzo-Alto) and David (Tenor - Bass).
For our group performance we would like to create the theme/objective of turning a popular song into a love ballad. As apposed to performing one long song lasting 5 minutes, we have decided on 2 separate pieces of music however, we would like to keep the continuity of the theme between both pieces. I found that by reading Chapter One of The World in Six Songs this has allowed me to understand genre and arrangement.
Choosing a song has been proven tricky, as everyone has a different taste in music and everyone has lots of ideas. Initially our theme was going to be changing a popular song into the genre of 1920's style. We moved away from this idea as we preferred the challenge of totally changing the sound of a song from upbeat to a ballad.
The song that we have chosen to make our own arrangement of is 'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' from the album 'The Five Faces of Manfred Mann' which was released in 1964.
We chose this song as the carefree lyrics and the toe tapping rhythm makes it a challenge for us to turn it into a love ballad.
We also have allocated which vocal part will sing what section of the song. David to sing the lower sections and I to sing the higher parts.
At the opening of the song we have created a soft and soothing four part harmony and have set the tempo considerably slower than the original song, with just piano for accompaniment. As a group we have decided that Erin should play the piano as she has knowledge of how to play and this would be great for her to gain more experience with this skill.
Although my main instrument is the voice, at times I am finding arranging harmonies difficult for this particular song and sometimes pitching the soprano harmony line has been tricky.
When arranging this piece we looked at some famous love and power ballads on the internet in order to give us some inspiration and ideas on how to order the song. We looked at songs such as My Heart Will Go On by Celion Dion.
Set Fire to the Rain by Adele
