MANDO
ARRANGEMENT THIEVERY : Stealing Parts and Getting Away With It
In a previous article I discussed four tools every mandolin player needs to have in his bag : rhythm , tremolo , lead / fills , and cross-picking . With creative use of these four techniques a mandolin can ‘ steal ’ parts in an arrangement from other instruments . This allows the resourceful mandolin player find a place , even on songs that never originally had a mando part to begin with .
A VICTIMLESS CRIME Now , it is all well and good for me to suggest that you use your uber-versatile mandolin to swipe parts from other instruments . But how , you might ask , does one do that ? Is it possible to play the lead guitar ’ s parts without requiring a best-two-of-three rock / paper / scissors showdown ? Can you claim parts in the arrangement without actually taking parts away from someone else ?
You can ! The secret : Over-produced studio recordings .
Here is what I mean . Most worship teams pattern their song arrangements after some artist ’ s studio version of a given song . Back in the early days of recorded music artists were limited to 8 or 16 tracks for all of their instruments and vocals on a song . How they managed to make such great recordings under those limitations is a testament to their skill , but the modern artist is under no such constraints . Just about all studio work is tracked on a Digital Audio Workstation nowadays and the available track count is practically unlimited . It isn ’ t unusual for a song to have hundreds of available tracks for everything the artist wants to put in it .
The result is that most studio releases have multiple layers for each instrument . Electric guitar tends to benefit the most from this abundance of digital tracks . Put on some quality headphones and listen to how many guitar layers are in the studio releases of your Sunday set list . You will likely hear two different rhythm guitar layers and countless other elements of “ color .” There are layers of fills , hooks , little melodic riffs , and really all kinds of parts popping through the mix . Notice that more often than not these parts occur all together . That is , the rhythm electric guitar doesn ’ t drop out to play a riff--two or more guitar parts are playing simultaneously .
A crafty mandolin player is aware of his band ’ s limitations and mines studio recordings for all those layers that his fellow musicians don ’ t have enough fingers to play .
You ’ ll hear a similar phenomenon with synths . Pads continue to play even while a second lead synth plays a hook or fill . The rock organ doesn ’ t drop out just because a cello comes in for a two-measure riff .
LIMITATIONS BECOME OPPORTUNITIES The studio artist wields unlimited track counts . The worship team , however , doesn ’ t generally have the personnel or stage space to recreate all of those layers . Just about every modern worship team has an electric guitar player and
keyboard player , but it rarely has more than one of each .
Most of the time the electric guitar player is stuck either driving the energy of the song ahead as a rhythm player or else rolling through some dotted-quarter delay or similar beatbased part . That leaves all those other layers open for a ‘ color ’ instrument like the mandolin to play . Ironically , these over-produced studio arrangements give the mandolin the most opportunity , precisely for those songs that at first don ’ t seem like a good fit . The more ‘ rock ’ the song is , the more extra guitar parts will be free for a mandolin that the lead-guitar player can ’ t possibly play all on his own . The more the synth parts are layered in like an 80 ’ s cover tune , the more your keyboard player won ’ t be able to include all of the parts that the artist added to make the song interesting .
A crafty mandolin player is aware of his band ’ s limitations and mines studio recordings for all those layers that his fellow musicians don ’ t have enough fingers to play . Then he simply has to use rhythm , tremolo , leads / fills , or cross picking to claim those parts as his own in the live arrangements .
Happy thieving !
TYSON BRYANT From a family of bluegrass musicians , but has adapted techniques applicable to modern worship . Has played mando in worship bands for 20 + years . Also plays acoustic & electric guitar , cajon , and just enough banjo to make people cringe .
42 Jan � Feb 2017 WorshipMusician . com