Roger Thorne
Active Member
The Music Man wrote:
I was interested to read John's posting about the music of 'Genesis' and how some of their music would make great band arrangements.
This has promted me to add a topic What do YOU want?
As a Composer and Arranger I am always looking for new ideas, particularly for band arrangements and on several occasions have had different requests similar to the one above put to me. ie. 'Come on Eileen' and 'Bat out of Hell'.
To arrange these pieces of music for the commercial market you obviously have to apply for copyright permission which can sometimes take months to obtain and usually at great expense. Because of this I have never followed up these requests as I presumed there would not be sufficient sales to cover the costs of producing the arrangements.
However, through this Forum site there is now an opportunity for you to voice your ideas and opinions as to what new music you would like to see available for band.
If there is an overwhelming interest in arranging music of a particular genre, then I might just re-consider the commercial element and pursue some of the ideas.
Today's Brass Band Publishers are churning out all sorts of new arrangements - usually the latest cinema blockbuster - which is all well and good, but to be honest, is only as popular and topical as long as it is being shown at the Cinema!
Some of the 'Classic' rock/pop tunes date back 20 - 30 years and are still as popular today. So it might be an avenue well worth exploring.
If you have any suggestions please give as much information on the music as possible. This will help me identify the publishing companies involved and speed up any copyright requests.
I look forward to your replies.
I gather you must like Steve Hacket stuff then... have you heard the "Genesis Revisited" track? Opens with brilliant weird sounds and effects building into "Dance on a Volcano" ... WOW. I really wish I had more ability to do arrangements because I firmly believe some of Genesis music would be great scored for band. They tend to use a lot of 5/4, 7/8 non standard time sig stuff which always adds that 'interesting' element to music in my opinion. Take Phillip Sparke, Gregson etc....
I was interested to read John's posting about the music of 'Genesis' and how some of their music would make great band arrangements.
This has promted me to add a topic What do YOU want?
As a Composer and Arranger I am always looking for new ideas, particularly for band arrangements and on several occasions have had different requests similar to the one above put to me. ie. 'Come on Eileen' and 'Bat out of Hell'.
To arrange these pieces of music for the commercial market you obviously have to apply for copyright permission which can sometimes take months to obtain and usually at great expense. Because of this I have never followed up these requests as I presumed there would not be sufficient sales to cover the costs of producing the arrangements.
However, through this Forum site there is now an opportunity for you to voice your ideas and opinions as to what new music you would like to see available for band.
If there is an overwhelming interest in arranging music of a particular genre, then I might just re-consider the commercial element and pursue some of the ideas.
Today's Brass Band Publishers are churning out all sorts of new arrangements - usually the latest cinema blockbuster - which is all well and good, but to be honest, is only as popular and topical as long as it is being shown at the Cinema!
Some of the 'Classic' rock/pop tunes date back 20 - 30 years and are still as popular today. So it might be an avenue well worth exploring.
If you have any suggestions please give as much information on the music as possible. This will help me identify the publishing companies involved and speed up any copyright requests.
I look forward to your replies.