Music Arranging:

Intelligent, clearly written musical arrangements can save time and money in rehearsals and studio sessions and your musicians will thank you.
Our experience writing for TV, Theater, recording sessions and our attention to detail are valuable assets.


Our manuscript services cover these main areas:

Arrangements
Custom arrangements for any instrumentation.
We can work from supplied audio or manuscript .

Transcriptions
Notating music from an audio source.
Transcription can be a precise notation of the audio or combined with arranging

Music Preparation - Score copying
Preparation of computer scores from hand written manuscript and instrument parts produced from scores.

What is a music arrangement?
A music arrangement is a modification of an existing composition, usually with additional compositional elements added.
The job of an arranger is every bit as important as that of a composer and is a highly sophisticated art. A good arranger needs a thorough knowledge of harmony, style and orchestration. They need to know exactly what a particular instrument can or cannot play and in what register the instrument will sound most effective. An arrangement might include elements of paraphrasing, reharmonisation and composition. If an arrangement contains no new material it is generally called a transcription.
Arranging is the original equivalent of music production and mixing- for live musicians. The arranger has to balance the tones and pitches carefully and this takes a great deal of skill.

One the the most famous arrangers in modern times is Quincy Jones who wrote the arrangement of "Fly me to the Moon" which is so popular today. This tune was originally written in 3/4 time but Quincy rewrote it for Frank Sinatra in 4/4.

SMARTass Music arrangements are generally written "in house" by James Treweek, who studied with Leon Cohen-an experienced film and TV arranger and one of the UK's most knowledgeable Jazz musicians.