Dirk - Andrea,
What a kick to hear from both of you. It’s interesting that two such busy people will take the time to write. Andrea you are quite right about Scott. Those of us who know him are blessed by his friendship. After corresponding for some time, I had the pleasure of meeting him at a music festival. I somewhat coerce him into singing with the great jazz pianist, Sue Downs. Sue, who is a concert performer for Yamaha and a regular at the Monterey Jazz Festival opened the door to any singer to join her. I introduced Scott and they brought the audience to their feet with a spontaneous rendition of Route 66.

I certainly agree with you about the length of an arrangement in live performances. Unless you are a jazz performer with the skill to improvise solos, it seems as though 2:30 to 3 minutes is a good length for a pop song. However, in producing a selection of songs for a CD I think longer arrangements can work. For example Claus Ogerman goes for almost seven minutes in “Besame Mucho” and six minutes in “The Night We Called It A Day” on the current Diana Krall CD. I guess I’m looking for two things in building the structure of an arrangement; the opportunity of presenting a well known song in a new way and finding a way to introduce an element of surprise in the arrangement.

I think these two properties are apparent in “Nobody Does It Better”, “Over The Rainbow” and “Loss Of Love”. I especially like the symphonic set up for “Loss Of Love” which has the kind of haunting melody that Dirk might have written. One of my favorites is “Dreaming Of You”. In studying Dirk’s arrangements and those of other fine arrangers I’m trying to simulate the kind of counter melodies we hear on commercial CD’s without having to play along with sequenced tracks. In “Ruby”, which has a traditional pop song structure, I’ve written eight measure patterns, rather than the usual four that are in most keyboards. This allows the counter melody to occasionally start on the third measure rather than the first and the ability to get a far less mechanical backing by moving back and forth between variations.

It’s wonderful that both of you are willing to share your music. An occasional departure from, “What’s The latest Gear?”, brings a bit of fresh air to the forum.
Frank