Arranging Music for a Small Steelpan Ensemble

(such as Cardinal Calypso at Stanford University)

Adam Genecov
v0.13, 12/22/2013

Ben Roth
v0.12, 3/11/2011
v0.11, 10/5/2010
v0.1, 4/4/2010

At the time of writing this, we are comprised of 4 leads, 2 sets of double tenors, 4 sets of double seconds, one triple cello, and a drumset with a few pieces of aux percussion.

This is intended to be a general reference document for anyone looking to arrange for a steelpan ensemble of a similar size. It has all kinds of advice about making a song work from both a musical perspective and, to some extent, a performance perspective. The idea is to make arrangements that are satisfying for the performers and for the audience. Just note that it was written in particular for Cardinal Calypso, so it only addresses things that are relevant to our particular ensemble.

It is written assuming basic knowledge of the family of instruments and at least a little experience playing them. Some parts of this document also assume that your ensemble can read music and that you intend to teach them with a notated score (rather than by rote, as would be more traditional). Most of the advice should be relevant either way, though.

Some of the knowledge here will work better for standard "singer/soloist and accompaniment" popular music, including calypso music as well as contemporary pop/rock/jazz, because that's most often what this ensemble plays. But you should think about writing and arranging any music for the ensemble, whether or not it fits this mold. This document will still be helpful.

Occasionally it contains references to examples, which are passages of songs that have been arranged for Cardinal Calypso. For now, these aren't available to the public, so you'll have to pretend they make sense unless you're in the group. Sorry.

Contents

Arranging for the group: Broad arranging principles, sound texture, tools at your disposal, things that work, things that sometimes don't work, notation stuff

Arranging for a particular instrument: Leads (single tenors), double tenors, double seconds, triple cello

Arranging for the group

Broad arranging principles

• Don't forget the grand vision, which is to create something that is fun to hear, see, and perform. Your goal is not necessarily to religiously transcribe every note from a piece of source material, but to use your knowledge of the band and your musical inclination to derive something new. You are always free to incorporate your own magic in to an arrangement, and you should never lose sight of the effect you are trying to create.
• Endless repetition sucks. Try to give everyone at least one section of the song that they can be excited to play.
• In tonal music, do your best to practice good voice leading (or at least be aware of what good voice leading would tell you to do). In the simplest sense, that means that if you have trouble singing a part, consider refactoring it. It tends to make all the parts more coherent and easier for the performers and listeners to follow. (and if you get a chance to take music theory courses with Giancarlo Aquilanti, do it)
• Make scores easy to read. If you don't, you'll waste rehearsal time. See Notation Stuff.
• Higher things, by default, stick out. When you want to bring out a melody, use caution if you write accompaniment in a range higher than the melody. This is often necessary (unless you want to bore all the players who are not leads), so just be careful not to overpower the lower-range melody.
• Write music that holds itself together rhythmically. Know in advance: Do you plan on having a rhythm section (in our case, generally a drumset) playing with the band? If not, it's important to maintain an audible rhythmic structure on at least one instrument so that the players can easily stay together without a conductor.
• Remember that you are arranging for a very distinctive ensemble with a very particular sound. Bearing this in mind, it sometimes makes more sense to change the style or approach of a song to better suit our band. This can mean a change in tempo or rhythm, and even more often a change in register. Occasionally (as with some covers), the entire mood of the song can be transformed. It's most important that it translates into a fun performance.

Sound texture

• Try to judge the "note density" you're looking for, in terms of the overall sound of the ensemble. Every person can play either one or two notes at a time, and these notes can be close together or far apart in time. Depending on the mood of the song (or section of the song), you'll want to achieve a different texture. Also, denser textures can get too loud if you're not careful.
• Bringing out a melody line: If you want a note or a series of notes to stand out, don't write it as a double stop with other notes: the player will be able to focus all their rolling and voicing power on the single line or note. Obviously, rolling two notes together causes each one to be hit half as often. Take advantage of either alternative.
• Steel drums are very conducive to playing dense harmonies without losing clarity. This can be a big advantage compared to arranging for other instruments, which often get a "muddy" sound much more easily. Take advantage of steel drums' harmonic clarity! You can create some sweet sounds that are unique and characteristic of the instrument.

Some tools at your disposal that you may not have thought about

• Strumming: This is fairly unique to steelpan ensembles. It's where a section essentially plays chords rhythmically as background harmony. In such a situation it is usually preferable to rolling, by the nature of the instrument, as it's more natural to play and it makes the song rhythmic rather than amoebic. Know that strumming for a long time is boring.
  • The most common strumming rhythm is to play the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sixteenth notes of a each beat, assuming a quarter note is worth a beat. Example: The tenors and seconds at various times in Cabron, or the leads during the verse in The Hammer.
  • However, depending on the texture you want to achieve, strumming can take on all kinds of different rhythms. Example: The tenors and seconds at rehearsal mark A in Blue Bossa. A good pan player in our type of ensemble will tend to be more flexible in this regard, and has the capacity to improvise some of the strumming rhythms to create a more groovy texture.
• Divisi vs. unison: You can divide players in a single section into separate parts. This is useful mainly in two situations:
  • When you want to put more than two notes at a time in a single section (for obvious reasons, this is the only solution to that problem). Example: the tenor and lead parts on page 2 of Bohemian Rhapsody
  • A more subtle case is when you have two melodies in the same section. Perhaps the melodies have the same rhythm between them. In that case, why not ask all the players to just play both melodies as double stops? Instead, sometimes you want to divide the section so that each person only plays one of the melodies. The player will be able to pay closer attention to the expressive contour of the notes, and the passage will be brought out with greater clarity as the performer has an easier time rolling single notes. Example: The leads in the opening bar of I Shot the Sheriff
• Solo vs. tutti: Sometimes you want to give one player utmost rhythmic freedom, or you want the purer sound associated with a solo line. "Solo" in this case doesn't necessarily mean everyone else stops playing, but it usually means that in a particular section only a single person plays.
  • Example: The the lead solo in The Hammer.
• Hand claps, stick hits, other noisemakers, shouting, and various other performance gimmicks (either visual or sonified). If you really want something to this effect, put it in the score.

Things that work

• Unlike most instruments, all steelpans that we own can easily play passages where you quickly jump between octaves, as notes with the same value in different octaves are almost always next to one another on the drum.
• For an idea of the music these instruments were designed for, listen to some panorama performances on youtube, and also listen to some classic calypso songs. No matter what you're arranging, these will give you the best clues as to what idiomatically sounds good for a steelpan ensemble.
• Call-and-response passages, punchy rhythms, and good contrast between rhythmic unity and divergence, as well as dynamic contrast, are all common traits of tried-and-true calypso arrangements.
• That said, steelpans are incredibly flexible and resilient across many genres, so don't be afraid to try out new styles and sounds when you're confident about what you're doing.

Things that sometimes don't work

• Quiet passages are essential to interesting music, and steelpans can achieve a spine-chillingly cool sound when played quietly, but be aware that inexperienced players will have trouble playing quietly with uniform tone across many notes. They will tend to accidentally leave out notes. So keep writing your quiet sections, but bear this in mind when you conceive of the particular effect that you want.
• Long rolled passages throughout the band aren't coherent unless you truly intend to make an arhythmic song. We usually rely on at least some people providing a rhythmic anchor in order to maintain a tight sound.
• All the pans will achieve a thin sound when you get into the highest range of that particular pan. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage, but you generally can't expect a passage of more than a few notes in this range to be heard with any tone. The section about lead pans has more details for those drums in particular.
• For instruments consisting of more than one drum, be aware of how the instrument is laid out in order to try to avoid impossible or super awkward passages (see each section below for details).
• Although I will caution against certain patterns that are difficult for various instruments, don't be afraid to break these rules: sometimes really hard passages are the most fun to play, and we have adept musicians in the band who are up for a challenge. Just be aware of what's easy and hard on a drum before you write it.

Notation stuff

• In general, be aware of notation best practices when scoring for an ensemble. There are a lot of other good tips here that apply to all music scoring. I won't list them all, but you would do well to read an orchestration book. Here are a few:
  • Notate rhythms such that the middle of the bar is visible! There are some exceptions to this rule, but they are rare. When in doubt, do it.
  • On a steelpan, if a note is already too short to be rolled, writing the note value even shorter will do nothing and can just add extra rests on the page, which function as clutter.
  • Watch out for weird beamings or strangely-spelled accidentals that your notation program might add without you noticing.
  • Since we sightread scores together as a group, sometimes it's nice if you descrease the staff size in your notation program to allow more than just two or three bars per line. In Sibelius, I change the default 7mm to 6mm.
• Don't forget to provide dynamics and a tempo, unless you really mean not to.
• Rehearsal marks are essential.
• If the structure of the song involves complicated repeats, sometimes it's easier to just stop trying to notate it and instead write (in plain english) how the song works. It lets the band members know when they're done sightreading new material.
• You don't need to indicate rolls (although you can). I usually don't, and leave it to the discretion of the performers when they want to roll, or I dictate what I think sounds better during rehearsal. If you want to notate them, they're written as a tremolo with three slashes through the note stem.
• I also almost never write in sticking (left hand, right hand) for the players, although it's not out of the question, if you were going for a certain visual effect or if there was just a really nasty passage you wanted to provide guidance for. In this case, capital Rs and Ls above notes are appropriate.

Information and Tips for Particular Sections of the Band

The leads (single tenors)

Layout and range

All of our leads are built in the standard "fourths and fifths" arrangement, meaning they are a circle of fifths with C at the bottom and concentric circles sounding in higher octaves. Other arrangements exist, but we don't own any instruments that use them.

Besides this, our leads are divided into two types:
D lead: The lowest note is the D above middle C.
C lead: The lowest note is middle C, so they have two extra low notes in total. You should use these two extra notes with caution (read the note below).

Our leads have differing upper ranges as well, but you can generally expect them to go at least as high as the F# a few lines above the treble clef, and at least one of our drums goes higher, although this range is rarely used.

Note about C leads: Those two extra notes-- middle C and middle C#-- don't really fit on a lead drum. As such, they are constructed more like a really flat D. This affects the integrity of the entire drum head, meaning C leads (especially ours, which are cheap) tend to have much worse tone than D leads. When arranging, the best way to think of it is that leads can only go down to middle D, but in special instances you may need to use those two extra low notes.

Tone

The leads have no large note regions, so you won't find the rich chordal resonance that characterizes the other instruments of the group. This also means they have a clean, isolated sound, which is why they're the best at singing a soprano line above everybody else. In particular, as noted above, our D leads sound great across their whole range, and our C leads sound like a tin can across their whole range.

Things that work

• Since lead players only have to worry about one drum, you can write more or less any passage and expect that they can pull it off.
• Also, since our leads stand in the front of the band (and outnumber all other sections), anything you write for them will probably cut through the rest of the group. This is not always what you want! So be aware that when you write melodies for other sections, avoid writing dense lead parts over them.
• A word about super high notes: Remember that I said these notes are difficult to carry over the group, since they have such thin tone. There are two contexts in which I usually use the highest range of the lead drum.
  • If the contour of a larger melody pops into the high range for a few notes, the listener's ear is able to "follow" the tone of the drum into this range, and somehow, in this context, such notes can take on a good sound.
  • You can use the highest notes to provide extra harmony or punch to a lower melody by writing a passage of double stops.
  • Example: The octaves in the chorus of Take Your Mama
  • Example: The sixth harmonies in the introduction to Bacchanal Lady

Things that sometimes don't work

• Excessive strumming when another section has the focus of the song. Lead players need constant reminders to keep these strums quiet, and they start to look bored standing in the front of the group strumming. You definitely need to make them strum sometimes, but try to limit it to short passages.
• Long legato passages where you expect every note to be rolled: These are fine, but beware that the section will lose its unity as they all roll at slightly different times, which means the passage won't be brought out quite as distinctly. You may desire this in some cases.
• You may be tempted to always put the melody in the leads, even if it means bumping the whole thing up an octave to fit in their high range. Sometimes this is fine, but consider other alternatives before you do it. Some lyrical melodies, especially those with a broad range, will sound better in the tenors or seconds.

The double tenors

Layout and range

Double tenors have a similar range to that of the double seconds, but they have an older design. They are laid out such that a C major scale is as alternating as possible between the left and right drums. That means that of all the instruments we own, finding notes on a tenor is usually the least intuitive. It also means they are, not surprisingly, very adept at playing diatonic music and are (I've heard) the most popular steelpan to be used as a solo instrument.

Our double tenors go as low as the F below middle C, and (I need to double check this) as high as the B above the treble clef. With that F, they have one extra low note that the seconds don't have.

Tone

The tenors are built with squared-off note regions, unlike any other drum in our ensemble. This gives them an especially distinctive tone in which you hear a lot of the impact of the mallet and less of the body of the note. It allows them to cut through the ensemble effectively if they need to, but it can also mean they don't sing as well as the seconds on a lyrical passage. I have heard people describe it as a "meaner" tone. It also causes the harmonics in their low range to come out a lot, which can achieve a very nice sonority.

Things that work

• In their middle and low range, tenors are quite loud when you need them to be. They have a bigger presence than double seconds.
• As suggested by their layout, fast passages across diatonic scales (which are rather common) will usually be easily possible on a pair of tenors.
• Many pop/rock songs have backup vocals that are actually in the range above the main vocals. Although it seems unintuitive, it actually works quite well to put these higher backup harmonies in the tenors while the main line is in the leads. The tenors won't overpower the (more populous) lead section, but the harmony will still be clearly heard.
  • Example: Rehearsal mark D of Cabron

Things that sometimes don't work

• More chromatic passages will tend to be easier on a pair of double seconds.
• With all steelpans that aren't leads, be considerate when writing passages of double stops: depending on which notes you write, you could be asking the player to move both arms from one drum to the next repeatedly, and this is very hard at speed.

The double seconds

Layout and range

Double seconds are arranged such that each drum contains a whole tone scale, roughly in a star pattern. This makes chromatic passages very doable. Their design is newer than that of the tenors.

They can play as low as the F# below middle C and as high as the C# above the treble clef. Some popular designs (which we don't own) go as low as E.

Tone

Double seconds have a soft attack and a "round" sustain: their notes have a swelling quality. It is a sweeter sound than the tenors or the leads, which can give them beautiful clarity for a single line or a smooth texture when playing chordal passages. This also means they are less aggressive at cutting through the sound of the rest of the band, although this is still very doable if you need it.

Things that work

• Seconds have a more modern design than tenors and, in my opinion, tend to stay in tune better (bearing in mind that, across the board, our instruments are all of the most affordable quality).
• Actually, in general, I think the seconds have the best sound of any of the instruments we own.
• Passages that feature more chromatic work as opposed to diatonic work will be easier on seconds than on tenors.
• As I write this, we have three seconds and two tenors. Therefore the seconds (as a section) have slightly more power than the tenors to carry a melody over the rest of the band. It may not have as much punch as the sound of the tenors, though.

Things that sometimes don't work

• If you really need power out of the seconds, they will be relying on their numbers rather than their tone to achieve that volume.
• With all steelpans that aren't leads, be considerate when writing passages of double stops: depending on which notes you write, you could be asking the player to move both arms from one drum to the next repeatedly, and this is very hard at speed.

The triple cello

Layout and range

Each of the three drums contains members of the same diminished chord (all the intervals are a minor third on a single drum).

We currently own two sets of triples but only rehearse/perform with our newer set. On our older set of triples, the lowest note is B natural, an octave + half step below middle C. Our newest set reaches down to Bb, a half-step below the other set, giving these drums an especially awesome advantage in flat keys. The highest note on either set is B flat above middle C, so the total range is two octaves.

Tone

The high range is clear and pure, while the low range is full and sonorous. The triples can be quite loud, but they are also easier than the other drums to play quietly while still achieving good tone. As with all lower-range steel drums, the attack can be very long, which means very dense passages in the low range can blend together. This may or may not be what you want.

Things that work

• Since this is the only instrument covering a significant range in the bass clef, its presence is easily known when it plays there. The triples can achieve a very full sound anywhere below middle C.
• In tonal music, the bassline tends to have a less dense line than a higher voice, and that line tends to jump large intervals more frequently. This type of bassline is very suitable to the way the triples are laid out.
• The "standard" way of arranging a pop song for a band like ours would be to put the melody in the leads, chords in the tenors and seconds, and a bassline in the triples, along with occasional backup melodies in the tenors or seconds. This works fine, although I encourage you to try more interesting things when you feel like it.
• As with all steelpans in our band, octave jumps are easy, and they are especially useful in a bassline.
• The triples can go surprisingly high. These notes have a purer sound than they would on one of the higher drums, which is a fun sound to use. Just bear in mind that these notes have a very hard time cutting through the rest of the ensemble.
• The triples player has the most space to move, which means their parts can look especially awesome when performed. Solos on the triples are especially cool. Example: The introduction to The General
• If you're interested, play with some of the larger note regions and try isolating their non-fundamental harmonics. You can also get different sides of the same region to vibrate at different frequencies, causing the triples to "beat."

Things that sometimes don't work

• Use caution when writing chromatic passages for the triples, as two adjacent notes are guaranteed to be on different drums. A chromatic scale would involve playing each consecutive drum in a row repeatedly. That kind of thing is totally possible, but plan it out before you blindly write it.
• Notes on the triples are physically very large, and therefore delicate. Don't expect a triples player to punch out a fierce melody like someone in the higher range could: generally if you can hear the triples' attack over everyone else, the player is harming the instrument. Triples achieve their presence more by the vast breadth of one of their tones. It helps to think of a the way a small gong would behave.
• As the triples player has the most physical ground to cover, be careful when writing really fast stuff.
• With all steelpans that aren't leads, be considerate when writing passages of double stops: depending on which notes you write, you could be asking the player to move both arms from one drum to the next repeatedly, and this is very hard at speed.

In the unlikely event that anybody finds this especially useful, it is free to distribute in its original form (with this message on it). Just please don't steal my stuff.