I sing a-capella in Three MDB and The Amsterdam Vocals. Occasionally I write arrangements for these groups. In the spirit of sharing, here are several arrangements published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
Written for Three MDB in the new 2014 line-up.
Quite far from the original, with jazzy chords, a swing feel and new lyrics for the second verse. See my blog for the story behind it.
Written for Three MDB in the first line-up with five voices, but wouldn't be hard to adapt to four or six voices.
Download: PDF - Finale - MusicXML v3.0
Written for The Amsterdam Vocals. The conductor of the Vocals, David de Geus, helped me make some changes, enough to co-credit him author. But of course, all mistakes are mine!
This is the second version, July 2012. Much thanks to the Dutch Arrangers group on Facebook, especially Rogier IJmker who gave a wealth of feedback.
This version is more legible (3 systems on a page instead of 2, rehearsal marks). Notes that bridge beats have been written tied, to make the patterns easier to learn.
The music was simplified in a few places, a few notes were altered, especially the baritone part. The verse now echoes the lead lyrics in several places in the chorus instead of ooh- and aah-ing.
Download the current version: PDF - Finale - MusicXML v3.0
For reference, the first version is also available: PDF - Finale - MusicXML v1.1
Inspired by the version by Mike Tompkins.
This was arranged for the male section of The Amsterdam Vocals. In the current form, it is quite heavily tuned to work with this specific group, which has a T1 with great stage presence, a T2 who can pull of the technically difficult arpeggios and FX, and a Ba2 who can beatbox. To sing it with another group, I would start by swapping T1 and T2, and see which baritone line fits best.
This is the second (published) version. I posted the previous for comments on the Dutch acapella arrangers facebook group, which lead to some good feedback. The excellent Rogier IJmker even posted a 45 minute screencast on youtube with tips and hints!
This new version has tons of improvements in the layout and the notation. And most importantly in the notes, especially in sections where I was using jumping between harmonizing in two and three voices, which made it rather jagged.
Download the current version: PDF MusicXML 3.0 Finale .mus
The previous version is also still available: PDF MusicXML 3.0 Finale .mus
These were my first steps in the wonderful world of acapella arranging. Baby steps! Some nice ideas in there, but with plenty of room for improvement... feel free to use them.
A quirky up-tempo song by Eels. In its optimism, rather a-typical for Mark Everett.
Van Gogh became a household name, but who still knows James Ensor? It's not fair! The Johns decided to change that with this catchy tune.
As the full name of the license indicates - Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike - you don't have to ask me permission to use any of these files, as long as you:
If you want to use them under other circumstances, say on a recording that is for sale, you must contact me.
Note that the license only applies to the arrangement. The compositions and lyrics themselves have their own copyright and accompanying (labyrinthic) rules for performing!
Of course, I'd appreciate a note if you use it, and improvements are more than welcome: driek@xs4all.nl.
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