Arranging Music for Band

Some of our students have an elective module which leads to making an arrangement for big band.  Can the library help with that?

Well, yes! If you search on arranging and band, a handful of suitable books come up.  But we bet you we could find more resources by using Catalogue Plus to find electronic resources.

Not only that, we'll have plenty of books about instruments, their ranges and what they are capable of.  (Never trust a trombone ...) So, do drop in and see us if you need any extra help before you do your arrangement.  We draw the line at that!

Arranging Folksongs (As You Do!)

Karen has been musing about folksong arrangements.  Hardly surprising - her research has focused on other peoples' arrangements for long enough!!

Read her thoughts here.

Black Friday? Library Help with History Essays and Band Arrangements

Black Friday?

If you have an assignment deadline, this isn't just black Friday - the whole weekend is spoken for!  This weekend, we have students writing essays about Ives, Handel and Purcell. Meanwhile our Scottish Music degree students are working on their scores for their bands and ensembles.

Can the Library help?  We believe we can!

Here at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, we have plenty of online information.  

Studying Ives, Handel or Purcell? 

• You can find plenty of info on JSTOR. 
• There's more on Oxford Music Online.  
• Naxos music streaming service is great for quick info - each recording comes with a pdf of the accompanying booklet.

Working on a band arrangement?

• The Whittaker Library has books on using music notation software.
• RILM database has articles about rehearsing with your group once you've written the score!  (search rehearsal, or band practice)
• See how times have changed.  British Library Sounds lets you hear historic performances - search in the World and Traditional Music section.
• Searching Scottish music group in SCRAN will also bring a smile!

ALL these useful online sources are available through the Whittaker Library's Electronic Resources web pages.  Or via Moodle (look for the library links under Student Support Services!)

Can I Make Arrangements of Original Music without Breaking Copyright?

 It's so tempting, isn't it?  You find a great piece of music and want to arrange it for your instrument or ensemble. But can you do it legally?  It depends ...

The Music Publishers Association Code of Fair Practice, agreed between composers, publishers and users of printed music, is the place to check for questions like this.

These are two links you should save:-

• MPA Online Code of Fair Practice
• MPA FAQs

Scottish Saxophones and Spanish Cellos: Arranging National Tunes for Small Ensembles

Sax Ecosse at Buchanan Bus Station

A veritable blogfest about song-arranging can be found here on the True Imaginary Friends blog.  Take a handful of old national songbooks, and pick an ensemble to write for.  Are you ready?  

Here are some of the results!

Opening the Oyster's Shell: better ways of searching the catalogue

Better ways of searching for library materials

Try for yourself - or ask a librarian!

Suppose you want a book about arranging tunes.  Entering 'arranging' in the search box may not be the best approach - you get too many results!

Try clicking the more search options link under the search button.  You can now refine your search with all or any of these choices:-

• Specify words that MUST be in your search
• Specify words that must NOT be in your search
• Specify a range of words, any of which might be relevant
• Specify the kind of material you want, eg a recording, a book, or a score

Here's an example.  Searching on 'arranging' yields far too many results.  Same for 'arrangement'.  And if you particularly want jazz materials, you're in luck - but maybe you don't want this.

• A better way of searching, using the more search options link, would be to enter 'arrangement arrange arranging' in the AT LEAST ONE OF THE WORDS search box. 
• Enter 'jazz' in the NONE OF THESE WORDS box. 
• Select Music book from the options in the COLLECTIONS box.

Do ask any of the Library staff if you need help constructing a search.  We've got years of experience between us!