In my first article on learning how to arrange, one of the things I mentioned that would be a helpful tool is other arrangers' hymn arrangements. Analyzing another's arrangement is very helpful in learning to create your own because you can see what types of left-hand patterns are used, what types of chord patterns the arranger created, where they use more or less movement, what styles they apply to which songs, etc. Other hymn arrangements are an endless supply of ideas! Even after arranging for six years, I still play through songs from other arrangers to refresh and try to keep my own arrangements sounding unique from each other.

For those of you who are new to this concept, in this article I want to give an example of what it looks like to analyze an arrangement and what types of questions you can ask yourself as you go through a song.

Questions to Ask When Analyzing

There are a few questions you can have in your mind as you begin to look at an arrangement. We will use some of these as we look at my intermediate arrangement of Holy, Holy, Holy! in this article. These questions will help you know what to look for in a given piece of sheet music and hopefully help you think of even more questions to ask!

Quick tip: Make sure to write down your findings as you go through an arrangement. If you see an interesting chord progression or left- or right-hand pattern to write it down. Even if you can't add it to an arrangement you are currently working on, you may be able to use it in the future! You might even find it helpful to keep a notebook set aside for writing down your ideas so that you can easily pull from it as you continue working on new arrangements.

Here are some things to be thinking about:

1. What style is the hymn arranged in? Are there any style changes throughout the song? Mark the sections where the style does change.
2. What chords are used? Above each chord you recognize in the music, write what chord it is. Using the number system instead of note names would be helpful because any chord progressions you like can then be easily used in any key in the future, but in the examples below I will use the chord names for those who are still not super familiar with the number system.
3. What left-hand patterns are used? Does the left hand play arpeggiated chords? Tenths? Simple bass notes? Note changes in the left-hand pattern and how it affects the feel or the sound of the song.
4. What is the right hand doing? Is the right hand playing octaves, chords, a one-note melody, broken chords, arpeggios, etc.? How does it relate to what the left hand is playing? Is there switching between different right-hand patterns throughout the song? Note these changes.
5. Is there a theme in the song? Does the intro provide a theme that is used throughout the piece?
6. What do you picture as you listen to the music? Try to make a connection between the style of the song and what you picture when you hear it. You can then try to recreate this style in your own arrangements if you're looking to give people a certain picture or feeling.

Analyzing Holy, Holy, Holy! Sheet Music

Chording

As I mentioned earlier, we will be looking at my intermediate arrangement of Holy, Holy, Holy!, which is available for free here. We will discover answers to some of the questions above, plus maybe even more. The first thing I like to do is to look at the chording. If you are familiar with the traditional recording of this hymn, you know that most of the song uses the 1, 4, and 5 chords (or in the key of F: the F, B♭, and C chords), as do most hymns. As you go through this song and write out which chords are used, you will see that there is a quite a bit of deviation from this. This is okay to do though! You want to use some different chording than is found in the hymn, otherwise your arrangement might not have a distinctly unique sound.

To determine which chords are used in a given arrangement, you can look at all the notes in the right and left hands, combine them, and then use that to determine what chord is being used. Here is the first page of Holy, Holy, Holy! that includes the chords so that you can see an example of how this can be done.

As you can probably tell from looking at this page, some of the chords can be a little harder to determine than others. It does get a bit easier as the song goes on though. I would encourage you to download this free sheet music and try writing in the rest of the chords yourself for practice!

One thing you might notice from writing out the chords on this first page is that instead of beginning on the typical root chord (the 1, or F in this case), the intro begins on a minor sixth chord. The reason I began the song this way was to give it a more somber tone (as the minor sixth chord tends to do) and create a more unique sound than my other arrangements. Try making your own observations like this throughout the song as you analyze the chords.

Style

Going through the song, try to mark any style changes you find. In this particular arrangement, you can see that there is more movement in the intro, less movement in the first verse, and then the second verse begins to sound more like the intro again and more left-hand movement is added back in. Eventually, if you have the sheet music, you can see that verse three starts to have a more classical feel to it with even more movement. Stylistic changes throughout an arrangement keeps the piece from becoming monotonous or tiresome and creates more interest.

Note these changes in style and how one style transitions to the next. Transitions are very important in an arrangement! If a transition is not used correctly when changing styles, it can make the song sound somewhat choppy.

Below, you can see the transitions and style changes highlighted on page one of Holy, Holy, Holy!.

Left-Hand Patterns

If you look closely at the left-hand in this arrangement, you will see that I often use sevenths (highlighted below in green) in the left hand instead of an octave. This is because the seventh gives a much more full sound than a simple octave, which you can probably hear if you try to replace these sevenths with octaves in the piece. Sevenths don't work on every chord, but they work with many. Sometimes, you can play a sixth (which I use in this arrangement) or fifth to get a similar sound when the seventh does not work. It all depends on which chord you are going to transition to next, which chord you are coming from, and which chord you are playing.

You will also see that in the left hand I use the 1, 5, 8 pattern (highlighted below in blue) I mentioned in How to Play Piano Accompaniment from the Hymnal throughout the intro and second verse. This pattern is the easiest left-hand pattern to play, but it doesn't always work out exact (as you can see in the second chord below). You might have to do some fiddling with the patterns to get them to work with the chord you are playing. To learn more about that, you can read this article.

Conclusion

I will let you take it from here and analyze the rest of the song yourself! As you do this more, it will start to become easier and you will start to notice things in the sheet music you hadn't noticed before. It may even be helpful to come back to a song later and re-analyze it. You might even find as you become better at it you are analyzing songs as you play them!

I hope that this helps you pull some ideas from pieces you have sheet music for to add to your arrangements! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact us and we will be happy to help!