Tighter arrangements?

[NewSc2]

Hey everybody, great forum here.

I've been recording my own house/techno (and some acoustic guitar songs) and I guess this would be more of a songwriting question but I find that I'm using the same kinds of arrangements and buildups/breakdowns in my songs. I haven't really studied arranging songs, and unlike audio it's not something you can immediately hear a difference between two recordings. Especially with my electronic tracks I find myself building up a beat, adding in layers, cutting off half the beat, soloing the synth lead, and bringing back the beat, quite often in my songs. (Bit more than that of course, but you get the jist)

I'm kind of new to producing, only been songwriting/recording for about a year, so I know I'll learn more but can anybody offer some advice for more creative arrangements? Should I study The Beatles :D?

[Badside]

I've read somewhere that this would be considered your "style". Nothing bad about having one!

You can for the sake of it experiment and force yourself to not do the same recipe. Might be good, might be bad!

But don't worry if some things come back frequently in your music, that's how people will recognize it (unless you're simply doing something that everybody does!)

[Phil O'Keefe]

You could probably take an arrangement class at your local community college. That should help you a great deal.

Can you read music notation? A knowledge of that certainly will be useful if you go after some more formal education.

There are good books on arranging, but you can honestly learn a lot just by listening... and don't limit yourself to just one genre... listen to some Bach, some good jazz, and yes, some Beatles. ;) Listen to how the various instruments are used together and "aganst" each other. Listen to melody and harmony, and what is doing what, and when / how that changes. Listen to how parts are layered, and how when two instruments play the same part at the same time, the tone becomes something "different". Listen to rhythms and really pick it apart. You can glean a lot of information by just listening to a bunch of different stuff in a wide variety of styles. :)

[NewSc2]

Yeah, I can read music. My parents gave me piano lessons from when i was 5 until 13 (I'm 21 now), so I have a good feel for the keys and can sight read basic classical pieces (difficulty like Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring)

My goal is to do live production, like Underworld, controlling loops to build up a frenzy on the dance floor (i enjoy all types of music but i like holding people to a beat... been really inspired by acid house and minimal techno). I guess I really need to build up a live production rig and experiment with that -- i run into too many blocks with my workflow currently. It seems like most live electronic acts produce hits in the studio first and remix them live, though, so I've been trying to hit the studio but waveforms and tracks all look the same in Logic and I'd like to be as hands on as possible... instead of automating effects I need to get a mixer to turn the knobs myself live.

I fear I'm making it more complicated than it should be. Phil, could you give me just a cookie-cutter standard pop arrangement to experiment around? 8-bar intro, 16-bar verse, chorus, etc.? I don't even know how many bars the usual pop song intro and verses/chorus last. I mean, I've read over the 12-bar blues form, but you ABABACA that? or ABABACADA? or ABABCA?

(sorry, a bit lost here, just lookin for some guidance)

Thanks in advance,

Tony