BookatlasPiano Rabbit Hole: Improvisation Theory & Practice
7355 / 18210 · Workshop 56 — “Mack the Knife” Prelude: Walking Bass, Two-Beat-to-Four-Beat Escalation, Chorus Building, Modulation, and Making Repetition Grow← prev⊞ allnext →

56.83The deeper lesson: arrangement is energy over time

You can think of a performance as a graph.

Horizontal axis:

time.

Vertical:

intensity.

A weak arrangement is often almost flat.

A good one has:

  • rises
  • plateaus
  • drops
  • surprises
  • climax
  • release

Harmony is only one contributor to that graph.