R&B arrangement

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damu22

Guest
anyone here really into r&B, i have a question on arrangement. what i usually do is loop a track or the drums, then in like every verse i add a different instrument and melody so it doesnt sound boring. It sounded fine to me until i played it for someone and the person said it had no feeling in it. I listen to a lot of jimmy jam and terry lewis songs, teddy riley, chucky thompson, stevie j. These guys play instruments but they loop their tracks, and i kind of do the same thing they do.

I just need to ask like how differnt people arrange their r&b songs. Im still going to be listening a lot but im just curious as to how everyone else does theirs.

thanks
 
its hard to explain, cos i just do it without thinking about it now.

but i think the main thing is all the tracks i hear (you know the ones, theyre called "hot RnB" on soundclick), their melodies sound boring because theres no dynamics there. A piano or guitar or whatever, shouldnt have a constand level in volume all the way through a melody. Some notes should be loud, some notes should be quiet, this makes your track seem a lot more intresting. Lets you "feel" the music more.

Youre on the right lines with the use of variation though.
 
thats true i actually read that somewhere, and yea some of my instruments have no dynamics, they're the same level throughout the song. but do you loop though??? i dont see anything wrong with looping as long as the whole song isnt the same beginning to end.
 
haha, all i can say is, whenever it gets finished.

i tend to end up producing and writing for other people these days, and it takes up a lot of time that i'd be using to do my own stuff...
 
Well, whenever I do R&B, I loop too, but the beat (kick, snare, perc, etc.) is the same. I just re-record the musical elements over to accomadate a different melody in another sequence. That's the best way I can explain it. Hope I helped any.
 
Using "piano", "mezzo piano", and "pianisimo" will help expand your sound. Every note can't be a standard key hit.
 
yea, the dynamics do work. I listen to some classical music, or music in general and dynamics always come in, even when im reading some music sheets. but on the computer its hard cause you have to deal with a plastic keyboard lol. but thank you all for your help. any more suggestions are welcomed
 
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