Music Arranger Career Guide: How to Become a Music Arranger

A music arranger is someone who adapts a piece of music for a particular purpose or to achieve a specific effect by writing or rewriting the music’s harmonic elements, tempo, instrumentation, vocals, and orchestration. In this way, the job often sits somewhere between songwriting and music production.

Music arrangers can work off an original composition or create new arrangements to adapt existing pieces of music to different musical styles or genres. Arrangers are essential for classical music and songs that rely on many musicians, as they play a large role in deciding which instruments should play which parts. Music arrangers also work on popular music: For example, an arranger may collaborate with a band to rework a studio piece for a live performance. Very often, the arranger is also a professional musician.

A music arranger’s task depends on their particular area of expertise and the specific project they’re working on. An arranger might work with a music producer to adapt a pop song for a new artist in the music industry. Often, arrangers serve as liaisons between a music director or music composer and an orchestra or string quartet. They may retool a piece of classical music for a concert series or studio recording or suggest adding strings to a rock song.

Arrangers also work in Hollywood and musical theater. They might work with a composer to prepare a movie score for an orchestra or help rework an existing pop song for a TV show’s theme.

Music arrangers don’t get as much fame or credit as pop stars or even producers, but they’re indispensable to the process. Here are a handful of masters in the field:

1. 1. Mary Lou Williams (1910–1981): Mary Lou Williams was a prodigious songwriter and one of the most prominent jazz arrangers of her time, working with icons like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway.
2. 2. Tito Puente (1923–2000): The Latin music legend Tito Puente arranged music for his band (including its historic rhythm section) and jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie.
3. 3. Henry Mancini (1924–1994): Henry Mancini is probably best known for writing “The Pink Panther Theme,” but he worked in Hollywood for decades as an arranger for movies.
4. 4. George Martin (1926–2016): Often referred to as the “fifth Beatle,” George Martin worked with the Beatles to arrange some of their most enduring and popular songs, including “Eleanor Rigby.”
5. 5. Quincy Jones (b.1933): You may know him as a musician and megaproducer, but Quincy Jones is also a masterful arranger who has worked with artists as disparate as Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, and Frank Sinatra.

As with many music careers, there’s no one straight path to becoming a music arranger. Much of the effort involved is in networking and writing and arranging on your own to build experience. There are, however, some ways you can prepare yourself:

• Study theory and notation. To become an arranger, it helps to be both knowledgeable and versatile. In other words, you should be familiar with music theory and music notation and know how to read and write sheet music. You should also keep up with current trends in music and have a sense of music history so you can work across musical genres.
• Work on your skills. You don’t need to know how to play every musical instrument to be an effective arranger, but most know how to play a range of different instruments. As a skilled musician yourself, you’ll know both how an arrangement will sound and how a performer would play it.
• Choose an area of focus. Arrangers can work across multiple industries, but when you’re just starting, it can be helpful to find a niche. Think about the type of work you’re most interested in, such as classical performances, popular music recordings, musical theater, or TV or movie scores, and then seek out jobs and networking opportunities in those specific fields.
• Make connections. Once you feel confident as an arranger, try to meet people in the field. Music school can be a great place to network, or you can try reaching out to arrangers whose work you admire. One way to meet people and learn more about the job is to perform live music or seek work as a session musician.

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