How to Arrange a Song: Arranging & Reharmonization Tips

Have you ever seen a pianist play a medley or cover and wondered how they did it? Or, do you have a beautiful melody in mind and want to give it your own signature spin? In this lesson, we’ll teach you how to arrange a song. You’ll need a basic understanding of music theory, but we’ve designed this lesson to be accessible for beginners and we hope everyone can get something out of it!

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How to Arrange a Song: Harmonize Your Melody

As an example, we’ll be using a simple yet iconic eight-measure melody: Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

The first step in arranging is to harmonize your melody. If you’re new to harmonizing, we have a full lesson on how to harmonize a melody here.

If you’re arranging a pop song, you can use ultimate-guitar.com as a shortcut to find chords that match the melody.

In general, melodies can be harmonized by the three “primary chords” (I, IV, and V) in the melody’s key. Since we’re in the key of C major, our primary chords are C, F, and G. Using them to harmonize “Ode to Joy” gives us something like this:

This is a great starting point! So let’s see what we can do to make this simple arrangement more unique. We’ll run through a few arranging techniques next, from simplest to more advanced.

Other lessons you may want to reference if you’re just getting started with harmony:

• The Number System
• Diatonic Chords

Harmonize With Thirds

A simple way to add more “oomph” to your melody is by harmonizing it with thirds. Simply add a third below your melody note for some extra meat.

To prevent everything from sounding too muddy, try just playing shell chords (fifths) in your left hand if you choose to harmonize in thirds with your right.

Thirds almost always sound good. (Sixths works well too.)

Our ears naturally gravitate towards the highest note, so as long as you keep the melody as the highest note, your melody will remain recognizable over everything.

Pedal Points

This is a common technique in classical music. A pedal point is when you hold out a note longer than its expected place in a chord progression. A good candidate for this note is the V. The V really wants to resolve to the I. So by holding it out, we build tension, anticipation, and drama as our audience waits for that resolution.

In “Ode to Joy,” we can add a V pedal point one measure early in m. 7. Like this:

Notice that to make this version even more dramatic, we’ve harmonized our melody with some even bigger chords in the right hand. These are just inverted C and G triads.

The Relative Minor Chord

So far, we’ve only been using major chords. Major chords sound great, but sometimes we want to add a little moodiness and extra color to our arrangements.

The relative minor (vi chord) is a great go-to chord to add to any arrangement. In C major, that’s Am. Am has the notes A-C-E, so find a place in your melody where one or more of these notes occur.

Here’s an example of the vi chord in action in “Ode to Joy”:

Another minor chord you can add is the relative minor chord of any chord. So, you can substitute a G major chord with the relative minor of G major: Em. This is a more advanced technique, but it sounds very sophisticated:

Secondary Dominants

Now let’s try adding chords from outside the key. We can do this by using a technique called secondary dominants.

The “dominant” is the fifth note (V) of the scale. Chords that are dominant chords (ie. dominant 7ths) are built on the fifth note of the scale.

V chords really want to resolve to I chords. (They’re soulmates!) Here’s where it gets interesting: we can designate any chord as a “I” chord and use the V of that chord to resolve it. This is called a secondary dominant.

So, for example, we can designate our Am chord as our i chord. Then slip in the V⁷ of A minor right before it. That’s E7, and this chord adds a super interesting flavor to our progression.

Here is our E7 secondary dominant:

Replacing Dominant 7ths With Diminished 7ths

You can add further crunchiness to your secondary dominant reharmonization by substituting your dominant 7th chord with a diminished 7th chord. Here’s an example of this, along with further harmonization of the melody line:

We can do this by simply omitting the root (E) from our E7 chord. This gives us G#dim. Why this works is because 1) G#dim7 is part of E7; and 2) we can use the root note (G#) to walk up from G to A. Human ears like chromatic walk-ups and walk-downs very much!

> Ultimate Guide to 7th Chords

Passing 2-5-1

A common arrangement technique from jazz is the passing 2-5-1. This means inserting a ii and V before a chord to resolve it.

In our example, it means inserting a Dm before that final G-C cadence.

We can even turn these into 7th chords (Dm7-G7-Cmaj7) to make it sound jazzy. Try it yourself.

> The 2-5-1 Chord Progression: A Beginner’s Guide

Super Bowl Ending

Both the pedal point and passing 2-5-1 are fantastic enders. Pedal points are preferred by classical musicians while 2-5-1s are most popular in jazz.

But what about pop? The “Super Bowl ending” is another awesome conclusion. This progression uses a ♭VI and ♭VII chord to lead into the I. Dragged out across multiple measures, it produces a dramatic ending that you’d associate with a stadium performance.

More Tips

We’ve used simple root position block chords to illustrate these concepts, which hopefully makes them easier to understand. But you’ll probably want to put your own twist on these chords.

Once you’ve got your basic progression down, you can:

• Draw out chords and extend pedal points across many measures, playing arpeggios all up and down the keyboard—this drives tension!
• Use 7th chords and chord extensions to add a jazzier feel.
• Do the unexpected: play a jazzy classical tune, or play a classical-style pop tune!
• Experiment with dynamics, rhythm, and articulation—even tiny tweaks can make a big difference.
• Don’t overplay. Sometimes, less is more. Use reharmonization techniques sparingly for maximum impact.

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