Deke Sharon is the co-author of A Cappella Arranging with Dylan Bell. Here is an excerpt of the interview he did with Neon Tommy. Please visit their site for the full interview.
So I know that there are a lot of books and online guides to arranging a cappella, so why did you decide to write the “definitive” guide?
Well, a lot of people have said a few things here and there, but I don’t feel as though there’s a book that’s been written that really fully explains the process, the thinking, the style of contemporary a cappella. And there was no way to do this in a small way. I have written blogs in the past twenty years on casa.org [the website for the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America], so I’ve put lots and lots of information out there, but that’s different from it being in one place. I have for many years taught basic arranging, intermediate and advanced arranging to different people. But working with a classroom of people at SoJam [an a cappella festival] or at a particular event is different from giving them something that people anywhere around the world – because it’s going to be available for digital download – would be able to use. So, for ten years, this has been a dream of mine. Ten actual years of compiling some blog entries and putting things in order, and the chapters increased.
I think around the beginning of the year when Dylan Bell posted somewhere on casa.org, “Oh, I’m going to be writing an arranging book and I’m just getting started,” I dropped him an email immediately, and I was like, “Dude, I’m well into this book, but I’m so busy with “Pitch Perfect” and “The Sing-Off” or whatever, and I can’t get this done! Would you want to partner?” And he said, “I don’t know. Let me see what you’ve written.” So I sent him 200 pages, and he was like, “Whoa! Okay! I see that you’ve got a lot written here.” But of course, he’s very experienced and very talented and has a lot to add as well. So he said, “Let me go through your stuff, slowly and methodically, and expand upon it and see if we can get one big master work going.”So it was this back and forth process. The two of us were never in a room at the same time. The two of us were probably never in the same state at the same time, possibly never in the same country at the same time. That’s modern publishing for you.
The book is obviously aimed at current or future a cappella arrangers. But do you think that a cappella enthusiasts or non-arrangers would benefit from reading the book as well?
I would hope that non-arrangers would read it and become arrangers. That’s part of what I want to do. For many years in the early days, I was one of the only people doing custom contemporary a cappella arranging, possibly the only person or the only person to say that. But if people wanted arrangements, they called me and that was that. And I had other people working for me, the staff, and we were just this arranging house. Now, there have got to be thousands of people arranging in the contemporary a cappella style. I mean, if you look at there being over a thousand college a cappella groups and each group has one person on average arranging, that’s a thousand people. And I like it better that way. I want everybody to make music, I want people to sing, I want the world to, you know, spread harmony through harmony. So my hope is that the book will get more people arranging, and as a result, more people will sing.
What kinds of feedback have you gotten from readers in the a cappella community, or readers just in general?
I have heard nothing but excitement and positive feedback. In fact, I’ve been kind of amazed that so many people in so many places have been purchasing it. I would say the number one feedback that I’ve heard from anyone is, “When can I get this book? Why is it taking so long to get to me?” The most common email I respond to is that! So that makes me happy. That’s a good problem to have.
A Cappella Arranging is a good textbook – and a “good read” – for every vocal arranger, whether amateur or professional; every vocal music classroom, and any professional recording studio.
