My name is Andy Davidson, let me introduce myself. I am a working musical director & arranger of band / orchestra parts. I have many years experience working mostly in the holiday industry both on land and at sea. The bands and orchestras I have been involved with over the years have always had an excellent standard of product, partly because of the high standard of musician I am used to working with. Though largely without blowing my own trumpet (so to speak) it is also as a result of the very high standard of band / orchestra parts (music partitions) I give the musicians to play. Most of them are very happy to endorse my musical arrangements. I believe with reading musicians it all begins with the written parts. Over the years I have written charts / orchestra parts for many top acts. They include Midge Ure, Sonia, John Miles, Living In A Box, Bobby Davro & Michaela Strachan, together with in the past few years many acts and indeed finalists from shows like Britain’s Got Talent, America’s Got Talent and The Voice. I have numerous West End and Broadway performers among my clientele as well as many other acts who have successful careers on cruise ships. I love music of all styles from rock to jazz, from country to classical. I have come to understand what musicians like to see on their part, though of course it is not an exact science. My arrangements are truly a labour of love. As a fan of most types of music from Pop and Rock through Jazz I get a great deal of pleasure when an arrangement is complete. To me it is like finishing an audio jigsaw. I would hope it to be almost a historical archive of that particular recording.
The arrangements I have are in essence for cruise ship band orchestra. They are mostly for 4-piece rhythm section (Keyboards / MD, Bass guitar, Guitar & Drums, supplemented by a 3/4-piece horn arrangement. The 4-piece horn arrangement is designed (normally) to work as a 3-horn arrangement. Sax, horns, extra keyboards, second guitar etc are normally cued on the keyboard part. This gives the keyboard player the option of playing those lines if he can and so wishes, if that instrument is not included in the band or orchestra. As a keyboard player / MD myself that is what I want to see on a keyboard part. I also play guitar and bass to a good standard. Also I have worked closely with some excellent drummers, programming and writing for drums. From that I believe I have a very good understanding of drum parts and how they work. A vocal chart is usually included free with the arrangement (where applicable) and an audio mp3 of the chart playing by midi so that importantly an artiste can go into a rehearsal already knowing the format and sound of the arrangement. As a fan of all different style of music I get a buzz from recreating the sound on each record whether it is copying a straight rock song
or getting a huge ‘big band’ swing sound out of a small horn section.
I get lots of good comments from musicians who agree that I achieve this, mostly from the 3-dimensional aspect of my horn arrangements.
The band / orchestra parts you find on this site are not sheet music of the type you find in a book in a music shop, but detailed individual parts for each instrument. In most cases I have had to try to find the best way to write each part, to get as much information on it as possible but without making it too detailed and messy. Deciding what is & isn’t vital to the song is always a contentious issue. Some solos I’ve written note-for- note if I believe they are important. Other musicians might prefer to improvise a solo, in that case chord symbols are included too. It’s impossible to create the ‘perfect arrangement’ because every musician has a different idea of what that perfect arrangement is, but I’ve tried to make them as accurate and workable as possible. I hope you or the musicians you work with enjoy these band / orchestra parts as much as I’ve enjoyed putting the catalogue together. Good luck – and enjoy the music!