Setting vs. Arrangement

[Mark Gunter]

Okay, not a very important question, but out of curiosity I began to wonder why the terms "setting" and "arrangement" appear to be used as synonyms ... I wasn't sure if they are synonyms or whether I might be missing something.

Example: At www.thesession.org variations of tunes are listed under the heading, "Settings." It appears to me as though that popular site uses "setting" synonymously with "version" and "arrangement," but I may be missing something here ...

Before I asked here, I did a Google search, "setting vs. arrangement in music" and found a wikipedia article that indicates "setting" is a term applied to vocal pieces, particularly when a literary work is "set" to music, and not at all synonymous with "arrangement." So there's that. But, in actual usage, are people using the terms synonymously, or am I missing something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_setting

[jshane]

One opinion- I have, I guess, a pretty rigid definition of "arrangement", having studied Theory and Arranging a bit. In this context, an "arrangement" is a specified score involving specific instrumentation, each with a written (or otherwise dictated) part in that score. The score may or may not include or allow improvisation. I really dont know what "setting" means, but I dont think "version" is the same as "arrangement".

[David L]

"Setting" and "version" are being used with the same meaning, as far as TheSession goes. "Arrangement" is how you have arranged a particular version, as to the instrumentation, repeats, etc.

[Paul Kotapish]

In my experience, those terms refer to different things altogether.

In the realm of traditional music, anyway, where tunes are passed along by from one musician to another without intervening recordings or notation, the term "setting" typically refers to the specific notes of a given tune as played by a particular player. Within a tradition, any given tune might have a few — or even dozens — of settings, and traditional fiddlers (or pipers or mandolinists or whatnot) might know several settings of "Sail Away Ladies" or "Pigeon on the Gate."

There are often common or generic versions of tunes floating around, but the more experienced and tradition-bound players are inclined to play a setting of a given tune as learned from a specific player. Along those lines, players often refer to specific settings as So-and-So's Tune Title (John Salyer's "Billy in the Lowground," e.g.).

The Milliner-Koken collection is a great place to explore different settings of the same old-time tune as played by different fiddlers.

An "arrangement," on the other hand, usually refers to how a given setting is presented in terms of chords/accompaniment, variations, alternate ornamentation, tempo, etc.

There's plenty of slop between and betwixt the concepts, but they are distinct in my mind.

[foldedpath]

What David said above (edit to add: and Paul too). If we're talking about "fiddle tunes," then Settings are different versions of common tunes as played locally in sessions, or adapted to fit on different instruments in different keys.

An "Arrangement" is how I think of the way I'd play a tune in a band, so everyone knows exactly what we're doing and when. It's not a word I hear often in the Irish/Scottish session scene.

The other term you may hear is "Variation," which means making subtle changes in the way you play the tune from one repeat to another, so you're not just doing the same thing through all three repeats of a fiddle tune. That's an advanced technique you'll hear more in performance and recordings than in sessions. In a session, you want to be playing more-or-less the same notes as everyone else (with room for differences in ornamentation).

[Beanzy]

I normally refer to a setting in relation to words, action or artworks. ie they are set to music, so the musical setting is the bed or musical landscape you created to convey the words (play, lyrics, poem etc). I think of an arrangement as how you have arranged a musical theme, which instruments you chose and how they work together (metre, cadence, dynamics etc) to create the required feel and flow.