Let’s take a look at a few techniques we can use when thinking about our arrangement. If you’re literate in music theory to the point of reading and writing music, then there’s nothing else that will do a better job of helping you visualise the relationships between instrument parts over time. This goes hand in hand with learning to play an instrument. There’s a serious time investment up front, but time is saved when it comes to the creative process; you don’t need to carefully find each chord every time you try and work out a new section.
Just as we can write our score with pen and paper, we can also use software, ranging from score editors within DAWs such as Logic Pro X, to standalone applications like Sibelius, and iPad apps such as Notion, which will even let us use an Apple Pencil to draw in notes.