We have an ever growing and vast repertoire of pop music now for string quartet. We’ve been so impressed with how much this has taken off in recent years. Not only is it really fun for us to play, but our listeners seem to enjoy it too! Win win!
Much of our pop repertoire is arranged by us ourselves. We know our style of playing the best, and can tailor any arrangement we write. There’s a certain skill to arranging a pop song for string quartet. How to deal with the melody line that is often very syncopated or spoken in parts, how to make it sound rock or poppy without the addition of a drumkit, how to ensure the cello part is not stuck just playing the bass guitar line throughout, how to reduce several instruments down to just four without losing the essence of the song. It can take some time to craft a good arrangement, and this is why we may charge a small fee for arranging the music for a special request for an event.
We’ve got lots of experience now of arranging our own music for quartet and we really love it when someone asks us to play something we haven’t already got as it’s great to get ideas from other people of what might work for string quartet.
We arrange our music using a piece of music software called Sibelius. This is basically like Microsoft Word but for music notation, and is really handy as it plays back what you have written so we can check if we’ve written it wrong!
A massive thanks to Anna and Amy for all of their fabulous arrangements for us. Here are some examples of our recent TBQ Arrangements:
Coldplay – Viva la Vida
ELO – Mr Blue Sky
Take That – Shine
Snow Patrol – Run
Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats
Michael Buble – Everything
Nina Simone – Feeling Good
Danny Elfman – Ice Dance
Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
Coldplay – Fix You
Keep an eye out on our repertoire for new arrangements that we add!