Aga Labus

The long road from having the idea to make "Disease" by Lady Gaga a Choir song - Pt.1.

First there’s the decision: why exactly do I want to arrange THIS song for my choirs / female voices?
Undoubtedly, the Artist is outstanding! Arranging a song from Lady Gaga was already on my bucket list.
Then I look at the harmonies and the lyrics.
In this case, I was moved to the core by the lyrics. This deeply felt pain & desperation - I could relate with a lot of parts of the song because I felt like this for the majority of my life. Arranging music that resonates with me on a deeper level - especially if it’s a troubling or disturbing feeling 💔(while it also works with elevating feelings 🦋🪽) gives me the feeling of transmuting sorrow or pain into sth. meaningful and healing ❤️‍🩹.
Because, in the end, singing in a group and in general IS an elevating experience and can accelerate a healing process. It’s a powerful tool! This is how I would even put my „job description“ as an arranger: you become an emotional alchemist. Even with commissioned work you try to extract the emotion and - at best - I always add a part of me. Just a little „salt“. �

As you can see in the video: extracting alone the musical information is a lot of work! It can be also quite boring, like recording the „Teach Me’s“ for my choirs. At the same time, producing them gives me a better feeling for my own arrangements, because then I AM the singer (and not the choirmaster or arranger or composer) and get to experience, if my arrangement works or makes sense. So as you can see: you sometimes even only record one note 🫣😅🤯.��Have fun with this one and leave a comment, if something comes to your mind watching or reading. Your comment is always valuable to me 🙏🏼

To be continued…