Same Song, New Sound: Remixes & Rearrangements

Have you ever heard a familiar song and needed a few seconds to recognize it?

Maybe the beat was completely different. Perhaps a pop song suddenly sounded like jazz. A fast song became a ballad. An acoustic guitar replaced electronic instruments. Yet somewhere underneath all those changes was a song you already knew.

Welcome to the world of remixes and rearrangements.

Both give musicians opportunities to take existing music and explore it in new ways. However, a remix and a rearrangement aren’t quite the same thing.

What Is a Rearrangement?

An arrangement determines how a piece of music will be performed.

Musicians make choices about instruments, tempo, rhythm, harmony, dynamics, and musical style. They decide who plays which parts and how those parts fit together.

A rearrangement takes an existing piece and makes some of those choices again.

Imagine taking a song originally recorded by a full rock band and performing it with only piano and voice. That’s a rearrangement.

But musicians can go much further.

A pop song could become a bluegrass tune. A rock anthem could become a quiet string arrangement. A classical melody could be played by electric guitars. The notes, chords, rhythms, or structure may change along the way.

The original song remains recognizable, but its musical surroundings have changed.

Put a Pop Song in a Time Machine

For some fantastic examples, look at Postmodern Jukebox.

Pianist and arranger Scott Bradlee founded Postmodern Jukebox with the idea of reimagining modern popular songs in musical styles from the past. The project has transformed contemporary pop, rock, and R&B songs using styles such as jazz, swing, doo-wop, ragtime, and Motown.

The results can sound as though someone sent a song backward through time.

Radiohead’s “Creep,” for example, became a vintage-style arrangement featuring Haley Reinhart. The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” received a New Orleans dirge treatment. Britney Spears’ “Oops!… I Did It Again” became a vintage Marilyn Monroe-style number.

The lyrics and recognizable identity of each song remain. However, changing the musical style creates an entirely different listening experience.

That’s one of the fascinating things about rearranging music. It can reveal possibilities that were hiding inside a song all along.

So, What Is a Remix?

A remix usually starts with a recording rather than simply starting with the composition.

A producer or artist can take recorded elements of a song and manipulate them. Vocals might be isolated, sections repeated, beats replaced, effects added, or different parts removed. New sounds and instruments can also be introduced.

Sometimes the change is subtle.

Other times, the remix sounds dramatically different from the original.

A dance remix might take a slower pop song and add a strong electronic beat. Another remix might repeat one vocal phrase and build an entirely new track around it. Producers can even change the structure of the song.

Technology becomes part of the creative process.

Remix or Rearrangement?

The line between the two can sometimes get blurry. Both involve taking existing music and making new creative choices.

One useful way to think about the difference is this:

A rearrangement changes how musicians perform the song. A remix changes how recorded elements of the song are assembled and produced.

Imagine you have a pop song.

Give the music to a jazz band and ask them to create their own version. That’s a rearrangement.

Give the original recording to a producer who pulls apart its recorded tracks, adds a new beat, repeats the chorus, and changes the sound. That’s a remix.

Of course, musicians love breaking rules. A new version can contain elements of both.

The important part is what happens when someone asks, “What else could this song become?”

The Building Blocks of a Song

Remixes and rearrangements also show us something important about how music works.

A song isn’t just one thing.

It contains melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, instrumentation, dynamics, structure, texture, and much more. Change one element, and you may hear the song differently. Change several, and you can transform it.

Imagine playing a happy melody very slowly.

Now move a song from major to minor.

Guitars could be replaced with strings, while a straight rhythm might become a swing rhythm.

Even changing something from loud and energetic to soft and gentle can create a very different feeling.

Each choice changes the listener’s experience, even when the original musical idea is still there.

Try Rearranging Something Yourself

You don’t need a recording studio to experiment with these ideas.

Choose a song you already know well. Then change one thing.

Start by experimenting with the tempo or rhythm. Play the melody on another instrument, or create a new accompaniment. You could also explore different dynamics. If you know chords, try changing the harmony.

Then change something else.

What happens to the mood? Does the song suddenly remind you of another genre? Which parts can you change before the song becomes difficult to recognize?

There isn’t necessarily one correct answer.

That’s the fun of it.

Music Is Meant to Be Explored

Learning a piece doesn’t always have to mean reproducing it exactly as someone else performed it.

Once musicians understand how music is put together, they can start asking their own questions.

What if we played it faster?

Could the piano take this part instead?

How would a different beat change the song?

And what might happen if this pop song suddenly sounded like it came from the 1940s?

Remixes and rearrangements remind us that music can be flexible. A familiar song can become the starting point for another musician’s creativity.

Sometimes hearing an old favorite in a completely new way can even help us notice something about the original that we never heard before.