Simple Tips of getting started to arrange music on your own
So now you want to arrange some music, and/or you want to play a song by listening without using sheet music. But you may think: how do you even get start with? Or you may think of this as something that is way out of your league. Some people may even tell you that this is purely natural talent. Seriously, you guys may have experienced that your instrumental teachers also don't know how to do this, or don't know how to teach you this knowledge; instead they just keep throwing different sheet music and request you to read them and play them. Trust me, I had been there and it took me forever just to learn one single song. I was not born to be able to play songs by listening and arrange them, I actually figured out the secret on my own after I learned piano for 10 years, then keep learning and practicing until I reach this point now that I can arrange songs for piano, melodica, glockenspiel, harmonium, bass guitar, accordion, etc. It is in fact some VERY SIMPLE tricks that I wish my piano teacher back would have told me back then, and it is a trick that you can start in the BEGINNING of the music learning progress. It also helps to read sheet music faster by learning music arrangements, as it is purely application of aural/music theory, and sheet music are written by humans as well. This is also why I can play more than 7 instruments now. ​​
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The first tip is a REALLY simple trick. It applies to ALL piano keyboard shaped instruments (which means piano, melodica, glockenspiel, accordion, organ, xylophone, vibraphone, harmonium, harpsichord, etc.) All you have to do is just simply FOOL AROUND, play RANDOMLY with the BLACK KEYS in some certain rhythms and/or tempo, then you get an oriental sound/flavor in your song creation. On the right is an example that I demonstrate on a piano. That kind of sounds like some Chinese traditional masterpiece isn't it? The secret behind it is that "play only black keys" is actually from a key of pentatonic scale, and Chinese traditional music is strongly based on pentatonic scale. ​
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The second tip is also a VERY simple trick. It also applies to ALL piano keyboard shaped instruments (melodica, glockenspiel, harmonium which has narrower bass range need more variations than this trick compare to piano, accordion, organ, xylophone that has wider bass range). This time, all you have to do is also simply FOOL AROUND with the WHITE KEYS on your right hand/melody, but your left hand/accompaniment just play C, F, or G, and ALWAYS start and end with C on left hand/accompaniment. To keep it simple, you can press one of the three keys ONCE EVERY 4 BEATS. That way you get 1/3 chance of getting your left hand part sounds right in every bar. You can also try looping C->F->G->C->F->G->C.....at first, and after practice a while you will know by listening that when you have to repeat the same note, and when you have to change in the next bar. You can add variations to press once every 2 beats, 1 beat, half beat, etc. once you start to hear what "flavor" does each of the accompaniment note give. Here I use an accordion to play with simple arrangement to demostrate this point:​
The magic behind this is that this is based on C major scale, which are all white keys in a piano keyboard. The C,F,G accompaniment notes are based on the music theory of applying the 1st note, 4th note, and 5th note of the the scale that you are playing. So say if you switch your song key to G major, the accompaniment notes will become G,C,D. (Which is also why people first teach you G chord, C chord, D chord when you first learn guitar). You can also add an A (C major 6th note) on your accompaniment to add more flavor in your song, and that way you still get 1/4 chance of getting it sound right. And you may notice that about 80% of the songs that you know are based on the usage of "1645", both when you listen to them and read their sheet music.
Moreover, if you look at the accordion 120 bass keys chart:
you will see on the second row that the key next to the C in the middle are F and G; and if you shift this whole "FCG" frame to the right by one key, it would become "CGD", by two keys it will be "GDA"; if you shift this whole "FCG" frame to the left by one key it would be "BbFC", by two keys it will be "EbBbF", etc. Which means the second row is a series of "415" accompaniment notes, more left means more flats in key signature, more right means more sharps in key signature (music theory of circle of fifth). They do that on purpose hence it is easier for people to get start with the instrument.​
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Hope these two tips help you to get start with arranging music on your own, and have fun practicing.
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