Mike Thorne: What’s the arranger’s own job description? What do you tell people you do at parties?

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But, you work with groups--you work with all sorts of shapes and sizes.

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You’re really pointing out that arranging the notes is only half of it. The other half is knowing the people who are going to deliver those notes.

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How do you contrast music making, say between New York and Los Angeles, and Cleveland, where you’re from?

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So, this is your technique?

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There’s a certain standard which we tend to take for granted after a certain point.

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Do you think in an age of home studios and do-it-yourself electronic composition people are likely to assume they don’t need specialist help anymore?

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Well, in a sense, you are trying to influence.

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One of the attractions of New York for a lot of people is that there’s always somebody better than you just down the street, and you always feel that pressure. Do you feel that’s a stimulating pressure?

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You talk about experience, and, of course, we all start somewhere, and some of us come to it with a classical education and we gather piecemeal experience in order to make the rounded personality we hope we become around age 85. Do you think a formal musical education helps or hinders making accessible pop music? Do you think it could be a hindrance?

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But it is often true that, when a high level of musician comes in to play solo or the string section opens up, it changes all the rules in the music itself. How do you cope with that? Do you always anticipate it? Do you always call it directly?

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So, politics are probably getting more and more serious. Do you find that they are sometimes difficult with high-level acts that you work with such as Britney Spears? Is there a committee at work here or do you find that’s a fluid place to work?

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What sort of contrasting sessions do you remember? Not contrasting meaning ‘not fun’ sessions but just different style sessions?

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Do you find sometimes that classical arrangements are generated or instigated just to provide a pretensive quality rather than for their own reasons?

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Well, you find yourself having to arrange elements such as strings and crash guitar chords in the same track. What crosses your mind when you have to meld those together?

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It’s as if there’s split there between say the chamber music approach of a four-piece rock n roll band and the more orchestral approach where you’re underpinning an instrument and having to explain to an instrumentalist what the contribution is by showing what it is if you take it out rather than hearing it.

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Used to be some very good bars just around the corner.

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Well, there were more large studios in the olden days.

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Do you think that’s removed an apprentice-type approach to training? Do you think that this, in general, is going to limit people’s horizons?

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Would you ever recommend to somebody that they take a career in music?

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But if we make it, we achieve the privilege of being paid for something we like doing.

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Hot and cold cycles seem to be a characteristic of a lot of businesses, but they’re quite acute in the music business.

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But it’s a resilient city.

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And, every so often it doesn’t. Is there any reason for those cycles?

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That’s a very depressing scenario, but what’s an optimistic version of that.

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Ultimately, that’s all we can do.

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To the text version of Jimmy's interview

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