Interview with Rob Dietz
Rob Dietz is an award-winning singer and vocal percussionist who has arranged and composed contemporary a cappella music for more than 20 years.
Based in Los Angeles, Rob is best known for his work as an arranger and group coach for NBC’s The Sing-Off, where he collaborated with Pentatonix, Peter Hollens, and others. His arrangements have been featured in film and TV and have been performed by world-renowned vocalists.
He is a conductor and educator, and the author of A Cappella 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Contemporary A Cappella Singing, published by Hal Leonard.
Rob has been publishing his work through ArrangeMe since 2017.
ArrangeMe: You are both an accomplished arranger and a composer. Which one did you find first, and how did you find your way to the other?
Rob Dietz: Interesting question. Guitar was my first instrument, which I started when I was five. I started writing very simple songs when I was in that pre-teen era. I don't really even remember why I got the bug to do that, I just kind of liked messing around and I would improvise melodies and silly lyrics, and it kind of grew from there. So that was the beginning of the "crafting a song" thing.
And then I founded my high school a cappella group when I was 14, my freshman year. At the time, it started as four guys and then became five. We were called Ascending Height, because we all started out short and got tall by the end of high school. We had an old mini disk recorder with just a single mic, I would get a couple of the guys to come over, and we would just kind of like improvise little bits of songs. Then from there I started doing more arranging in Finale. I arranged for that group all through high school.
And that was actually when I started working with Deke Sharon. I went to an arranging workshop with him when I was 15 and we stayed in touch. Actually, my very first published title was a Hal Leonard songbook called "Modern A Cappella, Volume One" that I published with Deke. I was like 16 years old and it was a songbook of pop a cappella stuff. That was my earliest Hal Leonard experience.
So the arranging thing kind of came out of necessity because I was in this group and we needed arrangements. We wanted to do stuff that was on the radio that we were listening to, so I took a stab at it and I just kept doing it all through high school and then college. I started to do it for other groups and then I fell into this career as an arranger because more and more groups were asking me to arrange for them. And then, because I had stayed in touch with Deke, when I graduated from college I wound up working with him on TheSing-Off and it all just kind of flowed from there.
“The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel is one of Rob’s oldest and most favorite arrangements.
AM: What does your writing process look like? Does it vary when you arrange your own composition?
RD: There are similarities between the two. I actually arrange in Melodyne, which is a pitch correction software and also a Digital Audio Workstation. So for pop stuff, I'll take the original song, import it into Melodyne, and then I'll sing on top of that. It's great because in Melodyne I can sing down the octave and move it up the octave, or I can sing one part and then I can copy it into other tracks and then harmonize with myself that way.
I'll listen to a song many times before I sit down to actually record it. People always say you need to actively listen to the song. You know, listen, listen, listen, pick out all the stuff. I do some of that, but I find I get a lot out of listening passively to songs as well. I like to listen while I'm doing the dishes or going for a walk or doing other stuff, to let it percolate in my brain a little bit in a way where I'm not focused on the chords or the rhythms or the structure. I'm thinking, “What does this song feel like to me in a broad sense?” and that helps me develop my own interpretation of it.
For my original compositions, I like to start with the text: the poetry, or my wife has written a lot of original text for me as well. I like to start with the lyrics because I think it pushes me a little more naturally in the direction of what the piece needs to be. When I'm writing pop music, I like to start with the melodic, harmonic stuff. That’s probably the biggest difference between the two styles for me!
When it comes to choral writing, I don't like to think too “big picture” at first. I think this comes from the pop composition side of me. I'm always looking for the chorus, even if the piece I’m writing won’t necessarily have a chorus in a traditional sense. I'm looking for, "What's the hook?"
And then I work out in both directions from that. So a lot of the time, my choral compositions wind up being a series of chunks that I go back and kind of find bridges between. Jacob Collier talks about “harmonic gravity” where harmonies kind of lead in a certain direction. I feel that a lot in my choral writing, even more so than in my arranging.
AM: What is the best way to produce a decent demonstration recording of a vocal chart? Particularly for arrangers/composers just starting out that likely don’t have the budget to hire singers?
RD: I mentioned that I use Melodyne for all of my demoing stuff. And actually, what's cool about Melodyne, part of the reason I do it, is I'll record all of my own voices. But then you can actually export from Melodyne as MIDI. So I'll export what I recorded as MIDI and I'll open it in Finale and then boom! I have a good starting point for my transcription already. The issue with Melodyne is it's not cheap! If you're considering this as a longer term career, I do really recommend investing in it. You'll make that investment back. There really aren't any other tools that are as powerful as Melodyne.
There is a little bit of a barrier to entry with everything. Hopefully everybody can find some way in, maybe through a local community chorus or your church choir. These days, particularly post-Covid, it seems like everybody has a recording setup. And you can record on your phone, too! I've done a lot of really successful recordings on phones. If you've got some friends who sing different parts, even if they just track it on their phone and you throw it together, that's something!
AM: How do you let people know they can buy your sheet music? Do you have a particular strategy when you release something new?
RD: The ways in which I've found my stuff has really proliferated has been word of mouth and answering the call when people are looking for specific things.
One of the best channels for letting people know has been Facebook groups that are specific to different communities, like the choir director Facebook groups. People are always in these groups asking, "Hey, I'm looking for _____."
And eventually, the best situation is when other people start recommending your work! The word of mouth thing is really wonderful. But even before you get there, if you see somebody who's looking for something, you can say, "Here's my music at Sheet Music Direct or Sheet Music Plus!" That's a really great way to let people know.
I create a video when I release new choral pieces. I'll throw the score into iMovie and sync it up with the audio. I think that's really huge, especially for when there's no source material that people are familiar with. Because everybody wants to know, “Is this achievable for my group?” That's always the big question.
“I create a video when I release new choral pieces. I’ll throw the score into iMovie and sync it up with the audio. I think that’s really huge, especially for when there’s no source material that people are familiar with.”
AM: What do you find most rewarding about writing music, arranging, and composing? And what's the biggest challenge?
RD: I think the thing I find most rewarding is facilitating great experiences for people. I think a lot about what my charts are gonna feel like to rehearse, and what my charts are gonna feel like to an audience. I think the latter comes from my work on The Sing-Off where it was all about creating these short televised performances.
A lot of that was about making an impact quickly and thinking about "What's this gonna look like on camera? What's this gonna look like to viewers at home?" I've still maintained a lot of that thinking of “What do I want the experience of this to be for the performers and then, by extension, for the audience?”
This is not something that every arranger strives for, and that's totally fine, but I find the highest compliment to be when someone says, "We were able to do your piece really quickly, it was really fun to learn, and it facilitated a really great performance that everybody enjoyed."
I've developed a lot of tricks along the way to make stuff that’s easy to sing, but sounds hard. I get a lot out of giving people space to create impactful moments and explore music in a way that's really fulfilling for them, and helps process emotions or helps shake off the day or feel something.
The biggest challenge is just the flow of creativity. It's hard to be creative on-demand. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just get up off the couch and walk over to the table and sit down to start to arrange because there's this big mountain in your mind. You know, “Where do I begin to do this thing?” If I'm tired, if I'm not feeling creatively juicy, so to speak, climbing that hill can be so tricky sometimes.
AM: Looking back, is there anything you’d change in how you started out selling your arrangements? Anything you wished you’d learned sooner? Any assumptions you had to correct?
RD: You know, I think that one of the biggest things was learning to understand the market and what people were looking for. Particularly that the biggest market is generally for things that are easier to pick up – pieces that groups that don't have as much experience can be really successful with.
I think when I was first starting out, I had a misconception that if it was a complicated, difficult chart, everyone was gonna be like, “Wow, what a great chart, this is awesome! I wanna sing this!” And certainly there are groups that feel that way, but a lot of being able to sell things to as wide an audience as possible, and make a living doing it, is creating things that are accessible.
There is a misconception that accessible means simple all the time, but I don't think that's always the case. Certainly things that are simpler can be a little bit more accessible, but there are ways to arrange things that sound a little bit more complex, but can be very learnable. I've really shifted my model to trying to create things that are as learnable as possible and that was something that I had to learn along the way.
“When the Party’s Over” by Billie Eilish is Rob’s current top-selling arrangement.
AM: You have developed a significant presence in both contemporary a cappella as well as more traditional choral markets. What kinds of arrangements are most in-demand? How much similarity/contrast is there between each area, and how do you stay current in both?
RD: I think that the contemporary a cappella market is a little bit more monolithic than the choral market. I think that the choral world has a little bit more variation depending on what people's goals are.
There are a lot more choirs than there are contemporary a cappella groups. With contemporary a cappella stuff, people are usually looking for the latest, greatest pop stuff. They want stuff that's current, and/or they want things that people are gonna recognize.
And then in the choral world, I think, there are people who want to do the things that are familiar. Which is why I think "How Can I Keep from Singing" is one of my most popular titles because it's a song everybody knows. However, people always want the new spin on the old thing, too, right? They don't necessarily want to do the version of it that they've done a million times. They want to try something different.
I think that we're actually in an exciting time in choral music where people are really looking for different kinds of sounds and different ways to reach audiences. I know so many groups and conductors that are becoming more audience-focused which I think is great, because when I was growing up it was just, “We're gonna do this because these are the choral classics and this is just what you do.”
Now, I work with a lot of groups and I also sing with some groups that are really thinking more about what kind of an experience we can create for the audience, which is so exciting because I think choirs are capable of so much. There's definitely a strong movement towards some things that are surprising and original that audiences can connect with, so it's a little bit less predictable on that front.
Rob Dietz chatted with ArrangeMe from his home in Los Angeles.
AM: What is your favorite thing about ArrangeMe, what do you find most valuable?
RD: The best thing about it is obviously the ease of licensing. I mean, that's what everybody's gonna say. Making it so easy to license everything and have it be done legally. And then the ability to have all of your stuff in a really organized way in the places that people look and search. Being able to link to a page on Sheet Music Plus from my website, that's got all of my stuff, that looks really professional, and is where everybody goes to look for sheet music. If they've heard of me, maybe they'll look at my website, but they'll go on Sheet Music Plus and type in “Rob Dietz,” you know? Being able to have my music available on the websites that everybody uses is so important.
“Being able to have my music available on the websites that everybody uses is so important.”
AM: Tell us about that and the work you are doing with A Cappella Academy.
RD: A Cappella Academy is a 10-day summer vocal institute. This is going to be our 10th year this summer! I founded it with Ben Bram and Avi Kaplan. Avi was the founding bass of Pentatonix. Ben is their producer and arranger, and I'd worked with him as an arranger on The Sing-Off. We founded the academy in 2014, and the camp itself is held in Los Angeles at Scripps College in Claremont, California.
The concept was that every high school has a few kids that are just so excited and want to do the singing thing on another level. They are really talented, want to push themselves, and be surrounded by people that are going to push them. So we wanted to make a space for that to happen.
We love contemporary a cappella and we all have been so enriched by it, our lives have been shaped by it, certainly in my case at that age. We've seen the power of it to create not only great singers, but singers who really understand community.
We hold auditions online every fall. And we have hundreds of auditions from all over the world. I think we've had representation from 38 states and 26 different countries so far! We usually select about 80 singers to come join us in the summer. They get sorted into eight small groups that are kind of based on genre (jazz, pop, country, etc.) and they spend the week rehearsing in those small groups with top directors from all over, who are really wonderful, and some of whom have been with us since the very beginning.
We also have an all-academy choir that I get to direct with Ben Bram, and then we have classes on everything you could imagine from arranging, performing, improvisation, live sound, all kinds of stuff in a cappella. And then of course we have the typical fun stuff, too: we go to the beach, the pool, play volleyball, have a scavenger hunt, all that good “summer camp” stuff!
And this year will actually be our second year of a program called Grad School, which is a program we have for music educators where they get to shadow the program a little bit. It’s all about learning how to do this style with their group, or if they have a group and want to up their game, come learn from our program, network with our people, and get a little bit of a leg up on that stuff. So that's really exciting, too!
A cappella requires such high musicianship to do, right: you’ve gotta hold your own part, you’ve gotta have a great ear, have flexibility, all of these things, but you also have to work with others. We've been really proud of being able to use contemporary a cappella as a vehicle for teaching people not only to be great musicians, but also great members of the musical community. As the years have gone on and some of these people have graduated, we have alumni that are GRAMMY nominees now, we have alumni that are teachers, and alumni that have been on every singing competition show you could name! We're always really proud when we see that, but we're especially proud of how they conduct themselves in those spaces. It's not just about great music, it's about the community.
“We’ve been really proud of being able to use contemporary a cappella as a vehicle for teaching people not only to be great musicians, but also great members of the musical community.”
AM: At this point in your career, what is your 100-foot wave, what's the thing you're chasing?
RD: I've been so gratified and it's been so exciting to get more involved in the choral world. I work now as the Co-Chair for Contemporary Commercial Repertoire and Resources at the national level of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).
I’ve done the contemporary a cappella thing now for 20 years or so. I started when I was 15 and I'm 35 now, so I've been doing it a long time. I think my wave at this point is trying to bring all of the tools and techniques that I find so exciting from the contemporary a cappella space into the choral world. I would really love to continue to make a name for myself in that world, because I love choir! I have so many fond memories of community choir and school choir when I was a teenager. I wanna write stuff for choir that I would've wanted to sing when I was that age that would've gotten me excited. Expanding into that world and making it a bigger part of my picture is my next big frontier.
If you are interested in arranging for contemporary a cappella groups, be sure to pick up a copy of Rob’s book A Cappella 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Contemporary A Cappella Singing, published by Hal Leonard!
To find out more about Rob and his music follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and be sure to visit robdietzmusic.com.
