Hey everyone... I'm pulling together a small traditional band (piano, violin, vocal) with a few friends. As the only person with any knowledge of music theory, it's fallen on my back to work out all the arrangements. My own compositional experience is highly limited, and none of us have ever played folk music before, so I could really use a few pointers. I'm trying to strike a balance between not completely betraying the tradition and coming up with some schmaltzy overarranged crap and something that doesn't sound too folky that it wouldn't appeal to the more mainstream audience we'd end up playing for.

Anyway, the Gaol Song (Treadmill Song) is the first song I'm tackling. Our basic plan was to have the violin just play the melody with one or two embellishments here and there. I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not... maybe the violin should be playing some sort of countermelody?

The piano is giving me the most problem though. Right now, I have the left hand just playing two chords (Am and Dm) to keep the rhythm, while the right hand runs over the melody with a few added intervals here and there. While this definitely avoids the pitfalls of overrangement, I'm not sure how full or even good this will end up sounding. Also, I'm worried about the piece being over repetitive. While running through it by myself today, I improvised a nice thundering chordal crescendo for the last verse that deviates a bit from the rest of the arrangement, but I'm not sure that's enough variation for a teen-aged rock-oriented audience. Are there any tricks I could throw in to break up the monotony without totally departing from more traditional structure or sound? (I hope nobody tells me that in that case, I should just take out the piano. =P I've seen this board express its distaste for the instrument in traditional music.)

Anyway, I hope I made my goals clear enough that I can pick up a few tips here and there. I'm new at this game, so even the smallest pointer will be appreciated. Thanks, all. =)