[Indra777]

I was wondering if any of you arrangers/composers out there could give me a few helpful tips and techniques and such that you guys use when arranging/composing your music.

I'm wondering because I've finally decided to get of my ass and do something with my life, and that is becoming a musician. And I'm going to start by arranging some stuff for the piano.

I'm going and hoping for a really great arrangement, for example, something as good as from the FFX-2 PC album, as those (in my opinion) are some of the best arrangements ever created from video game music. Just my opinion.

Anyways, thanks to all those who help me in my goal of one day becoming awesome

[Nicol Armarfi]

1) Study: this may be the first step but it's one of the most difficult. A lot of people don't have the patience to study musical theory, even in it's rudimentary stages. I'd suggest buying a book on elementary musical theory, or if you already know the easy stuff, a more advanced theory book.

2) Know your instrument: if you don't know what you can do with the instrument you're arranging for, you're going to end up putting out some pretty mediocre arrangements (I know. I have experience with making mediocre arrangements). You don't necessarily need to play the instrument, but you should have a good idea of it's range, the way it's played and some of it's advanced repertoire. In your case I take it you already play piano, so this should be pretty simple.

3) Know the piece: it's pretty hard to make a good, thoughtful arrangement of a piece of music you've only heard once. You should be able to listen to the piece a few times and not only recognize how awesome you think it sounds, but what you think you could add to it, or how you could alter it to fit your instrument. I personally like to listen to a piece a few dozen times and try playing out a very basic version on whichever instrument I'm arranging for, just to get a feel of the music.

4) Practice, practice, practice. You've probably been told this a lot already, but that's because it works. Your first arrangement is not going to be great, but you'll get better the more you try. It takes some time to learn how you arrange, how you like to phrase your melodies, where you put the notes in your harmonies, what little fluff you add to the piece... Stuff like that.

[Indra777]

Yeah, I have a book on music theory and music composition, so I think i got the theory part covered.

[Indra777]

Oh, I have one more question. I heard it is essential that you need to have ear training to find out the melody (and counterpoint, harmony, etc) from, for example, and orchestra piece, and then transpose that melody to the piano. Is this true? I think it would be because you wouldn't have any other way to find out what notes/chords etc are being played in the orchestra version.

Sorry if that sounds a little complicated

[XaldBalghostriped]

I didn't do them all Nicol O_O
but I ended up doing #4 as my starting point XD

[Nicol Armarfi]

Indra: it is essential, if you're transcribing the piece. If you have a copy of the sheet music ready to go, not so much. I usually do transcribe though, as the only sheet music I actually have is some piano collections music, which, are already arranged pieces of music.

[The-Real-Link]

Ear Training will definately help, but is not ABSOLUTELY necessary. I agree with what Nicol said though. Using MIDIs can really help you when you are starting out, and even when you are a more advanced arranger. BUT!, and I stress that! You CANNOT just copy down whats in the MIDI. MIDIs should be used as a reference tool. If you copy down exactly what's in the MIDI then you will end up with a weak arrangement! A lot of times, MIDIs have mistakes, and inconsistancies throughout. Using an MIDI as a reference tool, along with other published sheets, or other peoples arrangements can help.

The way I generally arrange songs, is to start out by making an arrangement from MIDIs and Published Sheets alone (Making sure all the important information is in there.) This is sort of my "rough draft." I then will take that to my piano and work on it, by adding and taking elements I need or don't need, as well as adding or changing things that will make a better piano solo arrangement. After this step, I usually end up with something that is vastly different from the rough draft I began with! It's hard work, but in the end it is definatley worth it!

[MilesOfMusic]

[U]My approach to arranging for the piano.[/U]

Learn The Piano!! This is obvious. I presume you can already play the piano, but when I am arranging, I dont really have the imagination to come up with virtuosic passage work, so the arrangements that I have come up with are within my playing capabilities.

If you want to be a musician, learn the piano - 'cause it's cool! (And kinda necessary)

If you are planing to arrange a series or collection, mabey you could start out start out with easier/simplistic arrangements. This will help you find your feet and style of arranging. Also, when planning arrngements, look at the form of some of the arrangements by Shiro Hamguchi (FF7, FF8, FF9). Lookng at some of these may help because some of the easier pieces (Frontier Village Dali, Ami, and co.) are clearly structured. You could steal one of their structures and put it in your arrangment as a guide for strucuring how long the phrases should be, where you can add your ouw development and stuff like that.

When arranging an orchestral piece for the piano, the first thing I would do is just to figure out the melody, what chords the melody is buit upon and the main features of the piece (time signature, motifs and what-not). Then --the world is your oyster--. You can do what ever you want and this is what I like about arranging. It's less restrictive than trancription or instrumentation.

For Example: You mentioned before that the Final Fantasy X-2 Piano Collections were pretty good (I know!). In the "Akagai Party", the OST version is way diff than the Piano Collections version. The arranger (forgot who it was?) has taken the theme and then messed with everything else (notably the time signature) and turned the spooky Bevelle version into a jazzy/american-west feeling arrangement.

Also if you want to be a musician, I believe it is pretty important to be aurally secure and confident. If you take piano exams, aural tests are a requriement when taking my exam board's tests. If you have never done piano exams, you could get a teacher and learn or how I got better was by figuring out the melodies to Final Fantasy and visualising how they sound like (This is where the music theory comes in). Firstly recognizing the low-ness and high-ness of the notes is a mandetory. Secondly recognizing the pitches, tonality (key) of the phrase and the intervals between notes is a must (More music theory!). I used to do this heaps when I played Final Fantasy VIII, when "Fisherman's Horizons" music came on. I badly wanted to play it, so I did all of the above and learnt to play it by ear. But it took so long.

And thats my life story for arranging
Pretty boring huh!

[The-Real-Link]

Another example of differences between the OST and the Piano Collections is FFXPC's Besaid Island. Compare the original version with the PC version. Both the original and the PC arrangement were done by Hamauzu, but they are vastly different. He turned a more upbeat song into a more flowy and fluid-like song.

[Indra777]

Thanks for the tips guys, I really appreciate them. I am already working on a song from KH2

After that I have a few more songs I am going to arrange.