What video game music could I arrange for one to three wind instruments?

April 11, 2011 9:11 AM

I play clarinet in an orchestra that exclusively plays video game music, and there's an opportunity to a solo or small ensemble piece in the next concert if you can come up with your own music. Although I took two semesters of music theory, I don't think I'd be able to arrange anything involving piano- I'm looking for something that could be done with one to three wind instruments. Any ideas?
posted by stubblemaker to sports, hobbies, & recreation (8 answers total)

Mario brothers, or anything from the Nintendo catalog of the 80s, would kick ass with a clarinet trio or quartet. You can listen to the tunes on youtube, I'm sure.

I play clarinet in an orchestra too, by the way. I wish our music director would let us do anything this ambitious. :-)
posted by randomkeystrike at 9:16 AM on April 11, 2011

http://www.finalfantasymusicscores.com/
and
http://www.nobuouematsu.com/sheet.html
may help - I play alto sax, and there's a few tunes I play off there.

Also: http://www.squaresound.com/ - go to "fan arrangements"

http://ichigos.com/ has a nice selection

There are a few others but can't find 'em on my history tab. Mrrr....

hths!
posted by TrinsicWS at 9:18 AM on April 11, 2011

Also, check out the band work from this japanese dude. He's my inspiration for why I'm learning the sax.

http://www.youtube.com/muta1206

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8H1odo72_Q&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
posted by TrinsicWS at 9:21 AM on April 11, 2011

I am a total dork for this arrangement of tunes from Wind Waker.
posted by bcwinters at 9:23 AM on April 11, 2011

Four Bassoons play Super Mario 3
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:51 AM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Making an arrangement of the ocarina songs from Zelda: The Ocarina of Time immediately comes to mind.
posted by BevosAngryGhost at 12:53 PM on April 11, 2011

mario and zelda seem great, but maybe obvious. you might find dark cloud or skies of arcadia fun to transpose and play.
posted by nadawi at 6:36 PM on April 11, 2011

Just to follow up, I ended up arranging four songs from Super Mario Land for clarinet, bari sax and flute. I picked that because the MIDI files for older games made great source material for arranging, I really liked the music, and going with non-mainstream Mario seemed like it would appeal to both gamers and non-gamers. I finished the arrangement at 11am the day of the auditions, but we had a hard core practice session that afternoon, and the piece was accepted for the concert. Thanks for the excellent ideas- I hope to do this again next year, and will come back to this thread for additional inspiration.
posted by stubblemaker at 12:53 PM on April 28, 2011