String quartet arrangements for video game music and TV/movie scores?

January 3, 2015 11:37 AM

We're getting married in September, and we've been shopping around for a string quartet to play during the ceremony and likely during the dinner. In addition to standard pieces, we'd like subtle, classy versions of our favorite VGM and TV/movie scores to be played. Where can we get sheet music for these sorts of pieces? More inside.

A handful of the groups we've emailed said that they can arrange pieces, but I thought I'd try to be helpful and find sheet music that's already been written, and they could either use or work off of that. I'm having a hard time finding places where you can buy the sheet music already written.

For reference, I'm looking at video games, movie scores, and TV themes. Examples:

Video games - Chrono Trigger, something from Final Fantasy, Journey, Xenogears(?), Zelda, Mario, Skyrim

Film/TV - Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jurassic Park, Battlestar Galactica

I know of Break of Reality's Game of Thrones piece (which is awesome), but I'm looking for others. Any ideas?

posted by gchucky to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

The probability that any of this stuff has been arranged for string quartet and has scores available for sale or free isn't zero, but it's so close it might as well be. Your best bet would be to try to find a piano score or even just a lead sheet -- or really any kind of transcription -- and offer it to them as a basis for making their arrangement (which service I assume won't be free).
posted by slkinsey at 11:51 AM on January 3, 2015

There's some string quartets who've gone into this particular niche. I haven't found any with sheet music for sale, but you may have luck contacting them and finding out if they'd be willing to sell it to you.

String Arcade
Videri String Quartet
posted by CrystalDave at 12:19 PM on January 3, 2015 [1 favorite]

Have you googled the names of your favorites along with the phrase "piano transcription"?

For example, here's what looks like an extensive archive of transcriptions from video game music.

I don't know the video game themes so can't vouch for the musical accuracy of the transcriptions, but I looked at two random Final Fantasy examples from that site and can verify those were at least legible, well-formatted and without obvious musical errors.
posted by kalapierson at 3:10 AM on January 5, 2015