The PianoSaxophonist
Since you're here, I would assume that you want to know how I got into arranging. Well, My real name is Shen Lu. People know me as Michael Lu, or just Lu. I played Piano for about 9 years and Saxophone for about 7, hence the name. I am a student here at Virginia Tech.
Well, to get on with the story, it actually started in my Junior year of High School when my friend took a lot of Final Fantasy pieces and just strung them together into a medly for a school project. Simply put, I thought it sounded cool so I attempted one on my own. As a theme, I took all the Final Fantasy Female Characters and their themes and strung them together with little effort on the transition and little care for the playability.
1. Theme of Love (Rosa, Final Fantasy IV)
2. Lenna's Theme (Final Fantasy V)
3. Rydia's Theme (Final Fantasy IV)
4. Tina's Theme (Final Fantasy VI)
5. Celes's Theme (Final Fantasy VI)
6. Aeris's Theme (Final Fantasy VII)
7. Eyes on Me (Rinoa, Final Fantasy VIII)
8. Melodies of Life (Garnet, Final Fantasy IX)
The result? A painfully long piece of music written for Piano, Flute, Saxophone, Trumpet, and Trombone that was hardly playable and required 3 of each. Let's just say that you could tell where I got my ideas from as it was not very original. It did sound pretty good though, just that nobody would ever play it.
This would be my second real attempt at arranging. And I must say, so far, it's been pretty good. I've kept note of the playability of the arrangements, and they are solo piano, so it doesn't take a random assortment of instruments to play. It also gives pianists some choice in what they play as the more challenging pieces are restricted to Michael Hwang's Fantasy Reborn arrangements, or the Final Fantasy Piano Collections. I'm not saying they're not good (In fact, They're awesome, go check them out sometimes. You can find them at http://www.squaresound.com or http://www.fantasyreborn.com for Michael Hwang's Reborn arrangements), but they are selective on which pieces they arrange. My goal is to arrange those that have room for arrangement and make them into something of the Piano Collections Caliber or Reborn style caliber.
Yes, That's me Playing Piano!