Alot of people have they're own style to how they arrange things to piano or whatever. But I'd love to hear what some of you on here think of your arrangements in terms of characteristics. I would describe mine as Rock and Metal piano. I litterly try to make something as epic as possible and use a ton of loud low octaves to make it sound like heavy rock piano. But I also use alot of Jazz chords and substitutions for interest. So mine are almost like Jazzy heavy metal piano. :D

To be honest, i generally write arrangements of classical songs, but I always use oboes, guitars, clarinets, piano and ocarina/panpies other soft sounding woodwind. i'll generally try to change the metre to something irregular, like 5/4 time, (i vastly love this time signature) and try to write to the minor scale. ^^ I generally start with a soft beginning, bulding in a cresendo generally, or just exploding the sound from piano to fortissimo. it's no fun if it's not loud right? I don't normally do alot of arrangements, i rpefer to just compose of the top of my head, but if I hear a chord structure I like, I'll try to make my own ideas on it, and I even once tried writing a fugue.

So I guess mine is irregular time signature with minor chords, A large timbre range, nice build ups and a large dynamic range. I love a good pitch range too, with a canon fell. (main guitar style is still heavy metal like yours ^^ It rules after all.) Think of it like "A Little piece of Heaven" By Avenged Sevenfold. I love using alot of different instruments. ^^

I've noticed that I generally favor the major scale and irregular time signatures (my favorite is 5/4 as well :P), and I also like to use irregular chords with dissonance. And since I love listening to jazz and I've recently taken to listening to certain 80s music such as Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins, I incorporate elements from both.

Also, I put in many little things that are subtle.

I seem to like oboe, english horn, french horn, timpani... oh I love timpani, hahaa... um... piano, electric bass... and bells for some reason. I usually use a whole note for strings. Come to think of it... I'm pretty limited... :think:

I mainly do piano arrangements of orchestral stuff. The only orchestration of piano I do is when I'm composing something for orchestra, I write it for piano first.

You can't really have a style of arranging in my opinion. Not if you arrange a variety of music. I started arranging things using the Horowitz method, i.e. take existing piano arrangements and rewrite everything you dislike about it. From here I started to get an idea of what works and what doesn't work through seeing what I liked and didn't like in other people's arranging styles.

The main thing I hate is overkill. You get people who try and literally write every note the orchestra plays, which is impossible for a two handed pianist. When I was arranging Debussy's "Apres-midi", I came across a transcription that looked and sounded more like a Rachmaninoff piano piece with all its complex details. The thing is, this is Debussy not Rachmaninoff, it needs to sound like a Debussy piano piece.

I have arranged non-classical music, mainly loud stuff that people wouldn't think works on a piano. Again, I don't like overkill. 99% of song arrangements I hear have the melody in octaves. Why? If you balance the other stuff that is going on carefully enough, you don't need to double the melody. My song arrangements tend to give the melody to 2/3 fingers of one hand max.

I suppose if I have an all round style, it's delicacy. Not meaning nothing is allowed to be loud, just to get it loud you have to rely on the player rather than the notes if that makes sense?

Orchestration, I steal left right and center. All orchestrators do. I write something for piano and when I come to orchestrate, I ask myself what existing orchestra pieces use the same palette I need to paint this. Then I mix and match what I like from this. The only way to get a good grip on orchestral writing is to look at what others have done. I look at Ravel a lot- he knew his orchestras inside out.

When I'm really, really lazy I'll just convert MIDI's to sheet music with Finale, then arrange the certain instruments so it fits with a Piano.

When I have time (Really busy atm!) I'll find the main melody (single-note), add on the supporting chords, then flare it up by adding in the appregios, dynamics, etc.

After that, it's a matter of touching it up and adding in my own personal "glitter" to it.

This actually goes for me transcribing OST's, popular songs, etc.