How long does it take for you to arrange a piece?

[KefkaticFanatic]

No laptop (or portable keyboard) so no such option for meh o:

[dahans]

It takes me about 2 hours if I like the piece . Otherwise it might take me a week.

[Nana1Popo2]

Arranged by listening to the song by a piano, figuring out individual notes and marking them on paper, and then putting that into Finale.

that's actually how I still do it, haha. Works well!

for me, considering how detailed I can be, about.. a few weeks.. only because I rarely have time. for a piano piece.

[Clanker37]

Meh it depends on how I like the piece. If I love it I will start it and finish it in one go usualy taking about 5 hours max, but if I don't really like it sometimes it can take weeks. Also if the piece is really difficult it can prolong it even further

[Sekter77]

It's usually only a matter of a few hours. I only pick short-ish songs most of the time though. Very few songs I've arranged have even gone up to 2 minutes in length. Once I get the motivation to start, I'll go through the whole arrangement in one or two sittings.

The hardest part is almost always the accompaniment because either I can't hear it very well over the melody or there's so many (or so few) parts that I don't know what I would write down. I decide which songs to arrange by figuring out if I can hear all the necessary parts in them. Songs that I would've liked to arrange I sometimes have to reject because they fail those criteria. That's why I love arranging classic tunes, especially Game Boy stuff. They have only a few distinct parts to them so it's easier to focus and decide what to write.

[Dudeman]

It's usually only a matter of a few hours. I only pick short-ish songs most of the time though. Very few songs I've arranged have even gone up to 2 minutes in length. Once I get the motivation to start, I'll go through the whole arrangement in one or two sittings.

The hardest part is almost always the accompaniment because either I can't hear it very well over the melody or there's so many (or so few) parts that I don't know what I would write down. I decide which songs to arrange by figuring out if I can hear all the necessary parts in them. Songs that I would've liked to arrange I sometimes have to reject because they fail those criteria. That's why I love arranging classic tunes, especially Game Boy stuff. They have only a few distinct parts to them so it's easier to focus and decide what to write.

^This is me, as well.

[Oritendo]

depends if you like it or not

[SlowPokemon]

I only arrange things I've already heard and like. Btw, I usually have youtube open in one window and finale also open, and I listen to maybe a five second chunk of the song several times until I can get the melody, then I listen purely for the bass to get that accurate as well.

[Greg]

Youtube... pshhh, I DOWNLOAD the video. Media player is the best for getting those hard-to-hear parts.

[Shadoninja]

audacity's even better because then you can adjust the tempo to your liking instead of having to use media player's default "slow" setting. also you can select a range of what's played so you can go over a certain measure(s) or a certain few beats.

[Oritendo]

Youtube... pshhh, I DOWNLOAD the video. Media player is the best for getting those hard-to-hear parts.

download, pshhh, I buy the game! 

EDIT: Ok, I don't BUY the game. if I don't have it I just dont try it.

[SWMadness]

The hardest part is almost always the accompaniment because either I can't hear it very well over the melody or there's so many (or so few) parts that I don't know what I would write down. I decide which songs to arrange by figuring out if I can hear all the necessary parts in them. Songs that I would've liked to arrange I sometimes have to reject because they fail those criteria. That's why I love arranging classic tunes, especially Game Boy stuff. They have only a few distinct parts to them so it's easier to focus and decide what to write.

Yeah, I've been trying to work on a few Kirby's Epic Yarn songs, and I've been running into those problems. The recognizable melody is shared between several different layers and it's kind of tricky to figure out how to combine them together into a playable form.