Everyone knows the Final Fantasy games feature some stellar production values when it comes to music.

What you probably didn’t realise is that many of those songs are not difficult to play.

If you head over to Amazon Japan, there’s a chunky book available for purchase called Final Fantasy: Official Best Album.

Much like Dissidia 012[duodecim] it’s a “best of” and there will be some individual favourite tracks that you won’t see in this book (though the same publisher does produce piano scores for individual Final Fantasy games… a personal favourite is the Wii Chocobo Dungeon score… which is also a personal favourite game).

But I digress. This is a good starting point, and features the famous opening riff to just about every Final Fantasy game. Although FFXIII came after this release, the arrangement of music includes pieces from the Final Fantasy IX expansions, some of the Japan-only Final Fantasy VII releases, the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV, and music from the original Final Fantasy Dissidia.

The really good news is you don’t need to be an expert to play these pieces of music. Though there are some challenging pieces, for the most part an intimidate student of piano will be able to learn these songs.

They’re startling arrangements, too. Though there is the odd moment where a piano score simply can’t cover an orchestral performance, simply playing around with each piece for a short period of time will see a familiar tune start to emerge.

The presentation of the book is high quality, too, with gorgeous cover art, and high quality paper. The one unfortunate side effect of a book this size of piano scores is, to play them, or even just to photocopy the pages for practice, you’re going to damage the spine.

I’ve had a lot of fun with this book myself – Final Fantasy music is as beautiful to play as it is to hear… and as any piano students out there will know, when you’re learning and practicing an instrument, it helps to be using music you like.

The book costs about 4,800 yen, which is roughly $Aus50. It’s expensive, but as a collectible, and in terms of raw content for music lovers, it’s worth the investment.

Everyone knows the Final Fantasy games feature some stellar production values when it comes to music.

What you probably didn’t realise is that many of those songs are not difficult to play.

If you head over to Amazon Japan, there’s a chunky book available for purchase called Final Fantasy: Official Best Album.

Much like Dissidia 012[duodecim] it’s a “best of” and there will be some individual favourite tracks that you won’t see in this book (though the same publisher does produce piano scores for individual Final Fantasy games… a personal favourite is the Wii Chocobo Dungeon score… which is also a personal favourite game).

But I digress. This is a good starting point, and features the famous opening riff to just about every Final Fantasy game. Although FFXIII came after this release, the arrangement of music includes pieces from the Final Fantasy IX expansions, some of the Japan-only Final Fantasy VII releases, the Nintendo DS version of Final Fantasy IV, and music from the original Final Fantasy Dissidia.

The really good news is you don’t need to be an expert to play these pieces of music. Though there are some challenging pieces, for the most part an intimidate student of piano will be able to learn these songs.

They’re startling arrangements, too. Though there is the odd moment where a piano score simply can’t cover an orchestral performance, simply playing around with each piece for a short period of time will see a familiar tune start to emerge.

The presentation of the book is high quality, too, with gorgeous cover art, and high quality paper. The one unfortunate side effect of a book this size of piano scores is, to play them, or even just to photocopy the pages for practice, you’re going to damage the spine.

I’ve had a lot of fun with this book myself – Final Fantasy music is as beautiful to play as it is to hear… and as any piano students out there will know, when you’re learning and practicing an instrument, it helps to be using music you like.

The book costs about 4,800 yen, which is roughly $Aus50. It’s expensive, but as a collectible, and in terms of raw content for music lovers, it’s worth the investment.