Okay, this is gonna be a sweet challenge. I'm going to arrange a medley of Christmas songs for violin, two flutes, soprano saxophone, two acoustic guitars, and piano, to play in church on December 9th. That's the current lineup of the church praise band, so that's what I have to work with.
Interesting constraints: Neither of the two guitarists is particularly gifted. They know some chords and can strum without hurting themselves. The piano girl is even worse. If it's not written out, she can't play it. No chord charts, no "jamming" or anything that's not written down, and even at that, she plays at the level of maybe a second-year student. But she and one of the two guitars are original members and they aren't going anywhere, so like I said, that's what I have to work with.
Of the two "main" guys, one plays violin and actually has musical talent, though it's all classical training. No jamming, but he can play anything that's written. The other played saxophone in school bands and has some chops, but again, no jamming. We recently added the flute girl, mostly for her voice, but I've been totally exploiting her flute lately and putting it with the violin for lead lines and stuff. I play piano and woodwinds. They took the piano away from bad piano girl after I joined, but since we want this to be all instrumental, she's playing piano and I'll play flute.
It's gonna be one of those arrangements where nothing is really hard to play (since it has to be that way), but sounds pretty nice if everyone plays what they're supposed to play. Melodies and harmornies will be shared by the four "lead" instruments. I have to be careful because the soprano sax is naturally much louder than the violin or flutes. Chords and rhythm will be courtesy of the guitars and piano. Since all the guitarists can do is strum, the piano will get some arpy stuff for color, and also provide the bass part where necessary (when things get "big").
Here's the sick part: I think I can do it. We perform the piece three weeks from today, and I just started writing the other night. Heh heh.