If you'd like to arrange music for the carillon, you first need to choose a piece to arrange. The criteria discussed in this section are merely suggestions to keep in mind when you go to choose the piece that you will arrange, not absolute rules.

If you can whistle it, you can play it.

When listeners hear your arrangement on the carillon, it is crucial that they be able to recognize the original piece. The easiest way to accomplish this is through melody. Not only is the carillon a melodic, pitched instrument, but it also does not offer a very wide range of articulations, given that carillonneur cannot control the length of the notes. As a result, percussion-heavy pieces that lack a well-defined melody can be difficult or impossible to transfer adequately to the bells. Likewise, recognizability can be difficult to achieve with songs that are largely text-driven instead of melody-driven, such as in music with spoken word, because the recognizability of such songs usually relies heavily on the text.

As an example, let's compare Gill Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone":

Text undoubtedly plays an important role in both songs. However, in "Like a Rolling Stone," the lyrics are set to a fairly well-defined melody. If one were to hum the song without singing any of the lyrics, another person would likely still be able to recognize it. In "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," on the other hand, few other elements besides the text would help someone identify the song. As a result, this song might not work so well on the bells

Because each bell has a complex sound, rich with overtones and cannot be dampened after it is rung, complex musical textures with many independent voices do not usually work well on the carillon. Instead, a simpler musical texture with a maximum of three independent voices is preferred, allowing for greater clarity.

While pieces with a simple texture (e.g. melody with basic accompaniment) are well suited for the carillon, this does not mean that a nice arrangement cannot be made of a piece with a more complex texture (e.g. many independent voices). But it does mean that the texture of the piece will likely need to be thinned out in the carillon arrangement. While harmonically and contrapuntally complex works will require more changes to the original score, with some creativity a convincing arrangement of the work is certainly not impossible. Thus, before beginning your arrangement, have a look at the piece's texture and see what areas might require the most significant departures from the written score. After all, the goal of arranging should not be to produce an exact copy of the piece on the carillon, but to convey to your audience an overall impression of the piece.

You might also find that a piece that initially seems very complex is actually much simpler than it first appears. For example, consider the following excerpt from Mozart's Overture to the Marriage of Figaro:

Even though the score calls for twelve wind instruments, timpani, and a full string section, you can easily reduce the score to just three voices by removing the doubled parts.

For this excerpt, only a few more adjustments would be needed to adapt it for the carillon.

Compared to other instruments, the carillon has a somewhat limited palette of sound colors. While the carillonneur can control the strike of each bell, thus controlling the attack of the note and the dynamic at which it sounds, it is impossible to control the sound after the moment of strike. Consequently, the many different articulations and timbres that, say, a violin is capable of (e.g. staccato, spiccato, portato, détaché, pizzicato, sul ponticello, sul tasto, etc.) cannot be adequately represented on the bells.

Some pieces of music rely heavily on such variations in sound color and articulation. For example, piece of music based on only one or two chords can be extremely interesting when played using a series of different articulations, different combinations of instruments, or different registraters on an organ. In such settings, a very simple piece of music can come alive. On the carillon, however, such pieces that lack sufficient variety in harmony or melody may risk becoming monotonous. This does not necessarily mean that a nice arrangement of the piece cannot be made, but rather that significant changes to the piece might be necessary to really make it sound like it was written for the bells.