The music was composed and produced by Nobuo Uematsu at his studio Smile Please, a composer famous for his work on the "Final Fantasy" series. Arrangements were done by Satoshi Henmi and Hiroyuki Nakayama. Uematsu was contracted to Mistwalker to work on three of their games, with the first being "Blue Dragon". He was highly excited for the title as it was Sakaguchi's first "serious" game since leaving Square Enix in 2003. As he was involved with "Lost Odyssey" from the early stages, receiving information on the characters and setting, he was able to create his first musical pieces while the game was in early stages. Most of the two hours worth of music was recorded with a live orchestra, as Uematsu felt that the emotion evoked by the game could only be communicated through live instruments. As with his previous work, Uematsu's music covered a lot of ground: the musical style varied from grand orchestral pieces, to hardcore rock, to ambient electronic music. In addition, he used unusual ethnic instruments to introduce unconventional sounds, including a sitar and a shakuhachi. The main theme was written in a minor key to express the burden of living for over a millennium: it was incorporated into the score in various forms. Two of the songs in the game, "What You Are" and "Eclipse of Time", were sung by award-winning vocalist Sheena Easton. The vocal track "Kaette Kuru, Kitto..." was sung by Japanese band Flip Flap. The lyrics for all the songs were written by Sakaguchi.