Does your friend have a particular instrument that she plays?? I saw a fabulous pattern a number of years ago using a watercolor-style technique that featured a large piano as the focus of the overall quilt. I was actually going to make one for a friend of mine as well but decided since it was a joint (husband/wife) quilt and the piano was 'her' thing, to go in a different direction.
Granted, with that technique your fabrics would end up being cut relatively small they would definitely lose some of their focus value but you could do some fussy-cutting if you were up for that. A different watercolor style quilt I did a number of years ago I used 2.5" blocks and it wasn't too horrible.
And welcome from NJ.