Category Archives: Covers

Safe Haven – Resident Evil (Linnstrument cover)

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

A couple of weeks ago I released the first video of me playing my Linnstrument. I’m happy to share another one – this time with both hands on the Linnstrument, rather than having one on the piano. This time it’s the safe room theme from the first Resident Evil game, titled ‘Safe Haven’.

The biggest challenge of this one was learning to keep the flow of notes in my right hand steady while sliding around with the left – initially sliding made me rush the other hand. There are a couple of times when I played to softly to get a note with my fifth finger on the right hand, but I’m happy for this video to stand as a measure of my progress.

I’m planning to write a more consistent blog about how I’m practising this new instrument – I think it’s essential that any teacher keeps learning new stuff, whether in the same or different fields. Breaking down one’s own learning can help generate new ideas for teaching.

ZERO – Resident Evil Zero (piano and Linnstrument cover)

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

I recently bought a Linnstrument, one of several modern electronic instruments known as expressive instruments. They allow for a lot of nuance in performance that digital pianos don’t offer. I just uploaded a video of a cover I’ve been working on, combining piano (played on my digital piano, and violin (performed on my Linnstrument). You’ll hear the occasional slightly sharp or flat note, as I have pitch quantisation turned off (as violins have no frets). That’s something I’ll iron out with more practice.

I hope you enjoy it!

I’m excited about the possibilities as a composer, in particular.

20.02.24 – Latest music releases

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

For a while towards the end of last year, I didn’t release much music, as I had so little time to practise/compose/record. Thanksfully, I’ve had a bit more time recently and have managed to release four videos, three of them original music and one cover.

The first release was a piano piece of my own called ‘Let the Scheming Begin’. It’s a character piece and is related to a piece I released at the end of 2022 called ‘Inexorable Force’. It shows a different side of the same character.

Next up was the orchestral version of the aforementioned ‘Inexorable Force’. It’s the music that would play for the final battle with the main villain of a game. It took me a couple of months working on it every night to get the orchestration sounding how I wanted. I expect if I return to it with more experience, I’ll make some subtle changes, but I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Before I started work on that orchestral version, I’d actually made a prog-rock version of the same piece, largely inspired by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, as are many final boss themes in Japanese RPGs. I ended up releasing it a week later than the orchestral version as I’ got so focused on working on that one that I hadn’t thought to release this one. I hope this, the orchestral version, and the original piano solo will serve as an interesting example of how multiple arrangements of the same piece can be made.

Finally, I just released a piano arrangement of Motoi Sakuraba’s ‘Majula’, from Dark Souls 2. It took a while before I was happy with this and there’s still one section that I’m, unsure of. Generally, I’m pleased with it.

While I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up a schedule of one release a week, I hope to keep things more regular than before.

Piano cover: Evil Boss Pig from Tombi!

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

I haven’t shared any performance videos for quite a while as I’ve had so little time to practise recently (and my practice time has been used for my sight reading project, which I’ll write about at a later point). I was pleased I managed to make a recording of this piece from the soundtrack of Tombi!, one of my favourite PS1 games (one of my favourite games in general, regardless of platform, actually).

It was a lot of fun to work on, and I improved my left hand leaps and broken octaves while doing so, both elements of my technique that I want to improve further.

Piano arrangement: Quiet Withdrawal from Tormented Souls

Leave a reply

Here’s my latest video, a piano arrangement of the track ‘Quiet Withdrawal’ from the game ‘Tormented Souls’. It was requested by someone who follows me on YouTube – I love the game and the soundtrack, so was happy to agree.

Piano arrangements are always interesting, as they usually involve taking multiple instruments and condensing them onto just the piano. How the instruments transfer depends a lot on the skill of the arranger. The original composition has lots of string swells – I’m not sure how well I captured that aspect of things, but I’m happy with the result overall.

Tormented Souls: Office – Tutorial

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody.

This week’s video was made by request – someone commented on one of my other videos, a piano transcription of a piece from the game, Tormented Souls. They asked if I could do the same for their favourite piece from the game and present it in a way that it can be learnt. I’m happy to take requests for making piano arrangements – I can’t promise that I’ll do every single one that I’m asked to do, but will take all of them into consideration.

The original piece has some tremolando strings that I found difficult to work into this arrangement – in the end I included them as single notes, though I’m sure someone with more experience of making piano reductions of orchestral works could find a more inventive solution than I did.

Upcoming Projects – August 2022

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

I haven’t stuck to my usual upload schedule recently as I’ve got a lot of projects in progress but nothing finished. This week I still don’t quite have anything finished, but I made a teaser for some of my upcoming videos! There are bits of three covers that I’m working on (from Tombi, Dark Souls II, and Final Fantasy IX) and also snippets of three original pieces of mine. The video description has timestamps. I hope you enjoy!

Final Fantasy VIII – Balamb Garden (piano performance)

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a piano arrangement of Balamb Garden from Final Fantasy VIII.

In this composition, Nobuo Uematsu managed to capture a number of different moods – studiousness, positivity, peacefulness and safety. He did this by modulating between keys that are often not related F lydian, D major, and B major, before heading back to F lydian (a tritone away!). This variety is important because it’s a track that players will hear a lot during their time in the game.

I didn’t really have to do much to arrange it for the piano – the different instruments are already so well orchestrated that it practically arranged itself.

ZERO – Resident Evil Zero (piano solo cover)

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a solo piano arrangement of ‘ZERO’, a piece of music that plays in the opening cutscene of Resident Evil Zero. The original is piano and some kind of bowed string (possibly violin, though it is raspier than most violins are played, so might be a bowed string that originates outside of Europe).

There are a couple of chord movements in this piece that I really like. Both are similar ideas – moving minor chords a third up or down. The first one is Gm to Bm, a movement of a major third. This is a very strong movement as there are two semitone movements involved (B-flat up to B and G down to F-sharp).

The second movement is from Em to Gm – a minor third in this case, so only one semitone movement, but it still has a strong effect.

I’d be interested to hear whether anyone think that having the string part on piano lessens the creepiness.

Evanescence – Hello (solo piano arrangement)

Leave a reply

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a piano arrangement of Hello by Evanescence. I transcribed just the piano part of this years ago, but decided recently to include the vocal and cello parts on the piano.

It was an interesting one to work on – it’s a highly personal song for the writer, Amy Lee, as it’s about her sister dying. The original track only has one vocal part to reflect that – no harmonies or backing vocals. I retained this in my arrangement, rather than varying the different verses and choruses by harmonising the melody or reinforcing it with octaves.

The piano part of the original track is already quite interesting – nothing hugely complex to draw your attention away from the singing, but with enough variety not to be boring. The song effectively arranged itself for solo piano – I didn’t have to do much to it, just occasionally remove notes from the accompaniment so as not to clash with the melody. Let me know what you think of it!