Category Archives: Covers

Onimusha 2 – Oda’s Army Attacks~Intro (arranged for two pianos)

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Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is an arrangement of the music from the opening cutscene of Onimusha 2, arranged for four hands. I’ve been wanting to make for a while, but felt like I needed to do some simpler arrangements before jumping into this one. I specifically decided on two pianos rather than four hands on one piano so that one part could use the sustain pedal without interfering with the other – this is very important in this piece as some parts are very percussive.

This is the first time I’ve arranged a piece for four hands. It was a great learning experience but I’m sure that someone with more experience could make an even more interesting version of it. I plan to do more arrangements like this in the future, in addition to more for a single player.

Memento Mori – Piano Solo (cover)

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Hi, everyone! This week’s video is a performance of the Main Theme from the South Korean horror film, Memento Mori. Specifically, this is the piano solo version from the soundtrack, with some of the repeats removed.

I’m currently working on a piano arrangement of the full, orchestral version of this piece, but wanted to do this version as well, to highlight its simple beauty.

Tormented Souls – Main Theme Tutorial

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Hello everybody, just a quick mid-week post.

I had a request on YouTube to create a ‘tutorial’ video for something that I played and I’m looking for some feedback. Tutorial in this meaning was having the notes coming from the top of the screen and landing on the keyboard, as is a pretty popular way of doing things.

I’m curious to know how people find it – the person who requested it said it was perfect for their needs, but I’m going to be making more videos like this is the future and would like to know how easy it is to follow for other people. Does the glow around the falling lines detract from the clarity? Are the colours for each hand easy to follow? That kind of thing.

Main Theme from Tormented Souls (cover)

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Hello, everybody! I have a performance video this week – the main theme from survival horror game Tormented Souls. It’s the first thing that plays when you boot up the game and I’ve spent time just listening to it on the main menu before playing the game as it has such a nice atmosphere.

It’s not a complex piece – just four chords: Am – F – G – Em. It loops round those four chords for the vast majority of the piece, but the melody starts off fairly structured and eventually becomes looser and feels more improvisational.

Part of arranging this piece was deciding how to condense the other instruments on to the piano and which ones to miss out. The end of the original track has a build up, with more instruments joining in until it finishes – I decided to fade out once the original melody returns, as I don’t think I could have done justice to all of those instruments with only two hands. A duet or arrangement for two pianos might work well for it.

If you’ve enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel!

Piano arrangement of ‘All That I’m Living For’ by Evanescence

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Hello, everybody! Last year, a piano pupil of mine asked me to teach her how to play All That I’m Living For by Evanescence. I took the 2006 AOL Music Sessions performance as a starting point, as the piano is much more prominent than in the original version of the song and arranged it to have the piano and vocals combined on the keyboard. Recently I listened back to it and realised that there was quite a lot of direct repetition of parts, so I worked on it a bit more. Some of the melodies were harmonised, and I added a guitar riff from the original version to the chorus. This video is the result.

I’m a big fan of alternative arrangements of music, as I believe that we can learn a lot as musicians by seeing what other people can do with a composition and thinking about how we would approach the same material.

Piano arrangement of an excerpt from Metal Gear Solid 3 Main Theme

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Hello, everybody!

I’d like to announce my newest video – a piano arrangement of the music from one of my favourite scenes from the Metal Gear Solid saga. I’ve had ideas for this going round in my head for a while and finally decided to nail them down to figure out what works and what doesn’t. I hope you enjoy it!

There are some parts which are lower in the original music that I moved up an octave to be playable with two hands, though I did consider an arrangement for three or four hands, but don’t have much experience with duet arrangements. That said, I do have ideas for a duet arrangement of a piece from the second Onimusha game, so keep a look out for that in the future.

To Zanarkand (cover)

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Hello, everybody! This week’s video is a cover of one of my favourite piano compositions – To Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X. It’s a great example of economical use of chord progressions – harmonically, it’s pretty simple and uses (for the most part) two variations of the same progression that get moved into different keys.

There’s a brief analysis of the chords involved in the video description, for those who are interested. I’m considering expanding that analysis into a full video in the future.

If you enjoy the video, please consider subscribing to my channel.

My piano transcription of The Landing from Final Fantasy VIII

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Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a piano arrangement that I made of The Landing from Final Fantasy VIII. It’s one of my favourite pieces from the game and I feel that it captures the chaos and excitement of the SeeD exam wonderfully! Piano transcriptions of music written for other instruments have a long history, and I feel it’s a great learning opportunity for pianists to think about how they would represent another instrument on the piano.

Let me know what you think of it! I’d be glad to hear your thoughts.