Category Archives: Performance

ZERO – Resident Evil Zero (piano and Linnstrument cover)

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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.

Piano cover: Evil Boss Pig from Tombi!

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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.

Clockwork Sanctuary (performance)

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Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a performance of my own composition, Clockwork Sanctuary. It’s far from a perfect performance, but I decided to post it anyway, as I’m tired of the requirement for perfection that is so prevalent when it comes to performances. I much prefer being a studio musician and teaching, and I don’t enjoy performing – these videos I make are a challenge to myself to at least develop the skill of performing a bit, as I feel that my pupils can benefit from this.

In recent times I’ve barely played anything that involves leaping around the keyboard, so had to break down my technique in great detail while working on this piece. Amongst pianists it’s common knowledge that people with smaller hands really have to learn how to use their arms and torso to support the work of their hands. That was my focus in my practice for this piece, along with making sure that my fingers were really active and not getting lazy.

I plan on working through some more pieces that involve leaping around to consolidate this skill a bit more, as I definitely haven’t mastered it. I’m generally against the idea of focusing on one thing until it’s ‘mastered’ – I much prefer to get a great improvement, then work on other skills before coming back and refining the first one.

Final Fantasy VIII – Balamb Garden (piano performance)

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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.

Time to Rest – new composition and performance

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Hello, everybody!

Today’s video is a good demonstration of why choice of instruments matters. It’s my latest composition, a Safe Room theme called ‘Time to Rest’. I’d been working on this for a few days with piano as the main instrument but wasn’t satisfied with that version. I decided today to rework the whole thing after finding a synth preset that grabbed my attention. I then performed both parts and put them together in this video.

It’s interesting for me how finding that particular synth sound changed my perception of the piece – I hadn’t intended it to sound sci-fi originally, but it sounds so right like this. I’ll definitely explore more sounds with future compositions before settling on a final version.

I hope you enjoy it as something to relax to!

Performance of Loss

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Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is another performance of one of my own compositions, Loss. It’s my take on a funeral march/death scene, which I released last year on my solo piano album, Let the Journey Begin!. The slow tempo is pretty standard for this kind of music, but I experimented with using phrases of varying lengths, so as not to have it feel too measured – I wanted the instability of losing someone.

The piece starts off very diatonic, but as it goes on there is more chromaticism and countermelodies are introduced, so although there’s repetition of the main melodies and long sections over a tonic pedal, there’s always something new being introduced to add variety and interest. I’m believe that repetitions are a useful tool when writing music, but I’m not a fan when they’re used unnecessarily or if they don’t add anything new to a piece.

Performance of Innocence

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Hello, everybody!

It’s been several weeks since I last posted a video – I’ve been working on quite a few things musically, but didn’t have anything finished. This week’s video is a performance of my composition, Innocence. This is one of my favourite pieces from my album, Let the Journey Begin!, as I feel that I captured the feeling I was aiming for succinctly.

I had to work on my technique for this one, as I discovered that my arpeggiated chords were nowhere near as good as I’d thought previously – I had to thoroughly explore how to play them well enough to be accurate while dropping them into the main melody. There’s still some work to do before they’re really good, but I’m happy with how they developed during my practice.

I learnt a lot about different arm movements that can help or hinder rolled chords and how some of them can be combined to make them easier. Developing a technique that allows us to express ourselves as we want can take a long time and there’s always room for improvement but it’s a fascinating journey!

If you’re interested in buying this piece, it’s available on my Bandcamp page as part of an album. The album comes with sheet music: https://nicholasowen-petch.bandcamp.com/album/let-the-journey-begin

If you prefer Spotify, you can find it here: https://open.spotify.com/album/1sSwz4peeRTZPRMprLfhMR?si=kWK4HGkiRWm54KA7ekeW1Q

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.

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!

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.