Tag Archives: video game music

Safe Haven – Resident Evil (Linnstrument cover)

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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)

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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.

20.02.24 – Latest music releases

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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.

Re-release: An Ill Presence (orchestrated)

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Hello, everybody! While I’m not a huge Halloween person, I do like horror media, so thought I’d work on some creepy music this month. My first release is actually a re-release. Just over two years ago, I released a piano album and not long after I started to orchestrate some of the pieces from it.

One of the earliest was ‘An Ill Presence’. Listening back recently, it sounds excessively harsh, and at the same time, quite muddy. The panning of the instruments is also fairly arbitrary. I decided to remix it with the knowledge I’ve gained in the last couple of years and feel that it sounds much better now.

So here is ‘An Ill Presence’, arranged for piano, violin, flute, and oboe. There are two versions. The first has emulated tape wobble:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y2_J9zy6PiY%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

The second version has no tape wobble, as I know it can be disorienting for some people, especially if they’re listening in headphones:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=1gDfUBnTTA0%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

Please let me know what you think!

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.

Piano arrangement: Quiet Withdrawal from Tormented Souls

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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.

100 Subscribers on YouTube

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Hello everybody! It’s been quite a long time since I last posted as I’ve been very busy and have had little time for music outside of teaching.

I recently became aware that I now have more than 100 subscribers on my YouTube channel, so I made a video to say thank you and to share previews of a few of my upcoming projects! I’ll be glad to hear what you think of them!

Lessons update and new music release

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Hello, everybody!

It’s been a while since I posted anything here. The last couple of months have kept me relatively busy – with kids going back to school after the summer, I’ve had an influx of new pupils, both beginners and more experienced players. Evening lesson spaces are filling up – I’ve still got a few slots left, so if you’re interested in starting lessons, I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange something. I still have spaces available on Saturdays, too.

In addition to more teaching, I’ve also been composing. It’s been a while since I last released any music – my most recent was my EP about six weeks ago. After the relative simplicity of that EP, I wanted to go in the other direction and work on something much more musically complex. It took longer to write due to the complexity, but now I’m happy to present the results of that work in my latest video!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qpL05jBguuk%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

This piece, Inexorable Force, is my attempt to capture chaos in musical form without going completely abstract. For the average listener, there are still plenty of hooks, as I’ve gone by the adage of making anything that supposed to be clever also be catchy. For the theory loving musicians, I think there’s a lot of interest.

The main riff in this piece came about by a small challenge I set myself – to write a rhythm in 5/4 time that doesn’t split up the quavers into 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 groupings. I ended up going for 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 1 2 3 and started to think of the time signature as being 10/8. Then I was curious about adding one more beat into the next bar to add to the feeling of chaos. I built on this and ended up using frequent time signature changes, irregular numbers of bars for some phrases, plenty of chromaticism, and some quartal harmony for further strangeness. I’m really happy with the final result!

I’ll be releasing the track on Bandcamp as soon as I get the notation finished.

New EP released and anniversary of my first album!

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Hello, everybody!

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Life has been chaotic recently, though should be settling down soon. I’m delighted to announce the release of my latest EP, Moments of Safety! It’s currently available to purchase on Bandcamp, and will be up on YouTube and Spotify in the coming days. Here’s the link to buy: https://nicholasowen-petch.bandcamp.com/album/moments-of-safety

This EP is something I’d thought about writing for a while. I love the ‘safe room’ themes from classic Resident Evil games and decided that I wanted to do my own take on them.

Additionally, the idea of safety took on new meaning to me earlier this year – I was living in Kyiv in February when the Russian military started its renewed invasion of Ukraine and I know the terror of waking up at 5am to explosions. Sheltering in an underground car park never felt entirely safe, but it was with trepidation that we ventured outside when the air raid warnings had finished. While two of these tracks were written in Kyiv before the invasion, they developed nuances of emotion that they didn’t have before in the time since.

An interesting aspect of these themes from the old Resident Evil games (and some other survival horror) is that they’re usually quite simple – just a few chords with memorable melodies (and orchestrated beautifully). At the same time, they capture both feelings of comfort and unease – for me, it’s quite incredible how effectively they do this. In my writing, I tend to go quite complex and often have to pull myself back from that. Here was a challenge for me – how could I simplify my writing for each track without making it boring, and how could I write multiple tracks without falling back on the same ideas and chord progressions?

I’m satisfied with the results – each track is quite different from anything I’ve previously written but still sounds like me. In the end, whether this music is effectively written or not is up to each and every person who listens. 

In addition to the new release, today is the anniversary of my first solo album, Let the Journey Begin! The last year has been a very long one and I barely remember frantically trying to release that before moving to Kyiv. I’ve learnt a lot about composition since then and plan to learn even more in the coming year. Thanks for all of the support thus far – I hope you’ll continue to find my music engaging and interesting!

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.