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Unpopular opinion: Lillie is annoying at the beginning, kind of okay in the second half, but at no point is she anywhere as good as Hau

braix lets kill this guy tonight

~

I still want my Gen 4 remakes though </3

[Canalave City!]

Canalave City!
arranged by yours truly ^^

I love this track! And I was contemplating doing the NSM version, but my tiny hands couldn't make the spreads at the intro. So I did my own version, ahaha~

Enjoy!

[Bespinben's Dragonspiral Tower!]

Why don't you adopt it?

Dudemanwxp

hey if you wanna you can take it, yeah

~

Anyway, I went ahead and did:

Bespinben's Dragonspiral Tower!
(yep this is how i'll be presenting my posts from now on)

It was a hell lot of fun and pretty awesome to learn in general! ^^ Bespinben's also got a revamped version of the sheet that you can find in the description of the video~

Enjoy

[GBC: Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal]

Alright, I thought I'd do this. ^^ I've mainly played handhelds though, so I don't really know that much about the PS and NES platforms. :p

GBC: Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal
"Surf", "Violet City", "Azealea Town", and all the awesome battle themes...need I say more? There was no competition here xD

GBA: Zelda: The Minish Cap
Eeyup, I don't think it is RSE. RSE will hold a place in my heart very dear to me, but when it comes to the quality of compositions and the sounds, this game just beats it in every way possible except melodic intricacy. "Cloud Tops" is absolutely frikkin majestic, and you didn't think a track like that could fit into a device barely able to fit in your palm. Then again, it was released towards the end of the GBA era, soo...

DS: Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum
This OST is just insane haha. The game was pretty awesome, but this soundtrack got young me interested in VGM and all the technical bits behind it. So this is a definite one. I think BW was a very close second though ^^

3DS: Fire Emblem Fates? xD
How has no one mentioned this game yet? xD I haven't played the game, but oh my god this soundtrack is legendary. I've seen the way the music just seamlessly transitions during battle, i've listened reaaaally closely to those dense orchestral tracks, and every time I listen harder, it gets more rewarding. Plus, "Lost in Thoughts All Alone" is in it. PSMD is a pretty close second.

SNES: Chrono Trigger
I kinda liked the Earthbound OST, I really loved the FFVI OST, I kinda enjoyed most of the rest (FE4 ahaha welp)...but when it comes to the sheer depth of ideas and creativity, nothing beats Chrono Trigger. Sure the sounds weren't fantastic - FFVI was much cleaner, but dang. There's just so much melodic development in Chrono Trigger. And it's awesome

Nintendo Wii: SMG1
Yeah, okay. SMG2 was kickass as well, but it didn't have melodies as awe-inspiring as "Gusty Garden Galaxy" and "Good Egg Galaxy". This game's soundtrack broke the market for the next generation of games, setting the benchmark so high that even right now, I don't think I've found an OST as expansive and amazing as this one.

PS1/PS2: Kingdom Hearts? :p
Wait, does no one else adore the KH soundtrack here? xD It's diverse, memorable, and perhaps just slightly overdone when it comes to recurring melodic ideas. But those harmonies are beautiful, those soundscapes are beautiful, and I think no other game uses a piano better less Eternal Sonata. Chrono Cross is pretty awesome too though, i will admit ^^

PS3: Gears of War 3? xD
I'm not sure how many people play shooters and love them here...but this game really nailed its music hard. Not just the "Mad World" reduction when the saddest part of the story hits - the main theme is orchestrated into a brilliant fanfare of horns, the choirs sound like they're coming for your soul...it's amazing. I don't think the soundtrack works that well in isolation from the game, but it's still really well done

YO WHEN DID YOU GET YOUR USERNAME CHANGED SON

I MISS THAT WXP, IT HAD FLAVOR

like, half a year ago haha. derp.

Weeelllll it had flavour but it definitely couldn't be pronounced properly by any normal human sooooo xD

That was awesome! I don't see how you were able to play that, especially the intro! It looks crazy difficult! X)

Ahh thanks for staying to listen E Gadd!

The intro is a lot easier than it looks if you've done enough of these thingies haha. ^^; Especially since I cheated a lot using both hands, but I guess you're supposed to do that in cadenzas? :p Ahaha.

The hardest part is undoubtably the final section, because it's really rhythmic and needs to be quite crisp to make it sound good. I don't think I fully nailed it in this recording too...but I'm really happy that you enjoyed it, so thank you for stopping by! ^^

Those are great recommendations, had completely forgotten about Kakariko Village and that Chopin one looks really, really easy. These'll go over well with him, thanks!

Nice to meet you too

Hehe I promise you the Chopin isn't as easy as it looks, it's going to be a meaningful learning journey, and your teacher will love you to bits if you follow the whole meaning part of it ^^

Nice to meet you ahaha! You can bet I'll let you know if any other easy pieces cross my mind

Pokemon DPPt

thats basically it

Was finding a cooler way to say this the whole time xD

Did my "National Park"! It was...tough. Ahaha.

Enjoy!

[Clementi Sonatina in C major 2nd movement, from the Op. 36 collection]

Hey man! If you just started piano lessons, then it might not be the best idea to jump into the complicated stuff, ahaha. It's best to start with pieces that have a very clear right hand/left hand distinction, where the right hand plays only the melody and the left hand only plays accompaniment, so you can work on those separately

On the classical side, here's a few pieces I'd recommend starting with:

Clementi Sonatina in C major 2nd movement, from the Op. 36 collection
Look for the one in 3/8 and with no key signature, I think it's a really nice piece ^^

Chopin Prelude in E minor
Easy to play the notes, but with so much musical depth that you'll definitely revisit it in the future

Strauss The Blue Danube
Because the left hand pattern will come back to haunt you for years to come and you probably already know the melody ahaha

~

On the VGM side, there's:

Most of the short Zelda:OoT tracks
All the "songs of X", Kakariko Village, Title Theme, maaaaybe Kokiri Forest (tough-ish), Great Fairy fountain for the daring.

Shota Kageyama's Pokemon piano solos
Unwavering Heart (BW), AZ's Theme (XY), perhaps Coronation Day (BW).

Most of the Kirby's Dream Land OST
albeit, at like, half the speed xD

Hope this helps!

I do my Eterna Forest for two hands!

Anyway, for anyone viewing this - I'd like to shotgun one recording from any Pokemon main game! So if you have a score you want heard feel free to suggest it haha, there's about a 70% chance i'll do it~

Hehe, well played guys! ^^ And once again, thank you E Gadd for taking the time and effort to see this one through, ahaha <3

I gave my vote to Insig, because god damn that is one beautiful work. I'd never have seen the PMD2 theme in a better-presented way, and there was a story to go with it, whoo! But Bloop did a really nice one too, and I'm not surprised that the two of them tied~ ^^

Well done everyone
(p.s. thc why did you give me a 3 for criteria ahaha no hard feelings tho i kinda know why xD)

The ORAS Ending Theme! ^^ It's a big one, ahaha.

(p.s. prizes go to anyone who spots all five mistakes hehe)

Enjoy~

(p.p.s. i actually dont have prizes welp)

So having requested and played this, I'd like to chip in on this a bit haha ^^

-Measure 6, RH: Would you not be opting for a G# on beat one? Since it resolves chromatically upwards to the A natural? One reason I thought you may have consciously done this would be to avoid using sharps in a passage so ridden with flats, but that didn't seem to stop you in measures 11-14.

I would have loved to see a G-sharp here, but since this is atonal-ish (it's not btw), we take whatever harmonic idea we have and make it consistent: in this case, the only idea is the augmented 4th/diminished 5th. Olimar chose the diminished fifth/"flat-mode" over the augmented fourth/"sharp-mode", and it's consistent throughout the piece. Even at the section which suggests E minor, he ignores that and throws in G-flat over F-sharp.

Personally I'm used to seeing augmented fourths represented over diminished fifths, because sharps tend to be better at illustrating resolving tendencies (i.e. sharps tend to go up and that's normal, flats go down and that's less normal). But Olimar recognised this idea and kept it consistent, so it's okay

-Since the original features a piano playing in octaves in measures 35-end, why not add that in here? I've actually test driven these octaves myself and I can vouch for their includability.

yes please haha i would have loved playing some soft octaves. Would have been nice contrast with the previous section too ^^

In regard to camera and lighting stuff I think it's all great but I'm not much of a tech whizz. I don't know if I commented previously on this arrangement but it's one of my favourites that you've done because the original is so complicated and ... sinnoh. You've managed to make it doable and funky, which is awesome.

Hey, thank you so much for watching! ^^ And for your comments on the arrangement haha, that was a real labour of love

My only problem lies with the chord the end of bar 29 as it's a bit weak. That said, I have no idea how you could change it because the parts lead there e.g. bass fits in the descending line. I've spent a minute or two having a look and I can't cleanly add the f sharp my heart desires

I love this comment so much. Yes, I completely agree, and you even mentioned f-sharp <3

When I took a look back at this after releasing it, I noticed that chord too - and then I checked up my four-part harmony and realised I'd made one of the biggest noob mistakes possible: no third. And that's a diminished (with added seventh) chord haha, making it painful and empty as hell. But yes, I thought somewhat in the process you were thinking with, and realised the F-sharp couldn't really fit anywhere.

But now with the theory in mind, I've found two options; from bass to sop:D#-F#-C#-A or D#-C#-F#-A. It makes the middle voice movement a bit weird, but some performance tweaks can be made for that

...ahaha, you awoke my theory nerdism. But thank you for looking so closely at a bunch of notes, appreciate it <3