Category Archives: Covers

20.02.24 – Latest music releases

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!

Hi, everybody!

It’s been a while since I posted any music. I’ve had relatively little time to practise or compose recently and most of the time I have had has gone into learning to sight read better. That said, I have made a video of the boss theme from the PSOne game Tombi, an old favourite of mine. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

Piano arrangement: Quiet Withdrawal from Tormented Souls

Hi, everybody! I finished a piano arrangement I’ve been working on and just released a performance video of it. The track is ‘Quiet Withdrawal’ from the video game ‘Tormented Souls’. It was a request from someone who follows me on YouTube.

I tried pushing and pulling the timing a bit so as not to be too metronomic – I’d be interested to hear whether people think it sounds good or if it just sounds out of time.

100 Subscribers on YouTube and some music previews

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!

Tormented Souls: Office – Tutorial

Hello, everybody.

This week’s video was made by request – last week 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.

Upcoming Projects – August 2022

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)

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video will be especially nostalgic for Final Fantasy fans – if you spent part of your childhood in Balamb Garden, this one’s for you! It’s a piano arrangement of the music that plays as you explore Balamb Garden.

This piece practically arranged itself, as the original version is so well orchestrated. It goes on a wonderful journey through several keys – F lydian, D major and B major, before looping back around to F lydian. I hope you enjoy the performance!

ZERO – Resident Evil Zero (cover)

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a piano solo cover of the piece ‘ZERO’ from Resident Evil Zero. I recently started playing through the game and this piece plays in the opening cutscene. It grabbed my attention as it’s pretty creepy and uses a couple of chord progressions that I really like (minor chords moved either a major third or minor third away).

The original has some kind of bowed string instrument playing the melody – I think it still works on piano, but perhaps makes the whole thing slightly less creepy. Let me know what you think!

Evanescence – Hello (piano arrangement)

Hello, everybody!

This week’s video is a solo piano arrangement of Hello from Evanescence’s first album, Fallen. It’s one of my favourite songs of theirs – it’s simple overall, being just piano, one voice and a cello solo, but is interesting enough that it doesn’t get boring. I transcribed just the piano part of this years ago, but decided recently to include the vocal and cello parts on the piano.

It’s emotionally very heavy and I tried to capture that with my arrangement. I didn’t want to harmonise or double the vocal part, as it’s a very personal song for Amy Lee, the writer, and the original has only one vocal track. I found that the song is so well arranged in it’s original form, that this piano solo version practically arranged itself! Let me know what you think of it!

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

Hello, everybody!

This week, I made 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 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.

Let me know what you think!