MUSIC: Piano Recordings

[Rob_Haines]

I'm having a play around with some piano arranging this month - specifically because there aren't enough Skies of Arcadia arrangements on the internet - and as part of the process I spent last weekend setting up a recording workflow through Reaper.

As a test track, I had a go at playing Nobuo Uematsu's Zanarkand (not my arrangement, in this case):

https://on.soundcloud.com/vxds31B2N77s4B7b9

[Tusky]

Links don't seem to be working for me 

[Rob_Haines]

Thanks for letting me know. Soundcloud was doing a "this is a private link, but we've hidden a link that other people can use somewhere in these eight menus" without being clear about it 

Link above is now fixed!

[Jubal]

That's a nice recording, I really enjoyed listening to it!

[indiekid]

Brilliant, love this piece

[Rob_Haines]

Thank you for listening!

I finished my first piano arrangement last week, of the main theme of Skies of Arcadia:

https://on.soundcloud.com/9rSTyw6ikgkUPWna8

The performance isn't necessarily great - performing on the piano is still something I'm a relative beginner at, so a certain amount of post-processing was needed to get the point across - but hopefully this shows off the arrangement well enough

[Jubal]

Yeah, I don't know the original tune well but I liked the arrangement anyhow

It's a long time since I played much piano, I did a few grades while in high school but was never well practiced and rather stopped playing after I went to university and picked up guitar as my main instrument. I'd sort of like to try it again sometime.

[Rob_Haines]

Thank you! I adore the original piece - a variant of which my wife & I used as wedding processional music - and the world could always use more Skies of Arcadia arrangements.

And yeah, I'm also someone who learned a couple of grades as a kid and then dropped it because no-one offered me music I actually wanted to play.

I picked it up again as an adult in 2019, and realised part of the problem was that my teachers taught me to play specific pieces, not to play the instrument, so I associated "playing a wrong note" with "failing to play the piano". And it made a world of difference to my enjoyment of playing music.

[Rob_Haines]

I spent the past couple of weeks working on an Outer Wilds piano arrangement, framed as a series of transmissions between two of the characters:

https://on.soundcloud.com/GJEkzkZQT5cRbV2L6

[Jubal]

Ooh nice!

And yes, that "playing a wrong note is failing" mentality held me back a lot too I think.

[Rob_Haines]

October was a busy one on the run up to the start of a new job, so my brain decided that would be the perfect opportunity for an arrangement of one of Outer Wilds' creepier tracks, Elegy for the Rings:

https://on.soundcloud.com/5NXGx4iNvk8eptAw7