Aleksi's Battle music for piano

[Tyler Johnson]

There was a thread some time ago of Wesnoth music for solo instruments, and I'm sorry if it's still on the front page, honestly I didn't even look. West some of us recorded our versions of "The King is Dead". I think there was my piano version and a solo nylon string guitar version that someone recorded as well. Well anyway, here's my piano reduced version of Aleksi's Battle Music.

Aleksi, I know you're probably sick of this song and I know your music has evolved quite a bit and are writing music far superior to this one, but still I love this track, and it was a fun little project to do.

It's still in a beginning phase, I JUST recorded this tonight, so I'll make a polished version later, and maybe if anyone wants, I can dissect the MIDI and print out some sheet music for it. Aleksi I'd have to get your permission to do that since this is YOUR song.

Plus there are a heap of mistakes and little things in there I want to tweak to make it perfect, namely filling in left hand parts where it seems "dry" and empty. And the end, maybe the last 16 bars before the slow quiet part at the end are COMPLETEY wrong, I had it memorized but when I recorded it I went blank and just improv'd, but this is general idea:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/piano_battle.mp3

I threw a little reverb in there to give it some life...

-Tyler

[Aleksi]

Aleksi, I know you're probably sick of this song and I know your music has evolved quite a bit and are writing music far superior to this one, but still I love this track, and it was a fun little project to do.

Great job Tyler! The first minute was very Shostakovich inspired, and the piano version really enhances this feeling! Anyway, you really did a great piano arrangement. A couple mistakes on some chords towards the end, but nothing horrific! Perhaps you could make the last part a bit more pianissimo and higher up on the keyboard.

And, of course you have my authorization to do this!

Now, come back to France and i'll pay you some more beers!

[Gauteamus]

Haha, great job - both Aleksi and Tyler!
Now that you say it I can absolutely hear Shostakovich in this - this track is definately the one that to me screams Wesnoth the most - and puts me in a pavlovian state of MP - attack with that adept already, my ulf is waiting!

Anyway, I assume this mp3 is made with some techno-Cubase dabbling. Is it, to quote Bach, "within easy reach of two hands"?

[Tyler Johnson]

A couple mistakes on some chords towards the end, but nothing horrific! Perhaps you could make the last part a bit more pianissimo and higher up on the keyboard.

Yeah those are 2 main changes that I was going to make before the final version. The "good" take, i.e. this one, I played those final 32 whatever bars an octave down by accident . It happens sometimes, just like in the part before that, those chords, my mind just blanked...also I was playing this with a 135 metronome clicking so my brain was half concentrating on that and half concentrating on what I was trying to do!

Anyway, I assume this mp3 is made with some techno-Cubase dabbling. Is it, to quote Bach, "within easy reach of two hands"?

No, there was no "techno-Cubase dabbling", and yes this is entirely possible to play, this recoring is just one of the takes that I did. The part that probably sounds the hardest (and WAS the hardest) is this right here:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/battle%20clip.mp3

That was a pain! This is what I had to do:

First of all, the right hand is banging out 8th notes, C and G and the left hand is holding a whole note on C2 and C3, then on 1 AND of the next measure the left hand jumps up over the right hand and starts an arpeggiated C minor 16th note triplet (C, Eb, G). Now when the left hand hits the 2nd note of the triplet (the Eb) that's when the right hand jumps up over the left hand and plays an arpeggiated C minor 16th note triplet an octave above, and then both hands have to JUMP (and I mean JUMP) back down to both land back in place on the next beat. It was especially hard for the left hand since the 2nd time around I played that short C 8th note an octave down.

But yeah, other than that, it's not too hard of a chart

[West]

Awesome. Absoluetly frigging awesome!

I don't remember if I ever commented on your version of The King is Dead, but that one was very, very impressive also. You're an incredibly talented musician Tyler, no doubt about it.

[Tyler Johnson]

Awesome. Absoluetly frigging awesome!

I like your enthusiasm West, I can picture you doing the rock n' roll bunny ears with your hand and head-banging to this...

Here's a clip of that extremely hard passage if anyone else wants to have a go at it. That leap down really takes a lot of practice:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/battle_clip.jpg

[West]

I like your enthusiasm West, I can picture you doing the rock n' roll bunny ears with your hand and head-banging to this...

Sorry for the Bill & Ted reaction. I will applaud you next time and say "hurrah, bang-up job!" if you think it's more proper.

[Tyler Johnson]

Nah, I like the Bill & Ted reaction better

[Gauteamus]

Yes, I can see what you mean by marking that passage as difficult!
I can not say anything in praise beyond the fact I was sure it was a "techno-job"

This is far above my clavier-skills, though, so I'll keep to the good old well-tempered in half (or quart) timestamp. Of course, there are no timestamps on the well-tempered, but I take Glenn Gould as authoritative

[ancestral]

Funny, I was just starting to write the major themes of songs in Wesnoth and I've already done so for Aleksi's battle piece.

http://mproud.com/music/themes/battle-music.pdf

It's absent of markings as my goal is to just record the basic melody.

Tyler: Well done! I've enjoyed it! And thanks, of course, Aleksi, for the piece

[Tyler Johnson]

It's absent of markings as my goal is to just record the basic melody.

Nice, however there is one small mistake in measure 4.

You have this:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/1.jpg

But the correct passage is this:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/2.jpg

Other than that, it looks good though.

[ancestral]

It's absent of markings as my goal is to just record the basic melody.

Nice, however there is one small mistake in measure 4.

You have this:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/1.jpg

But the correct passage is this:

http://www.tyler-johnson.net/2.jpg

Other than that, it looks good though.

Thanks! I'll correct it when I get home.

[Rain]

I really like this arrangement! While the piece sounds very Russian, I didn't quite hear the Shostakovich at any given point, but no matter! I am not familiar with enough of his piano works to really chime in here.

What piano sampler are you using? The piano sounds good.

Very musical. You are doing really good work right now. Keep staying plugged in, b/c whatever you are doing right now is working.

[Tyler Johnson]

I think what Aleksi was saying that HIS version was Shostakovich inspired, and the percussive element in my piano version reinforces his original idea.

Well, I recorded this on my Roland Fantom X8, but I had a metronome clicking at 135 and I didn't want that to show up in the recording, so I recorded a MIDI version, exported it as a MIDI file, loaded it up in Cubase and used a Steinway B plugin. While it doesn't sound completely genuine, it's pretty close.

And thanks Rain for the comments!

[CheeseLord]

OMG that's fantastic

That's a hard one to make a nice version of (I tried it ) Most of this is perfect. I really want to learn it now......plz plz plz post sheet music for this

CheeseLord