On Saturday, I passed my 100th uploaded video on my YouTube channel. To celebrate, I spend the day creating Piano Versions to every level in the Super Mario Land game for Gameboy. After all, it was my first video game -and still one of my favorites.
Yesterday, I spent the day working through an INTENSE ragtime variation of the all-too-familiar level 1 Birabuto Theme. One of my (recently) favorite ragtime pianists is called Tom Brier. He's a phenomenal player, but also a phenomenal sight-reader (that's when somebody puts a brand new piece of music in front of you and tells you to play it). The song below is based on his variation of the piece -only when he played it... He was sight reading it. He'd never even heard the song before. I based my Piano Version of this song on his performance and also the transcription that was made by Cezary Slawecki. I made some adjustments with what's happening in the left hand in different places and also tweaked what was happening in the melody slightly. I highly encourage you to check out Tom's vid here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPa4i-ASpqs and if you'd like to play along at home, you can have a download of Slawecki's transcription here: http://www.keeper1st.com/music/tombirabuto.pdf.
Remember, I made some subtle adjustments to my version. Consequently, it'll sound a little different than Tom's performance and will go a little off piste from the sheet music.
I hope you like it!
I think this is -hands down- my favorite Piano Versions song that I've sequenced.
Generally, it's much easier to sequence these songs than it is to perform them -but I definitely have my heart set on working up a rendition of this song to perform live at some point. So far, progress is happening... but my metronome is still going nice and slow! Remember: Accuracy first; THEN focus on increasing the tempo! :-)
Enough typing... More music!!!
Enjoy!
Until next time,
-T.