Finding My Sound

Song of the Day #6: Final Fantasy XIII-2: Full Speed Ahead! - Naoshi Mizuta (by BallinWallin)

I’m currently playing Final Fantasy XIII-2, and I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I was a little skeptical at first, because I thought it’d just be a recycled version of XIII. But they added some new features and a completely new storyline (albeit building on that of XIII, of course), which I find quite compelling.
Although, I must admit I find FFXIII-2’s soundtrack less appealing than its predecessor. I feel XIII’s soundtrack was more memorable and carried emotion better. Maybe it’s because it’s because it’s not solely Hamauzu (next to Naoshi Mizuta, he worked together with Mitsuko Suzuki and Ryo Yamazaki to write FXIII-2’s score)?

Regardless, the soundtrack still has some great pieces. This being one of my favourites.

Mikky Ekko - Who Are You, Really? (by LexieLouLooLew)

Heard this in an episode of MTV’s Teen Wolf. 

I’ve never heard of Mikky Ekko, but this song makes me want more!

Composition: SPN Symphony - Mov. 3 (by Goten1992)

Three out of four!

Full info in the YouTube page description.

Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen: Piano Arrangement (by Goten1992)

Did this overnight. This song has been stuck in my head for days now. And it’s been since September that I made a piano arrangement for a pop song, so why not?

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto nr. 2 (3rd. mov) - Elisabeth Brauss on piano.

Thirteen years old… I’m nowhere near this level!

Composition: Fire Dance.

(finished version of Musical Idea #5)

Finally finished something, it’s been a while!

As you can see, I was inspired by The Legend of Korra. Which features frequent use of the erhu, and I just had to use it.
This was also a good practice for my percussion knowledge, which has always been severely lacking.

As always, more info on the Youtube page. 

 Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Main Theme - Nobuo Uematsu (by Master0fHyrule)

Song of the Day #5: Alone In Kyoto - Air (+ thoughts on James Newton Howard’s soundtrack for The Hunger Games).

Recommendation I got from a friend today. It’s really atmospheric and, as said friend adequately described it, zen.

What’s funny is, we had just gotten out of the movie theater, having seen The Hunger Games, and this piece just completely reminded me of the movie. It sort of has the same feel, the same atmosphere, to it, I think.

Here’s the scene/track I’m referring to. Compare 0:35 onwards of Air’s track with 1:15 in the link.

Something that also struck me about The Hunger Games soundtrack is that it is composed by James Newton Howard, whose name seems to be popping up for me a lot lately (mainly Green Lantern and Disney’s Atlantis, which I’ve both recently seen for the first time). For some reason, I’m just incredibly drawn to his music. I think he’s great at creating the perfect atmospheres for the right scenes. Because, during aforementioned movies, my attention kept being pulled towards the music a lot, rather than the movie itself, at times. It was only until after researching that I found out it was Howard’s work.

Composition: La Douleur Exquise.

First violin solo!

“La Douleur Exquise” is French for the pain of loving someone that you can never have, be it by circumstance or subjective decision.

Wrote this last night in about an hour or two. Sometimes, certain pieces just write themselves.

Note: it doesn’t happen on my original audio file, but around 1:36, there’s this weird noise. Please ignore it, haha.

(Source: youtube.com)