Disturbed (Mark Dillon)

On July 11th I’m going to be performing at Northern anime festival in Oshawa Ontario Canada at the student centre of Durham College at 14:45. Hope to see you there

Remix: Woodman’s Forest
Sheet: PDF

Inspiration

While practicing go perform a couple of months ago I got tired with the songs I knew and felt like learning another one. I browsed through my list of OSTs and stopped at Mega Man 2 remembering my extensive time playing including the fact that I had just beaten it a week prior. I had originally intended to learn the most famous Dr. wily Level but while I was playing it found myself accidently straying to wood man’s stage. Once I realized I enjoyed playing it more I decided to learn it.

Please excuse the lower quality as I’m inbetween sound cards and am currently using an SBLive.

Another May has come around and Anime North is now over. This year I enjoyed my time even more than the previous years and it made me realize how much more I could do when it comes to video game music on piano.

Performances

I played three times each for a coulpe of hours this year. One performance was Friday afternoon to evening in the TCC (toronto congress center) when I first arrived. I really enjoy playing in the TCC because large groups of people stop by every few minutes. The sheet music I brought to hand out went very quickly and I filled as many requests as I could.

The next performance was a scheduled concert in the Renaissance. In the past scheduled concerts have not normally drawn as many people as just stopping and playing somewhere but this time there were so many people that there were not enough chairs (I will request a larger area next year). I really enjoyed having such an enthusiastic crowd it gives me all the more motivation to practice and learn new pieces.

The third performance was similar to the first one in the TCC but was in the doubletree hallway instead. Overall I would say I had the most fun this year of all the AN conventions I’ve attended and I look forward to coming again next year.

To do

I made a few commitments while interacting with all of you and don’t think I’ll just forget it. Below is what I intend to do next after getting feedback from everyone at my concerts

1. Post sheet music for my mega man arrangements
2. Arrange, perform and post sheet music for the “prologue” from the final fantasy series
3. Pick and arrange a Konami tune like contra, castlevania, turtles etc

Let me know if I took any other requests from you that I did not list here.

OST: PSF2
Remix: Great Hope
Sheet: None yet

Inspiration

Back in the winter of 2000 I stumbled across a trailer for Final Fantasy X and this song was in it. I thought the music was so beautiful it reminded me of my earlier SNES days and left a pretty good impression on me.

I never got around to playing through FFX but this song stuck with me. I realize this song is quite popular and there is a good reason for that, the same reason that I’ve played it here (not arranged).

Once again I will be performing live at Anime North. I will be there Friday May 22nd, Saturday May 23rd and Sunday May 24th. I never plan out all of my performance locations and times but I will know (soon) some of them and I will post them as soon as they are confirmed. Feel free to stop by and say hello.

If you follow any of the work I do on piano you probably noticed that my site was dormant, with little content and infrequent updates for the past year or so. After a lot of time spent thinking I decided to put some priority back in my music and one of its’ foundations has always been arrangements of video game music.

I took the time to upgrade my site. Soon I should have all of my old stuff up, for now have a look around and if you want let me know what you think.

OST: Schala’s Theme
Remix: Purple Robe
Sheet: PDF

Inspiration

The dark ages was easily my favourite part of Chrono Trigger. I felt most connected with and to me at the time it was really surprising creativity. Schala’s theme was my favourite from this time (Next to corridors of time) but what I found was it is very enjoyable to play on piano. It’s not that hard so if you play give the sheet music above a try.

OST: Overworld
Remix: Goodbye Link
Sheet: None yet

Inspiration

Just before I went to perform at a convention I was playing through my Zelda Medley and I noticed I really enjoyed the soft part of the overworld so I decided to record a section of it using my Toneport UX2 and the Roland RD700SX I had rented for the performance. I turned out rather nice and I uploaded it as sort of a preview.

Over time as the new Zelda games have come out for N64, DS and Wii I’ve given them a minor chance but not being a kid I didn’t give them hordes of time as I would have before. So I guess I felt like my time spent with Zelda was now only in the past.

OST: Maridia 2
Remix: Piano Maridia
Sheet: PDF

Inspiration

It doesn’t take much to turn this almost written for piano song into a piano solo. When I got to this part of the game I was really surprised how trapped the background music made me feel. All metroid games have the feel of being lost in the depths as you play through them but for some reason this song really made me feel it.

OST: Item collect
Remix: Item collect
Sheet: Item Collect

Inspiration

I had always liked the soundtrack to super metroid. When I first came up with the idea of vgPiano I tried to get some albums together and one of them was super metroid. However, if not for metroid metal I probably would have never picked this song.