ReMix: Fire Emblem 'Etude for Piano in F# Minor'
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- Game: Fire Emblem (Nintendo, 1990, NES)
- ReMixer(s): Kevin Stephens, trickwaters
- Composer(s): Hirokazu Tanaka, Kei Takanishi, Yuka Tsujiyoko
- Song(s):
- Posted: 2004-12-18, evaluated by the judges
It's been a hell of a week. I've been sick and out of commission, then forced to catch up in writing a paper and trying to prepare (hopelessly) for a final as well as make up missed meetings/decisions at work. It's weeks like these, however, that make weekends all the sweeter. After my last class/final Thursday night, as I sat down with a Heineken and watched the cinematic glory that is Big Trouble in Little China, I recollected on how hectic, stressful, and in general unpleasant this semester has been, and was simply glad that it was finally, for all practical purposes, over. Moving on, in more ways than one: newcomers Kevin Stephens and trickwaters (alias Patrick Waters) give us this lovely piano arrangement, our first from the first installment in the Fire Emblem series of RPGs. The ReMixers write:
"Kevin: I was flipping through the NSF to the original Fire Emblem game looking for something to arrange, and the melody to this song stuck out. I immediately started working on an arrangement, and less than a week later this turned out. My thanks to trickwaters for assisting me by resequencing the piece, giving it a believable performance.
Patrick: Having seen the popularity of and listened to Kevin's original arrangement of this piece, I wanted to make my own interpretation of his 'etude.' I'm glad he gave me the chance to do this, as this has opened the doors for other collaborations between us."
We've seen a couple solo piano arrangements that were actually collaborations, and it would seem they tend to produce solid results, this mix being no exception. Things are VERY dramatic, with the flowing, fluctuating introduction setting into a swaying pace that varies in intensity as it jumps from octave to octave, dynamic to dynamic - half the arrangement can simply be found in the dynamic shifts alone, they are so integral and oft-utilized. Zircon echoed my thoughts both in his praise for the mix and in responding to comments that the mix had some minor EQ/reverb issues:
"The whole mix actually sounds like a typical piano recording in, say, an empty cathedral would using one or two nice stage mics. Less reverb wouldn't have hurt, but the amount it has now simply doesn't strike me as detrimental to the piece in the least. I know some of the left hand chords *sound* cluttered, but plenty of classical piano pieces tend to sound like that, if not worse. In regards to the high end, again, this is really what piano recordings (and hell, actual pianos) generally sound like, and I think that's all that is important. It's not a mastering issue. In fact, if it was EQed more highly or intentionally made more bright, I'd go so far as to say that would be worse for the mix, if anything."
What I admire here is the amount of variations on the same theme that the ReMixers achieve - this isn't the type of piano arrangement that adds a lot of original material to fill in the gaps (which also often works well), but rather the kind which takes the core melody and does a series of variations, almost like a classical exercise, on it. Anyone familiar with Andrew Lloyd Weber's Variations 1-4 will know what I'm talking about, though in that instance (re)instrumentation for each variation played a big part. The push at 2'55", with increasing tempo and velocity, transitioning into a calm, arpeggio-backed sea of tranquility, only to cloud over with storms seconds later, is a good example of arrangement and technique coming together to form an ideal union, where one makes sense and is all the better because of the other. Really excellent, emotive first mix from Kevin and Patrick, and a great introduction for Fire Emblem, in full, 88-key, Ivory glory.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the Edit: And also 4 posts above you.
- Dhsu on May 21, 2009
- Eirikalyndis on May 21, 2009
Piano, plain and simple. This is something I'd like to hear live. :-)
- 42 on March 20, 2009
- Penfold on February 6, 2007
- The marronator on February 5, 2007
I've been receiving a lot of e-mails and regretfully lost almost all of them before responding (yes, I've been lazy on responding.) I went ahead and uploaded the sheets for everyone so that no one will ever have to e-mail for the sheets again and can just grab them online.
There are two things to note, first. They are in a weird file format (.TIF), but Adobe Acrobat should be able to read them. Also, the end of the piece has a C# higher than is playable on a piano. Unless you have perfect pitch, just change that to a C natural. If you do have perfect pitch, you probably have enough theory knowledge to make an adjustment to the piece yourself. =) If not, bitch at me and I'll post a solution to the forums. I believe Patrick made an adjustment for the recording on OCR, so I'll just figure out what that was.
Anyway, enjoy!
http://artemisjaeger.googlepages.com/etudesheets.rar
- artemisjaeger on November 12, 2006
- Gix on December 23, 2005
It's probably too hard for me too, but hey, for a song this cool I'll either play it or break my neck trying. w00t!
- Azureye on August 16, 2005
I still haven't learned the whole song either. It's crazy hard to play (for me).
- IC on August 16, 2005
- DJ Pili on August 5, 2005
Very thoughtful sequencing, and an equally interesting arrangement. does sound a bit more like 'new age' to me--not that's a bad thing at all. perhaps a 'classical' interpretation would have included more experimentation with dissonance, or maybe I'm just a sucker for dissonance.
In any case! When a remix makes me want to try my hand at arranging its original work, it's a reliable metric, in my mind, of a remix well done.
- MC on January 23, 2005
And the reverb/sustain is nice...sounds real. So there.
- IC on December 27, 2004
BlueEnvy wrote: Well, im not sure why some people are classifying this as classical piano, because its true genre is leaning towards new age piano.
Don't know much about New Age, but as I said, this is the format for a "Variations" peice, except with some modern notions and styles. I have heard New Age music described as "music without climax" so I can see where you might get that here... though, again, I'm not really all that familiar with New Age.
But of course, as the saying goes... nothing new under the sun. New Age, like everything else, borrows from old age.
- Fieari on December 25, 2004
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