ReMix:Adventures of Lolo 3 "The Eggerlander March" 3:26

Happy Mother's Day! While we've got nothing lined up that's particularly celebratory of maternal persons, this arrangement from Doc Nano marks our first coverage of the Adventures of Lolo series AND the artist's first departure from (superb) solo piano mixes to date. In this case, we've got a full-on orchestral march, as the title would imply, and Alex has done a thorough job with both the arrangement and also working to ensure that his tools (i.e. samples) were strong enough to realize said arrangement:

"Several months back I noticed that there were zero remixes of any Adventures of Lolo games on OCR. This addictive adventure-puzzle series featured infectious tunes that were drummed into the player's head, level after level, driving you to push onward despite practically throwing the controller through your TV half a dozen times per level.

Noting this gap in our remix library, I wrote a Sousa-esque march based primarily on two themes from Lolo 3 -- the main level music, and the overworld theme. I originally used samples from my synth, but James Lee in the wip forums strongly recommended upgrading the samples. A half year and 200 bucks later, I was able to re-pipe the piece through EWQLSO Silver, and I think this is one case where a bit of cash made a huge difference. Props also to Wes M. for suggesting the inclusion of strings, which make the whole piece far more dramatic. The piece follows the structure of an American military-style march:

• Brief intro
• First strain: Close cover of Main Level Music, with embellishment
• Second strain: Development of Main Level Music, also loosely based on the jingle you hear when Lolo gets a power-up such as a bridge or hammer.
• Intro to trio
• Trio: Cover and development of Overworld Music

Overall, this has been a fun experiment for me in exploiting proper balance, articulation, and harmony in a full orchestral ensemble. Hope you enjoy it."

Very cool; clearly a lot of thought went into matching formal structures & shooting for that good ole-fashioned Sousa sound, which as a high school marching band geek and general low brass enthusiast I'm all too familiar with. As an interesting sidenote, our region has a dude known affectionately as "Tuba Guy" who walks miles and miles around differents parts of the county, playing a tuba that he also decorates. So, in other words, there's still hope for humanity. But I digress; I'm glad Alex invested in EWQLSO, the original source tune was definitely calling out for this type of American-style march treatment, he did an awesome job taking the arrangement seriously and working it out, and the production lets it shine. It's also some catchy, major-key, oompah goodness that'll stick in your head & would blend in perfectly at your next parade. You know, if you happen to throw your own parades. Which would be odd, but cool. Deia actually teaches a lot of these instruments to aspiring young musicians, who probably end up playing a lot of Sousa music themselves, and I think she sums things up & closes us out nicely:

"Yay! This is super fun! Nice choice of sources and style! I love that you followed the legit march form as well, including the piccolo solo/brass feature for the trio repeat. Very cool."