The Video Game Pianist

Neil Halelamien writes "Many enjoy listening to video game music arrangements, like those offered by OCRemix, Project Majestic Mix, or the Minibosses NES-rock band. A newcomer on the scene is the Video Game Pianist, an accomplished performer studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music. His skills garnered the attention of some in the industry -- he performed at the 2005 Game Developers Conference and will also be playing live at E3 this year. His web site offers some amazing performance videos (many with him playing blindfolded), downloadable albums, live internet concerts, sheet music, and other goodies, all for free. His albums and videos include several selections from the Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy series. Fans of his work can also donate to support his music."

Comments

New Game

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, for a second i thought this was a new game. Nope, its not...

Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is playing the piano while wearing a blindfold a great accomplishment?

Any reasonably accomplished pianist should be able to do this trivially.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when the guy plays the wrong notes or goes too fast or too slow. I've seen a few videos and was not really impressed: he's a very good amateur, but not a professional and my ears cried when he I heard him destroying some good music with his own "interpretation."

He's good, but I guess he'll have to do better (and be more original next time, like write his own music or something).

Re:Blindfolded?

[rbarreira]

I watched some of the videos on the site, and now my opinion is that his newest videos are much better than the old ones. He seems to keep his tempo much better now. And according to his biography, he seems to be taking a pursuing a Bachelor degree in piano playing.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is playing the piano while wearing a blindfold a great accomplishment?

When did anyone say playing the piano while wearing a blindfold a great accomplishment?

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did anyone say playing the piano while wearing a blindfold a great accomplishment?

It's noted specifically in the headline.

And as others have pointed out, he used to call himself the blindfolded pianist.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Vorondil28]

I've been playing piano for about five years now, and you're absolutely right.
Now, if he could learn a song blindfolded, by ear, with bamboo shoots under his toe nails, then yes, it would be an accomplishment.

Re:Blindfolded?

[ejdmoo]

Agreed.

Some pianists read music without looking entirely. In fact, it could be said that typing while not looking is harder. We all do that, right?

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not, I'm not even that accomplished and I hardly look down when I play, if ever. I also touch type on the computer without looking, which I think is somewhat more complex than the basically 1-dimensional piano keyboard.

After all, if you have to look at the keys, how the heck do you read the music??

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

He played backwards too, although I bet that isn't very hard. !ees ,sdrawkcab epyt hcuot nac I

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not exactly the case. Musicians use visual cues all the time to judge timing and distance to the keys. It's true that dealing with the blindfold isn't that difficult for a lot of musicians, but it does make things tricky for many others.

This is the reason why Bösendorfer makes a special black cover for the extra keys at the bottom of the range -- so pianists used to the regular 88-key Steinway keyboard don't get confused by the extra keys at left.

Re:Blindfolded?

[mogalpha]

It seems most of the comments here are simply claiming this to be an ordinary, if not trivial feat. Which admittedly, if you are a long-time pianist, isn't entirely out of the question. But even if his playing isn't phenomenal, it it still quite unprecedented for someone to play some piano and be recognized on ebaum's world and the other such sites. So maybe you don't think he deserves to be on /.'s front page, months after his appearance onto the web (I don't think its timely at all), but if you can't do it better than he can, don't claim its trivial.

Re:Blindfolded?

[FleaPlus]

Well, actually in the submission I said that I thought the videos were amazing, and that some of the videos had him blindfolded. I didn't think the blindfolded part was particularly amazing, I just thought it looked cool.

Re:Blindfolded?

[spectre_240sx]

Sure, but how do you find the home row? I don't see nubs on any of the keys...

Re:Blindfolded?

[keendreams]

I play some piano too and if I have a song to memory I only have to occationally glance at my fingers. When typing on a keyboard, I never have to look at my fingers unless I need the top row of symbols above the number keys. I find that blind piano playing can become a bit more tricky when your hands have to shift one or two octives at a time. Once your hands leave its position, the fingers no longer have a frame of reference. So you simply have to memorize the distance your hand needs to move to reach a certain note of a different octive. However, I believe that if you avoid looking at your hands when playing the piano, it actually helps you become more proficient. Having to visually verify a note before letting your finger muscles go slows you down and can mess-up you rythm. Likewise relying more on your sense of touch and your ears, not your eyes makes for better musicianship. But besides playing Blindfolded, this kid is remarkable. Just watch him play the more "rag-time" sounding Mario music really fast and you will start to appreciate his talent.

Re:Blindfolded?

[LucBorg]

Damn right. If these people are so great as him, why don't we hear about them on ebaums world.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can do it better than he can. So this post is just flamebait.

I'm also a graduate student at Julliard. I took a look at the sheet music, and those arrangements are nothing exceptionally difficult.

They are on the level of a 5th or 6th year student.

Playing blindfold is a stage-trick without any real merit.

Re:Blindfolded?

[cloak42]

While I'm sure this was meant to be a joke (and a rather good one, given that there is no "default position" for your hands on a piano... er... anyway)... It's actually quite easy. For example, a computer keyboard's keys don't sound different when you hit them, while a piano, well, that's its whole point.

Also, finding a specific note on a piano is relatively easy with a blindfold on because of the fact that the black keys help you to find your way. Finding the right octave is easy (and finding the right note is even easier if you have perfect pitch), and then it's just a matter of using your fingers to feel where you are in that octave.

Anyway, now that I've taken a perfectly good joke and ruined it with analysis...

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, a computer keyboard's keys don't sound different when you hit them, while a piano, well, that's its whole point.

A computer keyboard's keys obviously doesn't print the same characters

Re:Blindfolded?

[mogalpha]

Right, we know this, because the top musicians in the world are not those who play blindfolded at concerts and so on. But that's not the point; if you are a grad student at Julliard, then show us what you can do. Just, of course, make it video game related, and maybe the next /. front page news will be you instead of this guy and his "stage-tricks".

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, mogalpha - most self-respecting musicians wouldn't stoop so low.

_I_ am not a professional musician or grad student at Juliard, but I did go far enough in music to recognize talent or lack thereof when I hear it.

The only unique thing about this guy is that he is a sufficient pianist to pull this off and enough of a geek to record himself and shameless enough to try and pass his talent off as something worth listening to.

Re:Blindfolded?

[3.1415926535]

My piano teacher was blind from birth, and she could play just fine, although she had a little trouble "sightreading" Braille music.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having played piano for 8+ years, I agree; playing blindfolded is not that big of a deal. My teacher use to have me practice walking up to the piano in the dark and start playing when I was memorizing something. If you're a good sight reader, you won't look at the keys anyway. So if you're playing by ear or from memory, you won't need to look at the keys.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Infinityis]

You're right...now if he actually played Super Mario Brothers and beat the game (or even a level) while blindfolded, THAT would be impressive. :)

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

watch a Tori Amos concert. she will sit between two keyboards, playing them both while looking out towards the audience and singing.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some pianists read music without looking entirely.

Damn, I've heard of a penis being called a one-eyed monk, but having a penis which can read music? Now that's something!

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

As both a pianist and someone who can touchtype, I promise you that isn't true. With the keyboard, your hands stay in basically the same place - you reach out fingers, your hands are not supposed to moce - you can tell they're still in the right place. Also, when you make typos you correct them within a moment ('cause you're looking at the screen) and no one will ever know.

The problem with 'blindfolds' on the piano is large intervals - while you *can* hear that you're doing ok, if your hand suddenly has to jump exactly 17 notes down, that is *very* hard to do without looking. The very fact that it's 1D means the distances can be big, and to judge them accurately is very difficult without a quick glance.

(you say you play the piano - so think of all those times there was a random note at the very highest or lowest range of the piano, and imagine trying to dart your hand there and play the right note without opening your eyes...)

Pieces that a pianist is very familiar with and which don't require jumps of much more than an octave can however be played blindfolded with ease. It also helps to know the piano.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you that for a pianist to brag about playing blindfolded is pretty much like a professional chef bragging about not over cooking a steak beyond medium rare. Look!! It is still RED and Tender!!! WOW!!!! I have outdone myself!!! I mean..... my steak is not as overdone as I am!!!!

I am also curious to know what a 5th or 6th year student should be playing to eventually have a chance to get into Julliard's graduate program. Do you get extra points in the audition if you play blindfolded without ever using the thumb?

thanks

Re:Blindfolded?

[Dachannien]

I know a guy who used to be able to beat everyone up through Bald Bull in Mike Tyson's Punch Out with his back turned to the screen. That was a long time ago, but he can still beat King Hippo that way without getting hit, even though he hasn't practiced in a long time.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a grad student at Juilliard, then why can't you spell it?

Re:Blindfolded?

[nofx_3]

Um, if you were blindfolded as per the discussion, how would you know which character were being printed?

-kaplanfx

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, stop making Juilliard sound like a special place! :)

Re:Blindfolded?

[slib]

Playing the piano requires rhythm, finesse, and in a lot of cases, a life time of study. I could type quickly and well without looking several months after I began. Also, the last time I checked - and I check often - you can't delete notes you're playing.

Re:Blindfolded?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck IS Julliard anyway?

Re:Blindfolded?

[C0rinthian]

The fact that people think this guy is anything special is proof of how ignorant people are of music nowadays. (Explains the majority of pop music)

I'm sorry, but any undergrad piano major should be able to do what he does better.

Glad to see that he will be getting proper training. He has the potential to be very good.

Coral Cache link

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.videogamepianist.com.nyud.net:8090/inde x_files/bio.htm

Acapella

[Anonymous Coward]

you should also check this out

Re:Acapella

[MustardMan]

I wish I had mod points - that is a hilarious video. College a capella performances are almost always incredibly fun. I've seen a lot of really awesome fun covers, and this video is a great example of the fun people can have with a little creativity.

Re:Acapella

[Omnieiunium]

hmm.. I've seen both the acapella and the blindfolded pianist ages ago.

They've both, well the blindfolded pianist has at least, been on http://www.gprime.net/

Re:Acapella

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there was a Slashdot story on that sometime last week I think. And in the comments on that story someone posted a link to one of the videos of this pianist. So thanks for completing the circle.

You've got to hand it to the guy...

[Rob T Firefly]

Not everyone could link to videos of themselves on muchosucko or ebaumsworld with such dignity.

Send money, quick!

[John Seminal]

Fans of his work can also donate to support his music

If he is as good as people say, he'll make a bundle of money, much more than the avarage joe. If you want to give money, try finding an underfunded public school music program. Get some friends together, and maybe raise enough to help support a music teacher.

If this guy sucks, he is not worthy of your financial support, and will probably end up as a side-show in bars all across America playing the theme song to Bards Tale.

Re:Send money, quick!

[Rob T Firefly]

How many really talented folks are still paying out-of-pocket to put their own mp3s up while the general public is happily making the latest "Idol" drones rich? The least we could do is throw him a few bucks to compensate for his iminent slashdotting.

Re:Send money, quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

"If he is as good as people say..."
"If this guy sucks..."

If you'd go listen, maybe you can make a judgement yourself. Or just stick to pre-informative judgements.

Re:Send money, quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

and will probably end up as a side-show in bars all across America playing the theme song to Bards Tale.

I just hope it isn't the PC version. *beeeeeeep* *beeeeeeeeeep* *beeep*

Re:Send money, quick!

[ortholattice]

I make donations to many organizations and projects, and I have to decide how to best spend this money. If a project is very popular, there are more people who are likely to donate. If the developer/author/composer is getting rich as a result of the donations, then I don't see the need for an additional donation from me. The money would be better spent on a project that I think is important and useful but which is not so popular.

With nothing more than a "donate" button I have no way of judging whether my money will be well spent or not.

Therefore I only donate to sites that show a running total of how much money has been donated so far, to help me better judge whether or not I should donate money to the project. In addition, this total should be auditable so that I can know that it is not fictional. This means that there needs to be a list of donors (anonymous if they wish but with some means for self-identification) together with the date and amount donated, so that I can verify that I have been included in this list and they are not understating the money received.

For a good example of what I mean, see everything2 donation box

Re:Send money, quick!

[Anonymous Coward]

and will probably end up as a side-show in bars all across America playing the theme song to Bards Tale.

Ummm - wtf bars are you going to?

Argh

[rbarreira]

His tempo sucks in the Mario song video. Quite cool though :)

Re:Argh

[ID000001]

Actually his tempo is quite accurate compare to the video game itself considering this is a human playing the note.

Re:Argh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if you play the original game his tempo is spot on. When people sing the song they usually correct the shitty tempo in the original game. I was surprised that he actually stuck so true to the original's tempo. He's like a machine.

Re:Argh

[rbarreira]

Maybe. That would explain my updated opinion on this.

Re:Argh

[Zorilla]

He only used a metronome as a reference to prove that the video is not being sped up when he starts playing really fast.

He may not be a legendary piano player, but for a bunch of basement gnomes, you guys sure are crapping on him.

Re:Argh

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, his tempo was pretty much right on to the game. It's this little thing called swinging the rhythm.

So that's what happened...

[Dante Shamest]

I was downloading a bunch of files off OCRemix, when suddenly all my downloads became very slow for no reason.

Then I saw the front page of Slashdot...

Re:So that's what happened...

[DarkHelmet]

Heh, how funny. I noticed the same thing happening too. Anyway, here's a script I wrote specifically for the purpose of updating songs from these guys

By the way, I'm using a mysql database for this. The table looks like so:

CREATE TABLE `Remix` (
`Id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`FileName` char(100) default NULL,
`Downloaded` tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`Id`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

Oh yeah, there's a query class that I regularly use for something like this. But then again, if you can't figure out at least the SQL query code to see what it's doing, you suck, and shouldn't be using this period.

Consider it an Exercise for the Reader to rewrite this using Pear:DB

Finally, I recommend inserting a row into the table, representing the highest file ID of what you have, so that you don't end up going and redownloading all their music, one by one.

Thanks OCremix guys for making your pages into RSS feeds! It makes stuff like this a lot easier to do!

http://seventhcycle.net/ocremix/download.phps

I would have posted it here, but Slashdot's junk filter sucks. CENSORSHIP! :D

Re:So that's what happened...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, there's a query class that I regularly use for something like this. But then again, if you can't figure out at least the SQL query code to see what it's doing, you suck, and shouldn't be using this period.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed are kings, right? Heh.

You must be doing some serious downloading to need PHP, an XML parser, and an **SQL database** !!!

I love how you capture PHP's stdout to get the contents of the remote file. That's classic. I hope you don't download multi-gigabyte files with that! And I also like how you check that the size of the file is 100000 or greater to see your download succeeded! Nice magic number!

And how you shuffle an array with .. TWO ELEMENTS! Ha!

My friend, your programming career at Microsoft is all but guaranteed.. now just rewrite that in C# so it requires .NET!

Me? I have some scripts like this:

# parse out of HTML pages, or just do manually like this:
cd ~/downloads
echo "http://something.to.download/" > pending/1
echo "http://something.else/" > pending/2

# later
cd ~/downloads/in-progress
for urlfile in ~/downloads/pending/*; do
url=`cat $urlfile`
wget -q -c "$url" && mv "`basename $url`" ../completed && rm $urlfile
done

Of course my script ain't buzzword compliant, sorry about that. I'll try and throw some XML in there somewhere. :-)

Okay, didn't mean to pick on you too much, but don't go around telling people "they suck" because they don't know how to bloat their code as well as you, 'kay?

Re:So that's what happened...

[mortonda]

Consider it an Exercise for the Reader to rewrite this using Pear:DB

Hmm, or rewrite it in Ruby On Rails, and spend all of 5 minutes doing it.

Re:So that's what happened...

[DarkHelmet]

I see you didn't read through the code and see what the script does.

It looks at the RSS that Ocremix exports. JUST OCremix. Nowhere else. Not multi-gigabyte files. JUST Ocremix files that are 5-10 meg in length.

If all I wanted was something that appended URLs to a download list, to download later, yes I could do something like that.

Your scripts would be perfectly convenient if I wanted to manually go to the site, fetch the URL, then add it. Instead, I'm parsing XML because OCremix has pages like this:

http://www.ocremix.org/detailgame.php?gameid=438 &style=xml

The script will go through, find the next download on the list, and download it. Pretty much, it'll fetch all the mp3s that are available. Running it once a week will download all new releases.

I shuffle an array with two elements so that... Guess what? So it's easy to add mirrors in the future! Go figure.

Sometimes OCremix spits back an error instead of an mp3. 100,000 is a reasonable magic number, since most likely they won't be posting an mp3 of that size on there.

I'm not saying that people should be able to code "as well as me," but I'm setting a prereq for people to use this thing. I figure anyone who can get the DB working won't be asking me stupid questions about it.

Comments like this are annoying, because you glazed over the code and what it does. I mean, what? You want me to parse through OCremix's XML file without a parser? Should I have used sed with a regex?

Damnit!

Re:donation

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to understand how parent post was modded up...

Open source gaming music

[pronobozo]

if you want music for your open source game.

You can apply here (audio samples posted)

It may take me a little while before it's done, but I do it.



You can grab me off the happy penguin forum if you don't like application forms.



-pronobozo

Legal?

[tepples]

He's distributing recordings of copyrighted video game tunes and asking for donations. Isn't that an infringement? Or is he paying 8 cents per downloaded song to the copyright owners?

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're his own recordings of his own performance. Now, in the US there are automatic royalties due for "covering" another band's song, but when the original "band" is in Japan, I wonder what happens...

Re:Legal?

[mmkkbb]

The mask works the music came from are out of copyright. Now does the music thereon constitue a separate copyrighted work? Hmm...

Re:Legal?

[tepples]

The mask works the music came from are out of copyright.

The audiovisual works are not out of copyright, and the audiovisual works will not be out of copyright until after you have died.

Re:Legal?

[mmkkbb]

The audiovisual works are not out of copyright, and the audiovisual works will not be out of copyright until after you have died.

Sure, but if they aren't filed as separate copyrights, I doubt anyone would bother going after him. It's not as if there were a huge market in video game soundtracks. (at least not in the US)

Re:Legal?

[tepples]

Sure, but if they aren't filed as separate copyrights

How can you assume this? Given the budgets of the legal departments of major video game publishers, it's just as easy to file form PA as it is to file form MW. Many countries where Nintendo has a subsidiary don't even require any form of copyright registration at all.

It's not as if there were a huge market in video game soundtracks.

Even if the market for video game soundtracks is not huge, such a market is present. Does whether or not preparing a derivative work is a fair use depend on whether or not the market is huge?

Re:Legal?

[mmkkbb]

How can you assume this?

I didn't. Notice the "if".

Does whether or not preparing a derivative work is a fair use depend on whether or not the market is huge?

No. I don't intend to make a judgment of any sort. Just trying to guess as to what Nintendo will do. I imagine that they would measure the cost of any bad PR of a lawsuit before proceding.

Re:Legal?

[radish]

There's a difference (a very big difference) between the copyright of the music (which is relevant here) and the copyright of a specific recording (which is not). If you publish your music as is normally done (e.g. by U2, or Britney, or whoever) you cannot prevent others from performing it, or recording it. You are usually due a (pretty small) fee, but you can't stop it. Hence all the cover versions of songs where the original artist didn't like it.

On the other hand, distributing/performing a recording of a song (e.g. a U2 or Britney CD) can be stopped, and is often just not allowed.

Of course - I have no idea whether video game music is published through the normal channels - if not he'd have to go into negotiations with the individual copyright holders.

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm... then it seems the solution is obvious. now who here wants to go to jail? ;p

Re:Legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strictly speaking, yes this is copyright infringement. However, despite at least one incident of Nintendo's lawyers being overzealous (and eventually reined back in), I'd say that Nintendo would be fine with this. I remember reading Nintendo Power as a kid and they seemed to love printing examples of overzealous fandom.

Nintendo could ask him to pay money to license these works, but you can't get blood from a stone and he's promoting Nintendo nostalgia, which is really Nintendo's best asset.

Wow memories!

[LiquidCoooled]

The Amiga was the first place I heard decent quality music (I missed out on c64...).

The quality of some tunes easily outstripped modern "pop" groups.

Heres a nice rundown of the main history of game music.

I just had to go hunt down the Project-X mod files.

Re:Wow memories!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd pay ANYTHING for a cd with the music from ELF (oldschool amiga game). I love that music. Especially the first level song, and the last level...

Re:Wow memories!

[Anonymous Coward]

how about the music for Zak Mccrakin??

Fantastic!

[SendBot]

I had been listening to this guy's performances for a few months now, but my copies weren't very good quality and I never actually knew who this was. I even had a video of him playing like mad as his phone rings in the background and it's simply amazing to see him go.

That site is very informative and has some great resources. Go see it if you haven't already.

Re:Fantastic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Upon reading your post, I was wondering which clip you were talking about when surely enough, I hear the phone ring in the clip I'm currently watching !

Hurry man, put up ads!

[Strokke]

Oh man this poor guy is trying to make some money on the side, but without ads the bandwidth costs for the next few days are going to destroy his bank account. Hopefully he'll think quick and at least put up some google ads. I'm sure a lot of people here read on penny-arcade about the ex-keenspotter who is making more money with just google ads. (http://www.schlockmercenary.com/)

How tall is this pianist?

[MisterTeabag]

A guy walks into a tavern. As he walked up to the bar he noticed a twelve-inch man playing the piano, so he asked the bartender, "What's that all about?" The bartender told him he that would tell him later. So the guy asked the bartender for a drink. The bartender said, "Before you get your drink, you get to rub the magic beer bottle and make one wish." "Okay," said the guy. He went over to the magic beer bottle and rubbed it. Poof. Out came a genie. The genie, of course, said, "You have one wish." The guy thought about it and then wished for a million bucks. A cloud of smoke filled the room, and then both the genie and the guy disappeared. In a few minutes, the guy reappeared back in the bar with a million ducks all around him. The guy was astounded and said to the bartender, "Hey! I didn't want a million ducks." The bartender replied, "Do you think I wanted a twelve-inch Pianist?"

Re:How tall is this pianist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think this is a true story.

Re:How tall is this pianist?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was trying to make a joke out of this guy having asked a genie to make him good at playing video games with his penis, but couldn't quite think one up...

LOL, that's funny!!

[John Seminal]

I'd like to make a donation to support this fine artist / geek. I run a brothel on the side and I'm wondering how I can donate a girlfriend to this guy, cause it's obvious to me he isn't getting one on his own.

At my high school, for every "A" you got, you would get one free coupon for the local video store... "rent one, get one free. No "R" rated movies". Now if only they gave out a hooker. I would have been a perfect 4.0!!

High schools should model their motivation programs after the University of Colorado football program. I hear they sent school busses to bring the strippers on campus.

If you like video game music arrangements...

[Evan Meakyl]

I can only give you two great URLS:
http://remix.kwed.org/ for c64 remixes and the homepage of a SID-metal band: www.machinaesupremacy.com. You can find there free great songs to download!

Re:If you like video game music arrangements...

[pommiekiwifruit]

Yay, kwed is back up again!

Of course the hardcore go to concerts where Villa Rosa(?) are singing acappella versions of C64 classic hits :-)

Re:If you like video game music arrangements...

[Doctor_Jest]

VERY Cool. This sort of thing should catch on more. I hope it does, really. Because we've seen the Japanese love of their game soundtracks start to trickle over here, so as it begins to grow, perhaps the US can pick up that habit as well.

Of course anyone who was into the Amiga can attest to their disks full of demos and mods. :)

The Machinae Supremacy game soundtrack "Jets'N'Guns" is very good, actually.

Re:If you like video game music arrangements...

[chompy2]

hmm.... according to their site they are the "origin of sid metal"

Very inspirational stuff here. Only if more artists, in similar positions, had/have taken this stance towards the release of their music; to get their music out and about to the masses, to people who would never listen to this type of music as it doesn't get played on the "wireless". Nevermind me just download the music.

Make sure you try out these songs for the game inspired:
Sidology Episode 3 - Apex Ultima 10.02Mb OGG
http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/downloads/ma china e_supremacy_-_sidology_episode_3_-_apex_ultima.ogg [/url]

Sidology Episode 1 - SID Evolution 8.45 OGG
http://www.machinaesupremacy.com/downloads/ma china e_supremacy_-_sidology_episode_1_-_sid_evolution.o gg

Ninentdo Themes Choir

[Xeo 024]

I thought this one was rather well done (it's a .WMV).

Re:Ninentdo Themes Choir

[mmkkbb]

Do these guys know about that?

Not that great.

[idono]

There is nothing special about this pianist. These songs can be easily played with a little practice.

I would much more impressed if he were playing, perhaps, a Rachmaninoff Concerto, or Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum.

Video game music isn't all that difficult.

Re:Not that great.

[mmkkbb]

Christ, don't you think he gets enough of that shit at school? God forbid a classical musician branches out or does something not serious. I'll bet you hate it when a capella groups covering pop songs, mashups, anything using a sampler, and the Boston Pops, too.

Re:Not that great.

[Rob T Firefly]

Check out the whole site. There's a video of him plaing Lennon's "Imagine" facing away from the piano with arms stretched behind his back, there are mp3s of him playing more traditional fare alongside the game tunes... this guy is damn talented.

Re:Not that great.

[BTWR]

There is nothing special about this pianist. These songs can be easily played with a little practice.

Absolutely incorrect. It doesn't simply take "practice," it takes talent. I myself have tried to play three different instruments in my life (piano, saxaphone, and even *laugh* recorder) and I have failed at all three. I absolutely suck. AND... I practiced a lot.

I consider myself well-educated and intelligent, yet I seem to lack the part of the brain that allows you to have the coordination to play musical instruments (and, go figure, i'm one of the fastest/best medical students in my class at tying stitches). And yes, for all three of those instruments, I had professional instruction (I was instructed in piano for about 5 years).

Does this kid have talent? In my opinion, absolutely. Can he do things that I could not do, no matter how hard I tried? In my opinion, absoltely. Does this mean he is the greatest pianist of all time? Probably not. But... like watching the star basketball player of a high school team is pretty exciting, even though there's a world of college, professional and international players way better than him. Being impressive has little to do with doing something better than anyone else (I think it's impressive to run a 7-minute mile, even if i don't think it's all-too-hard).

In closing, lay off the kid (and, next time, saying "Rachmaninoff Concerto, or Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum" makes you look like an arrogant prick, since 97% of people have no idea what that is. Next time, try requesting a flawless Mozart or Beethoven - still extremely difficult, and people will know what you're saying. Talking over people with terms they don't know doesn't sound intelligent).

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... actually he's right... there IS nothing special about this pianist.... the wrong notes he hits are irritating and as mentioned elsewhere, his tempo isn't the best. The fact that you suck more than the video game pianist does not mean that the video game pianist does not suck. It just means that you absolutely suck. As you said. This kid is just schilling for attention. Cuz... he's not that good and needs the attention from people who don't know good/bad pianists when they see/hear them.

Re:Not that great.

[idono]

Absolutely incorrect. It doesn't simply take "practice," it takes talent. I myself have tried to play three different instruments in my life (piano, saxaphone, and even *laugh* recorder) and I have failed at all three. I absolutely suck. AND... I practiced a lot.

I never said that this pianist did not have talent. Any pianist who is as well-known as this guy must be talented.

But... like watching the star basketball player of a high school team is pretty exciting, even though there's a world of college, professional and international players way better than him. Being impressive has little to do with doing something better than anyone else (I think it's impressive to run a 7-minute mile, even if i don't think it's all-too-hard).

I never said: "This pianist shouldn't impress you." I said: This pianist does not impress me. After all, the majority of slashdot comments are opinions, are they not? To assume that they aren't would be foolish. I have seen many pianists, and this pianist does not impress me.

In closing, lay off the kid (and, next time, saying "Rachmaninoff Concerto, or Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum" makes you look like an arrogant prick, since 97% of people have no idea what that is. Next time, try requesting a flawless Mozart or Beethoven - still extremely difficult, and people will know what you're saying. Talking over people with terms they don't know doesn't sound intelligent).

I mention these to be informative. These two pieces are widely known as the most difficult piano piecies to play(of course, not that I couldn't be impressed by other pieces), and for those who may be interested in observing difficult piano pieces(to become more impressed, perhaps?), I included them.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are enough people playing Rachmaninov concerti that it's pretty hard to find a niche in that market. As far as I know, he's the first to penetrate the nerdy computer game market.

Then again, and much more likely, maybe he's just fucking around and doing this for the hell of it. Since he goes to CIM, he probably does play Rachmaninov shit. But he wouldn't be getting /. coverage if he posted the 3rd concerto would he?

I think the fact that he has performed as a soloist with Pittsburgh symphony, among his other achievements, while still only a college freshman is pretty impressive. So if you think there's nothing special about this pianist, I think you're full of shit. Or maybe a washed up pianist yourself. :)

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed, I could play better than this guy if I took the time to learn the pieces. i had 10 years of piano lessons as a child, but i injured my arm and can't feel in my right hand. in short, i suck too, but i can still play better than him.

Re:Not that great.

[TechnologyX]

He sounds like a pussy "air" pianist to me.

"THis isn't special, playing $INSERT_OBSCURE_TUNE_HERE is special, even though I suck at life and can't even chew gum and walk at the same time."

Re:Not that great.

[razjml]

Ever read the (pretty long) short story the Dead by James Joyce? The daughter plays something on the piano, everyone stands around the room and enjoys themselves. She then plays a piece that's technically much harder to show her range. Most of the people end up clearing out of the room, but when she finishes they applaud her much more. They're acknowledging her skill, perhaps self-consciously, even though they enjoyed the simple one more.

When it comes down to it, it's really the stuff with heart that we enjoy, even if the more technical piece is "supposed" to be better. And I guarantee there's more heart in imitating a game you played when you were 6 years old than some tricky obscure thing.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

You speak as if people aren't familiar with the works of Rachmaninoff. They should be. He was, in my opinion, the greatest piano composer of all time, not to mention that his most famous and difficult work, the Third Concerto, was written for a performance in America. Fifty years ago, everybody would have known who Rachmaninoff was.

In short, lay off the parent, and instead of dissing him and calling him arrogant for citing an extremely difficult piece, go find a recording of the piece and listen for yourself.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but Rachmaninoff is both tricky and enjoyable.

Certainly much more so than simple "classic" pieces like Chopsticks (shudder)

Re:Not that great.

[kaltar]

ANY Pianist knows Rachmaninoff, and It's famous for it's complexity. ANY Pianist have studied about Sorabji's contrapuntal technique, that makes it a very important part in history of keyboard composition.

Don't ask people to talk in terms that everyone understand if you are talking about something you don't understand.

Is the blindfolded pianist talented? Probably. But NONE Of his playing there is impressive or show a supremacy over other pianists at all, even blindfolded. His playing is actually very simple. The main critic is the blindfold show. That doesn't mean he is good, it shows nothing. Any pianist should be able to play a medium difficulty piece blindfolded... Beethoven has some compositions very easy to play that way, so its not a good example. But playing something like Rachmaninoff Concert 1-4 Blindfolded, That would be something!

Re:Not that great.

[OldManAndTheC]

Talking over people with terms they don't know doesn't sound intelligent

That argument is specious, meretricious, and risible. :)

Re:Not that great.

[falzer]

I think Vladimir Horowitz said that his transcription of Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody was the most difficult piece for him. Some people consider Prokofiev's 2nd and 3rd concertos the most demanding. Balakirev's Islamey is also another good one as far as difficulty goes.

Just some ideas for anyone interested in knuckle-buster piano music. All great stuff.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point was that this guy doesn't do it that well either. Although the tempo might be accurate, the rythm is just plain bad. Other posters have suggested that he's playing it rubato style, but anyone who knows video game music also knows that half the charm is the exact rythms, and quite frankly, this guy doesn't do that part well.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

The original poster is correct; there is nothing special about this pianist. Relative to other piano works, these are not particularly difficult. I would guess VERY conservatively that there are tens of thousands of pianists in the U.S. alone who could play them better than this kid.

I consider myself well-educated and intelligent

Not if you think Mozart and Beethoven are particularly difficult, and not if you've never heard of Rachmaninoff. Assuming that 97% of the population is just as ignorant as you is also a bit arrogant-prickish, if you ask me.

Re:Not that great.

[Anonymous Coward]

no he's not. You're just a sucker.

Re:Not that great.

[mink]

I think it's safe to blame the average person not knowing much about Rachmaninoff (I only recognize the name, I can not tell you anything about him or identify works) on Record companies and Copyright being out of whack. No matter how good his stuff might be, or how important to culture/performing arts, if it isn't profitable, it wont get published or advertised even minimally. Because of copyright locking his works up for what at least another fifty years, even if you wanted to get those works more well known, you will have to pay a hefty license on something they are not actively publishing/promoting. Studios would rather an artist die and languish then publish a non hit album, and they are shit at making back catalog available (though much better then 10 years ago).

What about changing the status quo?

[kebes]

Well if you don't want to donate, that's your choice of course.

However, for all of us who dislike all that modern copyright and RIAA stuff, then we should seriously consider giving donations to musicians we like who distribute their work freely.

The best way to send a message to the industry, to society, and to musicians is with money. Actions speak louder than words, but money speaks louder still. If artists know that they can actually be compensated for distributing their music freely, then new business models have a chance to catch on, thrive, and maybe even become commonplace.

That's not to say that local public music programs don't also deserve support... but I think donating to things like creative commons music, open-source software, etc. is the easiest and best way to send a message (and maybe change the world too).

Re:What about changing the status quo?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if you are going to donate at least donate to people who are GOOD.

This guy will NEVER make it. He sucks.

(And he plays too many video games...)

Re:What about changing the status quo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know, you're right! I'm gonna donate a shitload of money to every cover band I come across, because I understand how talented they are and how hard they work. I mean, they're obviously great songwriters, or else they wouldn't be playing those tunes...

Down with cover bands! Up with originality and creativity!

formerly the blindedfolded pianist

[danielhsu]

This guys used to call himself the blindfolded pianist. Identity crisis?

Sorry about the donations link in submission

[FleaPlus]

Gah, looking through the comments I'm starting to regret adding in an explicit link to this guy's donation page. I figured I was doing him a favor and trying to make up for the inevitable slashdotting, but looking through the comments, the donations link seems to have been received rather poorly.

The impression that I get from him is that he plays video game music because he truly enjoys it, and hopes to broaden the popular perception of piano. I don't think he really cares about the donations very much, just that they help keep things running smoothly. I thought his work and efforts were worthwhile enough to give him $50, but your mileage may vary.

Re:Sorry about the donations link in submission

[Rob T Firefly]

I feel you did the right thing. It's worth the price of a CD at least.

Pianist

[planetoid]

If he was a midget, would that make him a "twelve inch pianist"? ... Hmm, not as funny when in written form.

I won't be impressed

[VikingBerserker]

...until I see him perform the Frogger theme song while trying to cross a freeway.

Re:I won't be impressed

[Infinityis]

blindfolded, of course

piano player? player piano!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who needs a *person* to play video game music when player pianos these days run on MIDI files? Witness our hack at a hotel in Texas.

Re:donation

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, this guy goes to a music conservatory. Generally the male-female ratio at those places is very favorable for guys. Even the nerdiest guys will get some hot pussy. :)

There exist international copyright treaties

[tepples]

Now, in the US there are automatic royalties due for "covering" another band's song, but when the original "band" is in Japan, I wonder what happens

The mechanical royalties for phonorecords made on U.S. soil would still go to the copyright owner under international treaties.

What about older games?

[gidds]

Stuff Sonic and Zelda -- anyone here remember some of the great music accompanying some BBC Micro games? Crazee Rider, Dunjunz, Icarus, and FireTrack all had great original music that was worth listening to on its own, and pushed the little sound chip to its limits. (Most were also great games, too, but I was never a particularly avid game player.)

Re:What about older games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crazee Rider was good, but in my opinion, BBC Micro gaming was all about Mr. Do.

Damn that game rocked hard.

Old hat

[c0d3h4x0r]

I was playing Mario, Zelda, and Sonic music on the piano back in 1995. Played them at the piano store in the mall and in the drama room at high school during lunch breaks. I guess I should have just kept doing it until the Internet reached critical mass...

Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[shobadobs]

From the site:

The Video Game Pianist has never:
Played Chopsticks on the piano, or Hot Cross Buns
Learned Beethoven's Fur Elise
Taken a pill
Got a headache
Smoked a cigarette
Tasted alcohol
Drank coffee
Broken a bone
Driven a car
Bought anything with cash over $25
Torn a muscle
Turned on a radio to listen to music
Watched the Superbowl
Got in a fist-fight
Played a song composed by a female
Gone to Six Flags Magic Mountain
Got a sunburn

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck would anyone turn on the RADIO to listen to MUSIC?

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[idono]

Maybe he's a Mormon?

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[Anonymous Coward]

so it sounds like he's a regular slashdot member. Not that I read the article, anyway.

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[VoidWraith]

Well he just lost a whole lot of the bit of respect I had for him. He brags way too much, and bragging that he's never played a song composed by a female is absurd. Bragging about his sexism is just disgraceful. And yes, I'm a guy.

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[shobadobs]

Well, you know, it might not be sexism. How many famous female composers for piano do you know of? I've been playing the piano for 13 years, and I can't think of a single female composer whose songs I have played, either.

It doesn't sound like bragging; it sounds like a random factoid to me. Who would brag about having never taken a pill?

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[statixz]

Now we know. He got his piano for $24.99 on eBay.

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bragging about his sexism is just disgraceful. And yes, I'm a guy.

That looks quite sorry for not have been born as a feminazi.

Re:Videogame pianist, or bubble boy?

[Jakeypants]

I bet I can think of another thing that a "videogame pianist" has never done...

wow

[Abstract_Me]

... so ya.. worst frontpage story ever (at least until this stories dupe appears)

What's so special about that?

[Skudd]

"...some amazing performance videos (many with him playing blindfolded)..."

I'm no Mozart, but even I can play my instrument with my eyes closed. What's that instrument? The bass guitar. I used to play the piano, and part of one of my lessons involved playing a song with my eyes closed.

Re:What's so special about that?

[violajack]

Take the frets off and get back to me. My five year old violin students can play with their eyes closed too, but they're certainly not playing that kind of stuff. Anyone can play Twinkle without looking.

Re:What's so special about that?

[damiam]

Anyone should be able to play pretty much anything without looking. I'm a passable violinist (just got back from the Tennessee All-State Orchestra) and the only time I actually need to use my eyes when playing is if I'm reading music. Sometimes it helps in practice to see exactly where you're putting your bow or something, but that's about it. You definately don't need to be able to see to place your fingers; I don't think I could even tell you what note someone was fingering just by looking at them.

Wish...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is he a twelve-inch pianist?

www.vgmusic.com

[DigitalTechnic]

Has been around for years & years and many more years.

Pretty cool, but...

[arodland]

Not excessively creative. On the FF front, his Kefka is almost identical to the Piano Collections version, and for Balamb Garden and To Zanarkand, I might as well just put on the games themselves; I'll hear the exact same thing, only with much better recording quality. The Mario-related work is of a similar quality level, only the track labeled as SMB3 "Overworld Theme" isn't. On the other hand, "Calm [er, Silence, whatever ] Before the Storm" has some promise. It's one of my favorite tracks from the rather mediocre FF X soundtrack, and it translates rather nicely to a real piano. Even here, though, the interpretation is entirely literal. If this guy had submitted to VGMix I think he'd be told to go back to WIP :)

Re:Pretty cool, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck would you mention that? He's not trying to create a "mix", he's performing the original work.

Summative statement? You're a goddamned moron.

Re:Pretty cool, but...

[arodland]

If he was performing the original work, he'd be using a bunch of synthesizers, not a piano. Interpretation is always required -- at the very least, to make things interesting. Like I said, if I wanted to hear the piano pieces as they originally were, I could listen to OSTs or fire up the games themselves :)

Can any of you link to someone better?

[parrillada]

To all those lamenting about how untalented this kid is -- can you link to a better played rendition of the Zelda theme, for example?

I, for one, think it's pretty cool to see/hear the Zelda theme played on piano by anybody, let alone by someone halfway decent.

So if there is someone who plays this stuff better, gimme a link. Otherwise shut the hell up.

Re:Can any of you link to someone better?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=final+fantasy+ concert&btnG=Google+Search&meta= should be good for starters. Previous coverage on /. too.

Pianist

[LaupRellim]

From the perspective of a person who has taught at a major American conservatory for many years, I should say that this guy is doing something admirable by challenging the assumption that most conservatory faculty make that the only music worth playing is "the classics". The classics are great -- ridiculously great, in fact -- but this dude is taking a risk and doing something reasonably well that hasn't really been done much before.

Also, keep in mind, he's an undergraduate, and so if his technique isn't 100% there, it doesn't mean that in five years' time he won't be amazing. For gods sake, when I was an undergraduate, I had nowhere near the technique I got later in graduate school.

you missed..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Advantage. Think emo guitar band does NES/SNES/etc music.

Comment, Criticism, Crappings

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I've learned not to bother scrolling down past the story anymore. What is everyone's problem? I didn't see him piss on everybody's shoes.

yes, yes - this anonymous coward has made his/her first and last post to slashdot and will stick to the headlines and go straight through to the links from now on. i hear enough negativity in my offline life and to be wading through venom and one-upping that is the norm on forums now.

disillusioned

[infinite jester]

The majority of the replies in this forum are downright contemptible.

Here is a humble and talented teenager who is producing fun and original arrangements of video game music because he obviously loves to do it. He set up a free video game sheet music archive and community, and his videos and audio are free to download as well. Read some of his words, and you'll find that he's a really smart and sweet guy, and there's not a picture in his gallery where he's not wearing an ear-to-ear grin. For good measure, he's even a chess champion.

And yet, all anyone here seems to be concerned about is his tempo and the occasional wrong note, instead of appreciating his ability and his spirit. "He's not that great." "This is nothing special." "Anyone can do it with a little practice." I would have thought that a unique young talent who's doing what he does for the love of the art would find a better reception on Slashdot. I'm sorry to see that I'm so very wrong.

As Cartman says, "Screw you guys. I'm going home."

Re:disillusioned

[Anonymous Coward]

And you know why they're so concerned about the tempo? They haven't heard about swinging.

Re:disillusioned

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. The only reason this guy is getting attention on /. is because it's video-game music, and the cranky people are justifiably complaining because there are FAR better and passionate people his age and younger who don't get NEAR the same exposure, and only because they haven't latched onto some gimmicky phenomenon. As if playing videogame music weren't enough of a gimmick, he has to be blindfolded too. It's an insult to all of the real piano players out there and anyone who actually cares about music. Not that he does it, or posts it on the web, but that everyone is so freakin' blowing their load over it.

Re:disillusioned

[Bozzio]

I think some of the bad response is from other actual musicians. The generally amazing reception this guy is getting is a real shot to musicians who know it's just a hack job.

As I musician myself I can say I have nothing against this guy or his playing.. Music students (University level) often put 10+ hours a day in practicing and studying the art, and seeing somebody put some hack project together and get internet-wide praise is, well, annoying.

Any serious musician KNOWS this guy isn't claiming to be a world class musician, but seeing that alot of people can't hear the difference in quality between fast and sloppy Mario tunes (not matter how entertaining they actually are) and a piece in which someone has put months of effort is discouraging.

So, to summarise.. I think some of the bad reception is from musicians who don't actually resent him or his playing, but resent the fact that it is often labeled as "amazing" work coming from an "accomplished" player.

That's all.

Re:disillusioned

[EEBaum]

As a musician, mod parent up!

As a composer, I've recently written a piece based on video game music (no tune in particular, but the general Mario/Zelda/Kirby/etc.-esque feel) for clarinet choir that will be performed next month. It isn't the subject matter that's upsetting; I believe all, and I do mean all, musical styles have something to offer and should not be discounted.

I totally agree that most of the backlash isn't due to the fact that he's playing video game tunes, but that he's playing them sloppily, with regard only for speed and show rather that nuance.

Despite the fact that they're "cheezy video game tunes," the stuff he plays has great potential for creative interpretation, and seeing that lack of interpretation disregarded by many is indeed what I personally get up in arms about.

The performer is having fun with it, which is great, but until he adds some character to his performance, I'll cringe whenever I read a "this guy is unbelievable," the same way I cringe when the PBS announcers say "Yanni is amazing! He writes music right out of his head!"

Re:disillusioned

[violajack]

I think the bad response is mostly from amature musicians who would like to think they're really good, so they want to claim to be able to do the same stuff he's doing. Did you even read the kid's bio? CIM is not a hack-job school to get into. I work with several CIM trained musicians in the Erie Phil, and they are certainly not hacks. He has several awards from international competitions under his belt. He is an accomlished player. Whether or not these pieces show off that accomplishment is another matter. Are accomplished musicians not allowed to play for fun? Must they play show pieces all their lives so people can see how truly technically amazing they are?

Anyway, as a conservatory trained musician myself (6 years, BM and MM) I can say I've never spent more than 6 hours in a day practicing, and I don't know anyone who even comes close to 10+, including CIM kids. I'd be interested to know what university you're refering to, and how long it is before those 10+ hours a day kids burn out, or injure themselves.

One of my friends in my undergrad played similar stuff on violin. He happened to be one of the best violinists at the school. He just learned all the nintendo stuff because his dad would make him go to his room and practice and he would play games on the nintendo, then play nintendo on the violin. Didn't make him any less of a violinist.

So, to sumarize, give the kid a break. I would prefer to resent the fact that Sara Chang claims to be younger than I am. She is so not younger than me.

Re:disillusioned

[VoidWraith]

Here is a humble and talented teenager

Well thats where I disagree with you. Humble? Hardly. And he brags about how he's never played anything composed by a female (which loses him a LOT of respect, even from a fellow male). As a person, he seems like the parent-sheltered smart kid who nobody likes because he is so full of himself. He seems more down-to-earth on the "learning sheet music" pages, but when he talks about himself in his bio and all that, its all about what awards he's recieved, and how he became an overnight success on the internet. That's not a bio, that's a resume.

I am not criticizing his work, it is well done with the occasional flaw that doesn't really stand out. I like the sheet music collection very much, but I don't like the pianist!

Re:disillusioned

[Anonymous Coward]

And he brags about how he's never played anything composed by a female (which loses him a LOT of respect, even from a fellow male).

You keep using that "brag" verb. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Re:disillusioned

[Bozzio]

You've completely misunderstood me. I'm not saying HE's a hack-job, just this whole schtick. He gets up in front of a camera, lights his fuse and rockets away.

Although seeing someone tear up a keyboard like that is fun, there is nothing interesting about his arrangements, and his playing isn't musical. As a trained musician you can't deny that.

I'm not saying the school is a hack-job school to get into either. And I don't care how many awards he's won. My point remains the same, his VGMusic presentation is sloppily put together (hack-job).

I'm not trying to grind him into the dirt, I'm just trying to clarify my original point: Seeing a sloppy project (in any field of life) get recogniztion and praise you don't see it deserving is irritating.

As for the 10+ hour part.. I didn't say just practicing! Most people I go to school with spend ~15 hours a day in the building (some more) practicing and studying. This isn't uncommon in any Music School.

So, to summarize, give my first post another reading and you'll see I'm not the prick I act like.

Re:disillusioned

[Infinityis]

any chance we can get that violinist and this pianist to perform together?

Re:disillusioned

[Anonymous Coward]

What every sour musician doesn't understand is that he is ENTERTAINING. Who cares if you spent months composing a piece. If you don't entertain your audience, then what is the point? It's good for nothing. His audience is obviously millions upon millions of happy people who want to hear it! They are being entertained! What has happened was not a series of freak events; this was highly strategic to get people interested in the classical piano so that when he plays classical music, he'll have his own audiance of 100 million already waiting. Be sour if you can't entertain (boo hoo). Be successful if you can.

Estradasphere

[tardigrades]

Estradsphere - Buck Fever - super buck ii. Best video game music gone rock/jazz. Its a string arrangement of SMB 2 music. check it out.

Sonic CD soundtrack

[Nicky G]

I remember really liking the Sonic CD soundtrack when I was younger, for the Sega CD. Hahah man that was a cool system. Snatcher was great! So I realized you could play back Sega CD discs in your CD player, and I made a tape of the Sonic CD soundtrack. It was probably influential in getting me into electronic music.

Re:Sonic CD soundtrack

[traycerb]

yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. Another great Genesis game (by technosoft, i believe) with a furiously thumping electronic soundtrack is Herzog Zwei (esp. check the track "The Mournful War")

--
uy

not really different from street artists...

[krunk4ever]

that perform well known songs and having a hat or a musical instrument case opened in front of him accepting donations.

Re:not really different from street artists...

[TheoMurpse]

Except that you can cover music in performances for free, but you cannot distribute those performances without licensing. This is how live bands can do covers. However, if you buy their CD with a certain cover on it, they most likely paid a license fee, or are just hoping to not get caught. This is coming from someone who has played in live bands before. You can perform copyrighted music as covers for free, but you cannot distribute the performances without paying the songwriter, nor can you reproduce in a paper form any lyrics or music for people to see during the performance.

I performed in a modern worship band at my church before going off to college, and we were not allowed to lead people in copyrighted songs without paying license fees -- due to copyright, we could perform the songs, but not print the lyrics for everyone else to read!

video game pianist?

[krunk4ever]

i was going to say, isn't the only songs he play mario tunes, but then i found his list of recordings:

Mario Fantasy
Release Date: February 4, 2005
Total Playing Time: 33:23
Download size: 17.5 MB
Track Listing:

01 Super Mario Brothers 1 - Overworld Theme
02 Super Mario Brothers 1 - Underworld Theme
03 Super Mario Brothers 1 - Castle Theme
04 Super Mario Brothers 1 - Star Theme
05 Super Mario Brothers 1 - Underwater Theme
06 Super Mario Brothers 2 - Ending Theme
07 Super Mario Brothers 3 - Overworld Theme
08 Super Mario World 1 - Title Theme
09 Super Mario World 1 - Ghost House Theme
10 Super Mario World 1 - Ending Theme
11 Super Mario World 1 - Air Platform Theme
12 Final Fantasy VI - Kefka
13 Final Fantasy VII - Prelude
14 Final Fantasy VII - Cid's Theme
15 Final Fantasy VIII - Balamb Garden
16 Final Fantasy IX - Melodies of Life
17 Final Fantasy X - Away to Zanarkand
18 Final Fantasy X - Lulu's Theme
19 Final Fantasy X - Silence Before the Storm
20 Final Fantasy Ending Theme

THE VIDEO GAME PIANIST PIANO COLLECTIONS
ARTIST: Video Game Pianist (formerly known as The Blindfolded Pianist)
TITLE: The Video Game Pianist Piano Collections
RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2005

01 Super Mario Brothers 1--Overworld Theme, Underworld Theme, Castle Theme, Victory Theme, Underwater Theme, and Star Theme
02 Super Mario Brothers 2--Ending Theme and Super Mario Brothers 3--Overworld Theme
03 Super Mario World 1--Intro Theme, Donut Plains Theme, Yoshi's Island Theme, Vanilla Dome Theme, Forest of Illusion Theme, Star Road Theme, and Valley of Bowser Theme
04 Super Mario World 1--Castle Theme, Koopa Kids Theme, Victory Theme, Mario Die Theme, Game Over Theme, Air Platform Theme, and Countdown Timer Theme
05 The Legend of Zelda--Overworld Theme, Link Die Theme, Labyrinth Theme, Item Theme, Secret Passage Theme, Magic Recorder Theme, Triforce Theme, Final Labyrinth Theme, Ganon Appears Theme, and Ending Theme
06 Zelda 3--Dark Overworld Theme, Rescuing Zelda Theme, and Zelda 64--Intro Theme
07 Zelda 64--Temple Theme Songs: Minuet of Forest, Bolero of Fire, Serenade of Water, Nocturne of Shadow, and Requiem of Spirit
08 Sonic the Hedgehog 1--Green Hill Zone, Stage Complete Theme, Labyrinth Zone, Marble Zone, Sonic Drowning Theme, Game Over Theme, Starlight Zone, Chaos Emerald Theme, Scrap Brain Zone, Spring Yard Zone, Game Over Theme, Extra Life Theme, and Ending Theme
09 Sonic the Hedgehog 2--Emerald Hill Zone, Chemical Plant Zone, Boss Theme, Sonic the Hedgehog 3--Boss Theme, Sonic the Hedgehog 2--Ending Theme
10 Earthworm Jim--Banjo Race
11 Halo 2--Main Theme Mjolnir Mix
12 Final Fantasy VI--Kefka
13 Final Fantasy VI--Celes
14 Final Fantasy VI--Kids Run Through the City Corner
15 Final Fantasy VII--Prelude
16 Final Fantasy VII--Cid's Theme
17 Final Fantasy VIII--Balamb Garden
18 Final Fantasy IX--Melodies of Life
19 Final Fantasy IX--Ending Theme
20Final Fantasy X--Away to Zanarkand
21Final Fantasy X--Silence Before the Storm
22 Final Fantasy X--Ending Theme
23 Final Fantasy X--Suteki da Ne (Isn't it Beautiful?)
24 Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor
25 Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor--Presto
Super Mario and Zelda music composed by Koji Kondo.
Sonic the Hedgehog music composed by Masatu Nakamura.
Earthworm Jim music composed by Tommy Tallarico.
Halo 2 music composed by Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori.
Final Fantasy music composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
Transcendental Etude composed by Franz Liszt.
Piano Concerto No. 1 composed by Felix Mendelssohn.

I'm in the middle of downloading them (links are on the above mentioned link) so I don't know if it's worthy yet to call him the video game pianist

Why video game music?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who haven't listened to a lot of video game music might not understand what's so compelling about it. Several things are unique about video game music, especially from 1990 and earlier:

(1) It's designed to be repeated, since in most games you'll hear a 3-minute song over and over during your whole 15- or 25-minute level. Today's pop music is designed to be as memorable as possible, whereas video game music is designed to play *in the background* and not annoy you too much. Modern video game music is a lot longer, of course.

(2) It's often composed from a very restricted set of sounds, many of which (used to) sound distinctly artificial. This gives it a unique texture in the same way that metal is distinguishable from rock or pop. Modern video game music has a wider selection of sounds to choose from, of course.

(3) Anyone who played these games as a child has already heard these pieces so many times, that a remix or rendition in other instruments just sounds really cool. You recognize it instantly, yet its fresh and new to your brain.

Call me compulsive, but I regularly listen to old SNES music (Chrono Trigger, Castlevania 4, Seiken Densetsu 3, Secret of Mana and Mystic Ark). I also listen to music from all entries in the Metroid series, from M2 on the gameboy all the way up to Metroid Prime on the gamecube (and for some really cool remixes, google "metroid metal"!) I listen to more traditional music too, but somehow video game music is more interesting to listen to, and evokes more interesting sensations in my brain.

Mr. Bungle did this over 10 Years Ago.

[muntumbomoklik]

You gotta be kidding me.... people have been covering Super Mario for over a decade at least.

My favourite version is Mr. Bungle's.

http://mp3download.01-mp3search.com/top53-Super- Ma rio-Bros-Theme.html

Yes it is different

[tepples]

Are you claiming that performing BMI music without a BMI license and distributing records of copyrighted songs without permission are both well within "it's not illegal if you don't get caught"?

Re:Yes it is different

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck BMI

tempo? you mean rubato

[chocolatetrumpet]

He likes to play the Mario theme at about 116 beats per minute. In my head I hear the original Mario theme at around 98 beats per minute... correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel he takes things a bit fast.

There is a long standing tradition of rubato in music - you take some time away from some beats and give it to others - a musical jenga of sorts. It was very popular in older times and has been lost in the modern age of cool-clean recording perfection.

I don't think the rubato is out of place for an acoustic interpretation of the Mario theme, however I also do not feel that this performer executes it with finesse.

Re:tempo? you mean rubato

[violajack]

You're right that it's a bit fast. I don't think he's trying to throw in rubato though. I think it's an attempt to make sure the triplets are even. The majority of the main theme is lot of syncopations on various sixteenth divisions, but there are places (the ascending arpeggios) that are triplets. I think what happened was that he got excited and squished the sixteenths too close together and overexagerated the triplets.

I only know all of this detail becuase I've recently arranged the theme for my middle school violin group. I split them into two parts to play the top lines, since those have the same rhythm throughout. I'll eventually play the bottom line on viola, once I feel they can handle the theme without me helping them through it. I have to teach them the rhythms mostly by ear though as they're not the best rhythm readers, so asking them to just count through the Super Mario theme was out of the question.

touch typing is simple compared to piano!

[chocolatetrumpet]

When you type on your keyboard it doesn't matter how hard or soft you hit the keys. The number of keys needed to perform some obscure command rarely exceeds 3.

When you play the piano, it matters how hard or soft you hit the keys. Often the keys are played 6+ at one time; also figure in that certain keys want to be played louder than others when striking the chords. There is also a sustain pedal involved.

The most challenging skill is to "hear with your eyes." You can't look at music and push the right buttons at the right time - you need to look at music, hear what it sounds like in your imagination, and then play what you hear.

It is a life's work to master any musical instrument. The hardest part about piano is that the musician is so distanced from the method of tone production. It's easy to make any sound at all, but it's very hard to make a particular sound that you imagine.

Moral: respect musicians!

Re:touch typing is simple compared to piano!

[yoyhed]

Agreed. In addition, typing on a keyboard requires no rhythm or tempo at all, and you can hit any key at any time (maybe if typing on the keyboard required your left hand to keep a rhythm and your right hand to simultaneously play melodies in the correct key...) And on a piano, your hands, fingers, arms, and feet are involved, whereas on a keyboard it's merely your fingers.

And to the rest of the people grilling this guy for just playing someone else's music.. I'm sure there isn't a complete piano tab available for every song he plays, so he must have had to figure out a lot of the songs himself, which still requires some musical talent.

Videogame inspired music and covers

[Ankle]

For those of you who enjoy the minibosses and other music incorporating videogame's into their music I would recommend checking out Machinae Supremacy, they even offer their music for download in Ogg Vorbis. :)

great video

[chocolatetrumpet]

For some reason a cappella choir has preserved the beauty of the human voice mixed with modern, interesting, entertaining repertoire, with more than a thread of sophistication.

I don't know why the rest of the musical world insists on being so stuck up and bass-ackwards. It's fun to hear something really old every once and a while, but never before in the history of western music has the arts community been so obsessed with OLD MUSIC.

The moral of the story is, go to a cappella performances - they're great!

There are others

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess if you are the first to whore yourself for handouts on slashdot you should win, right?

Here is another guy who isn't so egotistical to do something like that:

Piano Squall - Game and Anime Pianist.

And I don't see the word "Donate" anywhere on his main page.

Another Nintendo band

[zdv]

Another band to check out is Game Over. They released a demo called 'Nintendo Metal' which is kind of cool.

Check em out at their home page!

What about the original composer!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you all think the original composer deserves credit here? All this guy is doing is playing someone else's composition on the piano. Big deal. Don't you all realize that the true brilliance is with the original composer??

Really old news...

[rlbond86]

Am I the only one who saw this like 2 years ago?

Uh... Mogalpha?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the people featured on ebaumsworld aren't exactly the most spectacular specimens of humanity, wouldn't you agree?

Mediocrity should not be celebrated but stuffed away in a closet.

Re:Uh... Mogalpha?

[mogalpha]

Haha, yeah that's true too... I think it was on there I saw one guy bodyslam his friend off a roof and onto a wooden table. Both seemed to suffer great pain afterwards.

Not the blindfold the SPEED!

[ViperG]

Check out Mario Metronome Piano Video #3. That's that one that show's his skill. It's crazy. He's fast. No one cares about the blind fold. I've amazed at his speed. He is like Bruce Lee of the paino. Can't even see his hands move sometimes.

And I think he's pretty talented if he can do a song backwards. Ive never heard of that.

Re:Not the blindfold the SPEED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the video "The Art of Piano", if only for Cziffra's and Horowitz' piano playing. Your jaw will drop 5 times faster than it did with this guy's stuff. (Not that I don't think what this guy's doing is cool and probably fun as hell.)

PLEASE mod idiotic parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe this got modded up as insightful.

Being able to play piano blindfolded does not require talent.

Being able to play the Super Mario Brothers theme also does not require talent

Being able to record himself doing the above and upload to the internet and actually having the gall to do so is the only distinguishing skill that he has from ten thousand other people out there like him who play the piano.

Re:PLEASE mod idiotic parent down

[Rich0]

Still, the fact is that he is willing to put his work out for free for anybody who cares to listen.

Was linux-0.0.1 as feature-filled as Solaris? Some might argue that 2.6 isn't there yet. Does that mean that it has no place at all?

The difference between him and tens of thousands of others is that he is willing to put his work out there for everyone to enjoy, and I for one am not going to whine that he isn't the world's greatest pianist. I'm sure he will improve with time, and you're more than welcome to not listen to his works.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for giving explaining why this particular thread has beeen bothering me so much today. The kid is OK. Seeing him get kudos from millions when there are thousands out there just like him is somewhat... irritating....

hack job?

[infinite jester]

I think some of the bad response is from other actual musicians. The generally amazing reception this guy is getting is a real shot to musicians who know it's just a hack job.

I was speaking as a musician myself. I went to Berklee College of Music as a composition/arrangement major, and played in some of their very top bands -- world-class by any measure. I also won a sizable scholarship to go there in a nationwide, Berklee-sponsored jazz competition. I mention this only because I consider myself a pretty fair judge of musical ability, and i have the credentials to back it up.

That said, I think this guy is both "amazing" and "accomplished." And yes, he's a little sloppy, too, but I suspect that with a few more years under his belt (he's only 18, after all), and some more training, he'll clean up his act. Still, that's beside the point. Even if he sucked -- which he clearly doesn't -- he's still doing interesting and innovative stuff for the love of the art. In particular, I was impressed with his community-based sheet music archive. That's the sort of thing that I figured a bunch of Linux programmers could appreciate and applaud. I figured wrong.

And one time, at band camp...

[Anonymous Coward]

I stuck my flute in my .... American Pie

Please, No!!!!

[serutan]

It took me 20 years to get that stupid Mario music out of my head. I used to fall asleep and wake up with it stuck in my brain on endless loop. Now that I finally can't remember it, do you think I ever want to hear it again?

They Lie!

[assassinator42]

They say all their music is origional work from Japan. Yet they do an acapella version of Korobeiniki, which is most definentally Russian. They were confused because it was in Tetris, which was on a Nintendo system.

Re:They Lie!

[Anonymous Coward]

They also did Techno Syndrome (AKA Mortal Kombat theme), which was by Praga Kahn and Oliver Adams. Definitely not japanese.

Re:They Lie!

[mink]

Techno Syndrome as well as most other MK related stuff from before the movies is credited to The Immortals from all I can find.
No web site I could find relating to Praga Kahn or Oliver Adams had any link to MK inspired music.
Have any links that I might have missed?

The guy is great.

[Guspaz]

I highly reccomend you download his first (free) CD. Even if you don't think it's anything special, they're still good piano renditions of your favourite songs.

His piano version of the Halo 2 main theme is amazing. I never thought you could do it on a piano!

I must be getting old

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be getting old. Back in the day, they used to bring reference to the composer/writer of the work Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, even The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Sting..... Now they make references by game: Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Final Fantasy series....... Next up: musical movements to accompany weapon and character level...(shaking head slowly back and forth, back and forth, right now)

Tough crowd tonight

[TheGuano]

Pretty harsh comments, considering it's not likely that a single person here could do any better. I've had piano lessons for over 8 years (since I was 5) and it's easy to tell that this guy is head and shoulders above anything I could do. He's got a gift, and I'm glad he uses some of it to belt out old-school video game tunes. Besides, it's pretty obvious this is a hobby/fun thing for him - I doubt he practices 5/hours a day of Mario so he can upload a video to the web.

Re:Tough crowd tonight

[Rico_Suave]

"Pretty harsh comments, considering it's not likely that a single person here could do any better."

Don't be so sure. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I've been playing piano since I was 6 (well over 20 years at this point). I have excellent relative and absolute pitch, yadda yadda. I haven't seen him do much of anything I couldn't do with enough practice - it's not a matter of ability so much as it's a matter of rote memorization... getting the muscle memory thing down, etc. It doesn't take away what he has done, because it does take quite a bit of practice simply to get to the point where one can do that, but to say that no one else here could do any better is an exaggeration at best.

Re:Tough crowd tonight

[TheGuano]

Sure it is, but seriously now, for all the people here bashing the guy, how many are like you? Also, for all the "rote memorization" claims, it's pretty clear from what he's done and the festivals/competitions he's been in that the dude is an accomplished piano player, and chances are he's better than most people who simply claim they have 10-20 years of standard training.

Besides, I'm assuming that 1) he did his own composing/transcribing, and 2) the playing that he's doing is unquestionably at a pretty high level. Being able to play blindfolded and backwards is pretty cool as well.

Nobody's saying this guy is a prodigy or the next Mozart, but come on now - a lot of the stuff that gets gushing praise here is stuff that most of us could do with a little time, effort, and practice too (DIY steadycam? USB disco floor? Rube Goldberg contraptions? Sticking an ipod shuffle into a pair of old headphones?)...just saying the guy's pretty good at what he does, it's a shame everyone thinks they're way better.

If we really had this many accomplished piano players on /., Juliard might as well close up shop.

Another great video game pianist page

[daydaedal]

Another good video game piano remix site i've found is http://www.nobuouematsu.com/main.html. He even has the sheet music for some of his versions of the songs. He doesn't have nearly as many songs as the self proclamed video game pianist though.

Evil Tom Waits Flamenco Metroid?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought an album on a whim called OMIFUK I got the Screw Attack!@#! (yes, I'm completely serious). The artist's name is Evil Tom Waits (again, completely serious)... the liner notes explain that all he did was play video games and practice music as a kid, so he figured it was a perfect match and covered the entire Metroid soundtrack... just from memory. And I have to admit, it's damn good. Unfortunately, all the information I can find on him is this and this, which cotains a sample of the music. It's suprisingly good, although it gets more and more off course as the album progresses (which is to be expected... that game was long.

Re:i have a boner

[Anonymous Coward]

Do like the guy in the article does... though I've always wondered what a "Video Game Penis" is.

Find the missing item

[johannesg]

Ok, so he doesn't do cigarettes or alcohol, but there appears to be little information about drugs or women. I wonder what we should make of that? ;-)

Commodore 64 covers

[ahoset]

Check out PRESS PLAY ON TAPE for covers of Commodore 64 game music. There's also a spoof boy-band video that's worth watching here.

Musicians, the most jealous of the artists

[Barromind]

I swear, as an amateur musician, I don't know another collective which is more prone to critizising colleages than musicians. It's almost as if any musician which is not your personal friend must be critizised and flamed without pity. Musicians have a need to declare that, if they wanted, they could do the same as the other guy.

This thread shows that another time. How many of the people critizising this guy could sit at their piano right now and start to play these very same songs? Everything requires time, even for the most skilled one, so trashing his videos is simply jealously. He's getting attention and you not, swallow it, life is like that.

I bet it's the 90%/10% rule again. 90% of musicians do suck even if they have studied for years and can play a lifeless Tempest or Revolutionary study. So they feel the urge to stablish with words what they can't when doing music. See? I'm doing it too! It's endemic.

I say: kudos to this guy who's having a lot of fun playing what he wants. The rest of you saying "he's mediocre" have my permission to go back to your gray hours of "I'm a great musician; but I have no [time/luck/whatever], is not lack of talent".

Re:Musicians, the most jealous of the artists

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right in a way. But it's a matter of perspective. Surely it seems extraordinary to the non-musicians to be able to play the piano blindfolded, but to the professionals he is misinforming the average crowd by misrepresenting it as a rare skill. The truth is, I believe, his ears are better than his fingers. Most pianists can play better than he can, but many of those can't get those notes down from listening to the tune 100 times. Many modern pianists have lost some pretty basic musical skills.

Has to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

// Rant on
OMG This thread just proves something I've suspected for ages, that the majority of slashdot regulars are pig-headed arrogant weenies with overinflated egos.

I could 'almost' understand that level of cynicism on a Monday morning but at the weekend! Seriously, go outside, smoke a bong, watch a sunset whatever it takes to not turn into bitter cynical farts that no-one wants to be around. // Rant off

*Dons flame retardant suit*

INSENSITIVE CLOD!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to round up. The value of pi with 10 decimal precision is 3.1415926536 (with 16 decimals the value would be 3.1415926535897932).

Press Play on Tape

[thue]

He is not the first. Press Play on Tape is a moderately famous Danish band who play C64 music.

See fx:
Commando
Ghosts'n Goblins
Paperboy

The important characteristic

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is less a group of Linux Programmers and more a bunch of Grumpy Misanthropes.

Don't worry, though. They loved the article. It gave them something to sneer at. If they don't have that they aren't really happy.

DING DING DING

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the nail right on the head on every point. This kid really is nothing special. I would expect a lot better from someone who's pursuing music as a career...

Not only is he blindfolded

[hikerhat]

...But there is no sheet music in front of him either!

Re:Not only is he blindfolded

[revery]

Not only is he blindfolded but there is no sheet music in front of him either!

How would he know?

I'm surprised you missed this one

[Dachannien]

I don't know another collective which is more prone to critizising colleages than musicians.

What about Slashdot posters?

Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is a waste of time to be practicing that stuff. I have nothing against him or the music. But it's "fun" music to go with the game, nothing more. He should spend his time to work on more tasteful music. But then its his time, not mine. There are far more difficult pieces one can work on, and there are far better quality music for the soul. Taking all that time to work on someone else's background music for video game just does not seem too appealing to me. If he has talent, then, well, he is wasting it imo.

Dang!

[RM6f9]

I read the headline and thought somebody had updated the software that used a computer to *teach* (musical) keyboarding - Miracle, I think it was called...? Any recommendations for a reasonable cost, semi-fun game incorporating midi-capable music keyboard connected through computer to play/learn?