Ultimate
a scar in time...
Steven Universe Summer Night Piano Project
This is not exactly Sonic related, but I thought some of you guys might enjoy this! About one year ago, I posted a drawing I made of my home in Japan drawn in the Steven Universe style. After looking at it for a while, I wanted it to feel more full of life...so I decided to animate it and add nature sounds! But then...I felt like I wanted to do something more...so last month I decided to start making relaxing Steven Universe Piano arrangements to accompany the nature sounds and the scene.
The plan for this is to release about one song a week until I hit about one full hour of music. From there, I’ll upload a single 10 hour looping video including all the music, so you can listen to it for relaxation, study, sleep, or whatever! I decided to start off with Don’t Cost Nothing because it was the first song that came to mind when thinking of a chill piano arrangement - the chords worked really well for it. Also the “light summer breeze” line works well with the scene!
I’ll also be releasing the sheet music for each arrangement on Musicnotes in case you guys would like to try your hand at playing them! You can find the sheet music in the video description link on YouTube. I’ll try to upload a new song every Saturday, and I’ll update the thread here each week, with an updated YouTube playlist so you can listen to all the songs released so far. I’ll also give some insight into each arrangement and what kind of thoughts were going into it. If you guys have any thoughts or constructive criticism, please let me know!
01. Don’t Cost Nothing
During summer evenings in Saikai you’d hear the drone of the cicadas, the sounds of the ocean, and for a few brief weeks, the fireflies would come out light up the trees and fields. As I said above, when I was thinking of what song to match with the scene here, this was the first song that came to mind. Maybe it was just the chords, or the message of how the things that matter most are the things that don’t cost nothing - and to me, this scene speaks a lot about the things matter most to me. When creating this piano arrangement, I really wanted to set a the mood right away for this project – relaxing, chill, simple - so aside from the melody, I didn’t worry too much about what the original song sounded like. I also decided not to just recreate the original song for the piano - I want to make each arrangement of this project to be something unique and special. I hope you all enjoy this simple take on "Don’t Cost Nothing".
02. Ruby Rider
For Ruby Rider, I really wanted to capture all the emotions that the character goes through in the episode, from joy, to adventure, to sorrow. I started this one very sparse, with a lot of space to sit and listen. It definitely has a lonely feel. After the opening, the bass drops down an octave and becomes much warmer sounding. The piano slowly builds up each time it repeats the chorus, until finally it gets to the excitement that the character feigns throughout the episode. I also added some neat jazzy chords because they sounded nice and fit the chill theme. I hope you guys enjoy the music!
03. Love Like You
For this arrangement, I wanted to keep this chill mood, but also wanted to make this one exciting at the same time. I thought about how I could achieve that, and decided to lean in to the jazz waltz aspect of this piece, especially in the second half (it's in 3/4 time and uses a waltz type accompaniment). To keep the song familiar, I started off pretty similar to the original piano part, but started doing some crazy stuff in the second half. I added a whole bunch of extra voices, rhythms, countermelodies, and some neat transitions. Hopefully despite all the additions, the message of the song still gets across. I hope you guys enjoy my rendition of Love Like You. And once again, I hope all of you have a great Christmas/break/holidays!
04. Looking Forward
The episode this song came from really resonates quite a bit with me. Steven is 'celebrating' the graduation of Little Homeschool's students. As the episode progresses, Steven finds that his closest friends are changing. Not only are their personalities and lives progressing differently than Steven had expected, but they are moving away from him both physically and emotionally. He begins feeling like he's been left behind and fears that he'll never see his closest friends again. The song that Sadie sings in this episode encapsulates a similar experience to what Steven is feeling, except in a more positive and bittersweet light. Sadie, who was afraid of so many things when she was younger, is letting go of her fears and moving forward as a person. However, I feel that although Sadie is the one singing and the lyrics are positive, the bittersweet music speaks more about what Steven is going through than Sadie herself. I kept this one very simple and let the melody and chord changes do most of the speaking.
05. Familiar
For this piano arrangement, I began it with just kinda trying my own thing without listening to the original more than once. The arrangement after this was...okay. Nothing wrong with it, but I felt like I wanted to include all those little harmonies already present in the original song. There was so much richness in harmony and countermelodies already in the original that I felt I didn't really need to add my own, so I mostly tried to capture what was already there. It felt so familiar, like something I used to know. cough Also, I kind of got fairly loud at the end because the song builds up so much...I felt like I couldn't just stay too chill with this one...maybe it gets too loud though. Let me know if you think I should back off a bit in terms of volume at the end. Lastly, the sheet music is currently being published on musicnotes, so I'll leave a note here once it's available, but it should be up in the next week or two! I hope you guys enjoy my rendition of Familiar!
During summer evenings in Saikai you’d hear the drone of the cicadas, the sounds of the ocean, and for a few brief weeks, the fireflies would come out light up the trees and fields. As I said above, when I was thinking of what song to match with the scene here, this was the first song that came to mind. Maybe it was just the chords, or the message of how the things that matter most are the things that don’t cost nothing - and to me, this scene speaks a lot about the things matter most to me. When creating this piano arrangement, I really wanted to set a the mood right away for this project – relaxing, chill, simple - so aside from the melody, I didn’t worry too much about what the original song sounded like. I also decided not to just recreate the original song for the piano - I want to make each arrangement of this project to be something unique and special. I hope you all enjoy this simple take on "Don’t Cost Nothing".
02. Ruby Rider
For Ruby Rider, I really wanted to capture all the emotions that the character goes through in the episode, from joy, to adventure, to sorrow. I started this one very sparse, with a lot of space to sit and listen. It definitely has a lonely feel. After the opening, the bass drops down an octave and becomes much warmer sounding. The piano slowly builds up each time it repeats the chorus, until finally it gets to the excitement that the character feigns throughout the episode. I also added some neat jazzy chords because they sounded nice and fit the chill theme. I hope you guys enjoy the music!
03. Love Like You
For this arrangement, I wanted to keep this chill mood, but also wanted to make this one exciting at the same time. I thought about how I could achieve that, and decided to lean in to the jazz waltz aspect of this piece, especially in the second half (it's in 3/4 time and uses a waltz type accompaniment). To keep the song familiar, I started off pretty similar to the original piano part, but started doing some crazy stuff in the second half. I added a whole bunch of extra voices, rhythms, countermelodies, and some neat transitions. Hopefully despite all the additions, the message of the song still gets across. I hope you guys enjoy my rendition of Love Like You. And once again, I hope all of you have a great Christmas/break/holidays!
04. Looking Forward
The episode this song came from really resonates quite a bit with me. Steven is 'celebrating' the graduation of Little Homeschool's students. As the episode progresses, Steven finds that his closest friends are changing. Not only are their personalities and lives progressing differently than Steven had expected, but they are moving away from him both physically and emotionally. He begins feeling like he's been left behind and fears that he'll never see his closest friends again. The song that Sadie sings in this episode encapsulates a similar experience to what Steven is feeling, except in a more positive and bittersweet light. Sadie, who was afraid of so many things when she was younger, is letting go of her fears and moving forward as a person. However, I feel that although Sadie is the one singing and the lyrics are positive, the bittersweet music speaks more about what Steven is going through than Sadie herself. I kept this one very simple and let the melody and chord changes do most of the speaking.
05. Familiar
For this piano arrangement, I began it with just kinda trying my own thing without listening to the original more than once. The arrangement after this was...okay. Nothing wrong with it, but I felt like I wanted to include all those little harmonies already present in the original song. There was so much richness in harmony and countermelodies already in the original that I felt I didn't really need to add my own, so I mostly tried to capture what was already there. It felt so familiar, like something I used to know. cough Also, I kind of got fairly loud at the end because the song builds up so much...I felt like I couldn't just stay too chill with this one...maybe it gets too loud though. Let me know if you think I should back off a bit in terms of volume at the end. Lastly, the sheet music is currently being published on musicnotes, so I'll leave a note here once it's available, but it should be up in the next week or two! I hope you guys enjoy my rendition of Familiar!
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