My first actual video, a cover of In the Cave from PS IV!

I finally decided to stop being lazy and set up a camera to catch the VG music antics. The camera angle is horrible, I haven't been able to dig up the old tripod yet, but I'm getting there. I was inspired to get back to this one after hearing Mikepjr's arrangement of this theme, which has always been a favorite of mine from PS IV.

Fun! I always liked this track from PSIV, I thought it was one of the more distinctive ones. And as always, I like what you've done with it in bringing out the complexities of the piece.

The former music teacher in me can't help but think that based on this limited viewpoint, you might want to lower the keyboard a little bit so you don't hurt your wrists, but hey, if it works for you, go with it!

Nice!

Thank you both! Yes, augmentedfourth, my wrists are probably going to die horribly soon, the angle is terrible, but I don't really have another place I can put the keyboard at the moment. I need to invest in a stand, I guess. My right hand has been killing me after playing this piece for a week, ha ha.

Yeah if you can't put the keyboard any lower, you might want to try sitting a bit higher, just looking at you made my wrists hurt!

As for the original game song, I never hid the fact that I find it utterly boring. Funny enough, I can honestly say that I enjoyed what I have just heard. I don't think that it's only because you added complexity to it; it most likely helped, mind you, I think that the synths Sega picked to play it in the game just destroyed the song's potential to a point where I even refused to believe it had any.

Listening to the original right now: nope. Still no feel. Boring. Blerg.

The piano changed the feel, completely. I won't say I'm going head over heels over it; this was fun but hardly my favorite piece of yours, it still eloquently proves that a terrible choice of instruments can and will destroy a song.

So basically, you picked something I hated and turned it into something I found relatively enjoyable. This means, while I have awesome hearing, you have something more that I absolutely lack: vision. I applaud you, sir.

Thank you, man, but yeah, I have a hard time doing anything about the keyboard positioning right now. I've had an inner ear problem for about a year that makes looking down for extended periods of time really difficult and uncomfortable, and sitting up higher makes me feel really dizzy. I should probably set up my laptop so I can record in my room, I'd be able to get it lower, but I don't have any good speakers I can move back there, and headphones kill my ears. (My body is too puny to make music the way I want to, ha ha).

I personally love the way this one sounds in-game. It was one of the few really mysterious sounding pieces in PS IV. It's always interesting transferring stuff to piano, really forces you to make hard decisions about the arrangement. I actually didn't think I would be able to get a decent piano arrangement with this one, but after hearing Mikepjr's stuff I decided to look at it again. I think I more I less played it as it is in-game, but the little two-note, whole step echo thing it has going on forced me to mess around with octaves a bit, just because of the reach and the fact that it actually kind of clashes with the higher part when it switches.

Real shame about your situation my friend, I sincerely wish it will improve. What's wrong with your inner ear? Can you do anything to improve or at least control it?

As for the song: there you go, different people, different tastes. Makes the world a more interesting place!

Excellent piece of music ! Congratulations !

So I totally agree with all the comments about your wrists. Seeing your positioning made my hands hurt too! But I realize there seems to be little you can do about it in terms of moving. However, I do have one suggestion on that front…I wonder if you could find like a keyboard wrist pad somewhere, and improvise a way to attach it to the front of the keyboard? It might give your wrists at least a little bit more support, and you won't have to aggravate your other condition. It may take some creativity, but just a thought. After all, you want to be able to keep playing keyboard, right?

On the music itself…well, this isn't really my favorite track from PSIV. But your arrangement and performance here is quite good. If I had to make one criticism, I'd say the lower chord is a bit too heavy sometimes, considering the character of the original track. But otherwise, you definitely put some more character into a track I found a little on the bland side myself.

Thank you very much, myau and Wolf Bird. Aero, I have BPPV, or Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, which is basically where these little structures in your inner ear called canaliths get out of alignment, and throw off your sense of balance. It's not really known what causes it, unfortunately, and it's usually relatively simple to treat and only temporary, but in my case the usual maneuvers to realign the canaliths haven't worked. There are exercises you can do to acclimate yourself to the loss of balance, but they produce pretty nightmarish vertigo in themselves, and after gradually helping me a bit for a while they actually made my symptoms worse, so I stopped them.

It makes it hard for me to read and play music, but it's actually affected my drawing the most. Looking down like that for that period of time really throws me for a loop.