Piano Cover: I Am The One

For those of you who read my last post, you've heard me shower approbation upon Inon Zur's soundtrack for the 2009 video game Dragon Age: Origins. Turns out my blog post inspired me to listen to the soundtrack more, and I once again fell in love with the piece "I Am The One," featured in the game's credits. There's something about the way the voice melds with the slow orchestra and driving (guitar? I think), evoking something simultaneously pure and dark that gives me shivers. I decided I'd do a piano cover of the piece while it was running around relentlessly in my head. Check out the YouTube link for Inon Zur's original source:



And here's my arrangement:

I Am The One: Piano Cover



Composer: Inon Zur
Date Completed: 2010-07-28
Number of Takes: like, 8 >_<
Software: Audacity, Sound Recorder
Instrumentation: Piano

First of all, my sincere apologies to those with perfect pitch and others who are bothered by this sort of thing; I decided to take my arrangement up a whole-step because I was too lazy to learn the verses in the original B-flat. If I decide to re-record this piece at some point, I'll probably take it in its original key, since B-flat is by no means a particularly difficult key area.

Oh, and speaking of recording, I don't have access to recording equipment (or a flawless piano, now that I mention it), so this was recorded using Sound Recorder on my somewhat out-of-tune piano at home, then cleaned up a bit with Audacity. Unfortunately, this is nowhere near as effective as just having a decent recording studio, since removing background noise from the recording also has the unfortunate side effect of attenuating some of the piano's natural harmonics, hence the somewhat synthetic/metallic sound of the piano and the occasional weird harmonics. In addition, I had to boost up the volume of the recording significantly, resulting in some clipping issues during the louder sections. If I get around to it and/or enough people suggest it, I'll try to re-record this piece in better quality. Maybe even put it up on YouTube or something. We'll see.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed that! Look for more covers coming in the near future!

A hui hou,

xds