ReMix:Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light "Etude for Piano in F# minor" 4:05

It's been a hell of a week. I've been sick and out of commission, then forced to catch up in writing a paper and trying to prepare (hopelessly) for a final as well as make up missed meetings/decisions at work. It's weeks like these, however, that make weekends all the sweeter. After my last class/final Thursday night, as I sat down with a Heineken and watched the cinematic glory that is Big Trouble in Little China, I recollected on how hectic, stressful, and in general unpleasant this semester has been, and was simply glad that it was finally, for all practical purposes, over. Moving on, in more ways than one: newcomers Oak Thielbar and trickwaters (alias Patrick Waters) give us this lovely piano arrangement, our first from the first installment in the Fire Emblem series of RPGs. The ReMixers write:

"Oak: I was flipping through the NSF to the original Fire Emblem game looking for something to arrange, and the melody to this song stuck out. I immediately started working on an arrangement, and less than a week later this turned out. My thanks to trickwaters for assisting me by resequencing the piece, giving it a believable performance.

Patrick: Having seen the popularity of and listened to Oak's original arrangement of this piece, I wanted to make my own interpretation of his 'etude.' I'm glad he gave me the chance to do this, as this has opened the doors for other collaborations between us."

We've seen a couple solo piano arrangements that were actually collaborations, and it would seem they tend to produce solid results, this mix being no exception. Things are VERY dramatic, with the flowing, fluctuating introduction setting into a swaying pace that varies in intensity as it jumps from octave to octave, dynamic to dynamic - half the arrangement can simply be found in the dynamic shifts alone, they are so integral and oft-utilized. zircon echoed my thoughts both in his praise for the mix and in responding to comments that the mix had some minor EQ/reverb issues:

"The whole mix actually sounds like a typical piano recording in, say, an empty cathedral would using one or two nice stage mics. Less reverb wouldn't have hurt, but the amount it has now simply doesn't strike me as detrimental to the piece in the least. I know some of the left hand chords *sound* cluttered, but plenty of classical piano pieces tend to sound like that, if not worse. In regards to the high end, again, this is really what piano recordings (and hell, actual pianos) generally sound like, and I think that's all that is important. It's not a mastering issue. In fact, if it was EQed more highly or intentionally made more bright, I'd go so far as to say that would be worse for the mix, if anything."

What I admire here is the amount of variations on the same theme that the ReMixers achieve - this isn't the type of piano arrangement that adds a lot of original material to fill in the gaps (which also often works well), but rather the kind which takes the core melody and does a series of variations, almost like a classical exercise, on it. Anyone familiar with Andrew Lloyd Weber's Variations 1-4 will know what I'm talking about, though in that instance (re)instrumentation for each variation played a big part. The push at 2'55", with increasing tempo and velocity, transitioning into a calm, arpeggio-backed sea of tranquility, only to cloud over with storms seconds later, is a good example of arrangement and technique coming together to form an ideal union, where one makes sense and is all the better because of the other. Really excellent, emotive first mix from Oak and Patrick, and a great introduction for Fire Emblem, in full, 88-key, ivory glory.