In taking a closer look at the past results of my poll that I took over the course of 3 days, it seems that the prominence of the movie in the US played a bit of a defining factor because more people were probably able to go see those popular, well-known movies and thus remember more about the soundtrack these movies. Although some may also think that just because a movie is a popular and more comedy focused, it does not necessarily have a very good soundtrack, I actually, surprisingly found "Kung Fu Panda"'s soundtrack to be among my favorite when I was trying to choose the composers, simply because of one amazing track on it: "Oogway (yes, that's actually how you say turtle in chinese XD) Ascends"


credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVYQcGQpyoM

The erhu's solo...and the accompanying orchestra...its simply amazing!

In continuing my musings about how music can shape films and really enhance scenes within movies, I decided to conduct a poll concerning the question, "Which composer has composed the most memorable musical scores for movies?" By giving the choices:
-Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Da Vinci Code, Sherlock Holmes, The Last Samurai, Kung fu Panda, The Dark Knight)
-James Horner (Titanic, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Glory, The Mask of Zorro, Enemy at the Gates, Star Trek (II & III) A Beautiful Mind, The Perfect Storm, House of Sand and Fog, Avatar)
-John Williams (Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, The Patriot, Star Wars, Superman, Home Alone, Harry Potter (first 3), Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, E.T., Catch me if you can, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich)
-Alexandre Desplat (Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Painted Veil, The Queen, The Beat that My Heart Skipped, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fantastic Mr. Fox)
-Michael Giacchino (Mission: Impossible III, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Star Trek, Up)
-Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea)

I was able to obtain the results of:
Hans Zimmer 28%
James Horner 25%
John Williams 23%
Alexandre Desplat 5%
Michael Giacchino 15%
Joe Hisaishi 4%

"Up"!

My brother was watching the movie "Up" this afternoon, and while I was upstairs, I could still hear the sounds from the movie, including the various music from the different parts. I'm sure when most people watched the movie, they realized that through the course of the entire movie, the music for different portions of the movie- whether it was when Carl Fredricksen was first living happily with Ellie, or he was attempting to get to Paradise Falls with Russell- was often the same melody, but simply played in different keys. By writing the melody to different keys, I found that the composer was able to adapt the varying situations and set tones from melancholy sadness to joyful adventurous excitement with this same melody.
Here's a sample of one of his repetitive uses of the same melody:


credit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaLegF2hAxI

New exercise! (-attempt-)...

After watching the first piano cover that I made ^^ and being able to watch myself play in the video, I was actually able to pinpoint a few flaws in my posture and playing, that, if successfully corrected, may be able to help me be able to master more pieces faster because I have the basics correct. Do correct posture I decided to try an exercise that my piano teacher used to make us do when we first began learning the piano- the quarter exercise!
In order to train my hands to remain curved while playing (like holding an egg in my hand while playing, keeping the distance between my palm and the surface of the keys) I decided to try this exercise in which I must balance the quarter on the back of my palm and try to play as much as I can without dropping it!

It was definitely lots of fun, and my brother especially had fun chasing after the quarter while I tried to continue playing to the end xD
However, I wouldn't recommend trying it while playing pieces were you have to extensively stretch your fingers to reach far away keys- the quarter usually doesn't stay put for long >_<

surprisingly...^^

haha, so after posting my piano cover on Youtube, I surprisingly got back relatively positive reviews! :D (although the rating of the video, wasn't so as good with a 3 1/2 out of 5 >_< but I definitely was expecting/understand that especially with how my fingers feel apart during the second half...>.<) But I think overall certain people enjoyed the slow melody of the song and I that's one of the reasons why I picked it (my fingers aren't very good at keeping up with each other in fast pieces!) especially since its so relaxing to play. I've actually come to enjoy taking breaks between stressful hw to play a piece or two on the piano (usually I choose soothing, perhaps a bit melancholy pieces- but if I'm feeling particularly mad that day, its definitely a more sinister piece.. xD)

Checkpoint: yay! kind of..

Yay! Finally completed and uploaded my first piano cover! :D
Although I'm glad I finished one, I'm still far from satisfied with the result...(lol it sounds ok in the beginning, but once you get to the second half of the piece- its just bombs exploding all over the place! [leastwise that's how it felt through my head >_<"]) I think what I was really challenged with this time was actually finishing the piece to the end! Normally when I play just for myself, I like to do run throughs where I may make plenty of mistakes, but I simply ignore them and focus on staying on track with the piece and continue steadfastly until the end- basically I never stop :]. But, when I was recording the piano cover, since I knew it was a video, and if you make a mistake, it stays forever embedded in the video and people viewing it can always go back, rewind and hear it again T_T, whereas if you're playing live, who knows what will happen next time you play it?
I think that perspective of thought added a lot of pressure to myself, and partially contributed to my inability to continue and make it all the way to the end on the many retakes I did...I think I only made it all the way to the end once or twice? Its b/c what always happened was I would make minor mistakes but be able to keep going but would be weighed down by the memory of those mistakes and think I should stop and do it again since they were just careless mistakes; or I'll make a big blunder (wrong key, sharp instead of flat!, out-of-tune stumble) and be unable to continue with the rest.
But in terms of pros, what I liked the best was probably my beginning ^^- very steady, calm and clear...anyway hope you enjoy it :]

first time...

So I finally decided to take a stab at recording a piano cover for "From the Beginning until now"! :D Although it took me a bit a of awhile to first set up everything (brought the tripod camera down, but had to run up again to get the screw driver and screw the camera in to attach it securely to the tripod [if not, and it did end up falling off-my dad would have a fit!]) plus figure out where to place the camera so that it would only have a shot of my fingers and the piano, I finally figured out everything. Buut, unfortunately that was probably the easiest part of the whole process, as I soon discovered. Before, when I watched other people play their own piano covers of various songs online, they made it rather easy to record a piano cover: just press the button, play it once, and press it again and tada! all finished! "Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" as my brother might say.
But! Alas! It was anything but that for me T_T...I lost count of how many times I had to redo it! The memory card even ran out of space! :( And this time, while I was playing in front of the camera, I even started messing up in the areas that I was most familiar with! (kept having to start over near the beginning..)...I wonder if I should memorize the piece?