As Swift As Wind - Fire Emblem: Three Houses (solo piano arrangement)

HAPPY FORTUNE'S WEAVE RELEASE DAY FIRE EMBLEM FAM!!!! ❤️❤️ My copy is hopefully getting delivered later today, and we're celebrating the only way we know how: with another Takeru Kanazaki track, the last one to round off his segment of the composer series, this absolute banger from Three Houses. Battle preparation never sounded so hype! 😍 We've seen how Mr. Kanazaki can deliver devastatingly beautiful and emotional vocal melodies with Heritors of Arcadia on the last upload, so this time I wanted to showcase his talent for bringing the heat for all his high adrenaline battle themes, and one of my absolute FAVORITE ways he does that is with rhythm-- heavy syncopation, frequent time signature changes, the hemiola in Fodlan Winds is a GREAT example of his imposing a feeling of three on 4/4 time, adding a sense of imbalance and tension and a constant forward momentum as the music keeps wanting to land on that fourth beat that always seems just out of reach. With this particular track he creates that feeling of drive with those LH and inner ostinatos starting on an offbeat, the second 16th note in the group of four or eight, while the main melody crashes in on the strong beats--so you always get a sense of the accompanying figures perpetually chasing the main melody to provide the beats they are deprived of, as it were. As always, Mr. Kanazaki gives our ears a reprieve with a calmer middle section, trading the rhythmic intensity for his gorgeous lyricism yet still maintaining tension with some fragmented piano arpeggios. For my solo arrangement, I sought to deliver that same feeling of barely simmering under the surface by filling the gaps and connecting all those arpeggios ascending and descending under the main melodic line. The end bit is an EXTREMELY cool bit of rhythmic interplay between the synth percussion and the instrumentals with frenetic shifting between 5/4 and 4/4 time, but posed a challenge translating to solo piano, as the drums do so much heavy lifting there. I figured the best way was improvising more bass fill-ins to really emphasize the 5/4, or else it would just sound too empty otherwise, and we can't have that lol. For the repeat....I just repeated as is. Sometimes it's not a crime to do things the same way twice, it's not a Haydn sonata for God's sake lol Anyways, I hope I was able to do this one justice, I always really liked this theme and heard it so much in the game, and thought there were elements that could possibly translate over to solo piano so I was curious to try. Got stymied when I couldn't figure out how to execute some sections and put it away for years, until the Fortune's Weave announcement and just having had more experience under my belt with arranging all those Yakuza karaoke songs lol lit the fire under this one again so I finally just did it the best way I could and hope you all like it! 😍 That does it for the Takeru Kanazaki segment of the composer series! Tbh I actually WOULD do more Fire Emblem if it weren't for Castlevania coming in October, and you all know that means my eternal queen Michiru Yamane is next!!!! But I'll circle around to it eventually, especially if anything catches my ear from Fortune's Weave! As always, thanks so SO much for listening/reading, your comments give me life!!! ❤️❤️ Heritors of Arcadia:    • The Heritors of Arcadia - Fire Emblem Echo...