Sheet Music Guy !

Video:

MP3: Jay_Chou_-_The_Longest_Movie_(www.sheetmusicguy.com).mp3

Sheet Music: Jay_Chou_-_The_Longest_Movie.pdf

This is the last track off the Jay album “On The Run”:

Video:

MP3: SheetMusicGuy_-_Jingle_Bells_(www.sheetmusicguy.com).mp3

Sheet Music: SheetMusicGuy_Jingle_Bells.pdf

Happy Holidays Everybody!

Here’s wishing everybody a Happy Holidays!!!

Regardless of what you celebrate, make sure you find some time to spend with your family and loved ones.

Don’t drink and drive…..unless it’s a driving game…..like GT4…in which case, bottom’s up!  Cheers!

See y’all soon!

Hey everybody,

I’ve recently figured out Jay Chou’s The Longest Movie, but I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting a good arrangement together for it.

When playing these types of pop songs in full, it is always a challenge to keep the repeated material interesting with a very limited palette. In other words, it’s better to play the verses and choruses differently every time they repeat, or else it might get boring, and all I have to work with is a lone piano, my two hands and my pedaling foot. No drum builds, guitars or string sections. What’s a poor pianist to do.

Some song genres, like pop-rock, are fun and catchy enough to just bash out playfully without too much variation. The Sunny Otaku track is a good example. Another way to escape this conundrum is with medleys, where you can just play the intro-verse-chorus once and creatively mix it into the next song. You don’t have to worry about variation at all, because nothing ever gets repeated.

This song, however, is one of those super-emotive Jay tracks, where it sounds like he’s going to burst into tears at any second, so you want it to have variety, to have some builds with peaks and valleys.  I chose not to medley it, and also, a lot of his piano songs aren’t in the same key as this one (E major) which would make things difficult. I guess I’d have to do things the hard way….ie properly.

I guess my main trouble with this is the chorus.  It’s repeated three times, once after the first verse, twice after the second, with a final fadeout.  In the real song, each chorus builds upon the previous one, by adding additional instruments like drums and guitar, and by progressively more impassioned singing (Jay-about-to-cry-very-aggressively).  I’m having a lot of trouble approximating this on piano.  The last time I had to do this was for Fairytale (Tong Hua), which built up and down a few times and worked pretty well, but back then I had the help of a few key changes to switch things up a bit.  Now I’ve got nothing helping me out, albeit the same pretty melody in the same E major key, which always seems to play either a bit too high at one octave or a bit too low if I move it down.

Ah well.  Don’t mind me, I’ll figure it out somehow

For those of you who want to take a crack at it, here are the chord progressions for the song.  Each chord is for two beats of the bar.

Intro: Emaj, E7, Amaj, Aminor

Verses: Emaj, E7, Amaj, Aminor / Emaj, C#Minor 7, F#Major 7, Bmajor

Chorus: AMajor, Aminor, Emajor, C# Minor 7, F# Minor, BMajor, Emajor, E7.  Same for second part of chorus, except without the last E7

This also works on guitar too, if you want to strum along to Jay.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody!

Video:

MP3: Jay_Chou_-_Megamix_Vol2_(www.sheetmusicguy.com).mp3

Sheet Music: Jay_Chou_-_Megamix_Vol_2.pdf

Here’s the much-hyped Volume 2 of the Jay Chou medley series, picking up hits from his later years.

The songs included here, in no particular order:

Listen to your Mother’s Words (Ting Ma Ma De Hua), from his Still Fantasy album
Orange Jasmine (Qi Li Xiang) 七里香 from the Qi Li Xiang album
Rainbow (Cai Hong), from the On the Run album
and
Will Liu - Rainbow Heaven (劉耕宏 - 彩虹天堂), which qualifies as it was written by (and sounds exactly like) Jay Chou.

Except for one performance-related edit I was forced to make (and that the fade from a red shirt to an orange shirt looks identical) I’m very very happy with how this one turned out. Enjoy!

Video:

MP3: Will_Liu_-_Rainbow_Heaven_(www.sheetmusicguy.com).mp3

Sheet Music: Will_Liu_-_Rainbow_Heaven.pdf

This is arguable the best unedited performance so far……probably because it’s only really half the song lol. It’s part of Vol 2 of the upcoming Jay Chou Megamix series…..a “taste of things to come” if you will. Enjoy!

The weather forecast for this Saturday evening called for, and I quote, a “NEAR-CRIPPLING SNOW STORM” to hit our city “WITH NEAR RECORD SNOWFALL AMOUNTS.” I wasn’t planning on ever getting nearly crippled with a near record amount of anything, so cancel on Matt’s birthday party (sorry Matt) and resigned to spend the evening at home.

I figured a good way to spend my new-found quality home-time would be by bashing out some piano performances for the site, namely Vol 2 of the Jay Chou Megamix.

So I did.

I’ve just finished the basic editing for it and played it back a few times, and despite my efforts to stay modest I am feeling very very good about myself right now.

I still have to finish editing and make the sheets for this, so it probably won’t be up until mid/late next week, and then I’ll leave it for anybody interested to take a listen and judge for yourself….but I don’t think there’s any question that this blows Vol 1 out of the water.

Stay tuned….

Video:

MP3: Jay_Chou_-_Sunny_Otaku_(www.sheetmusicguy.com).mp3

Sheet Music: Jay_Chou_-_Sunny_Otaku.pdf

This track is off the Jay album “On The Run”:

As mentioned in a recent post, I went back and started breaking down the Jay Chou - MegaMix Vol 1 into individual sheets music for each song. Just like how I said I wouldn’t. =S

Here’s the first bonus track:

Sheet Music: Jay Chou - Tornado.pdf

This is arguably Jay’s most famous song, off his debut Jay Album

Hey everybody!!

It’s been almost a month since I first launched this site, and I must say I’m fairly happy at how things have been going so far. Thanks for everybody who’s been visiting and helping me out! Here’s an update as to what I’m working on now.

The Bank is Empty

With the exception of Jay Chou’s “Secret”, the past few posts were of songs that I had already figured out and arranged for fun from before, and had stored safely in my “bank”. Well it didn’t take long, but this bank is now empty…and I’m going to have to start making a few deposits. This might mean it will take longer between songs, as I now need to figure out, arrange, and practice the piece before I can start putting it up. Then again, the “Secret” song was put up in a day….so who knows? It really depends on how much free time I have (and how awesome the song is =) ). Stay tuned!

Performance Issues

I’ve discovered that I can’t film a good performance unless I’m in a good state of mind, am not exhausted, and have a good few hours blocked off. In other words, I need to use up weekend time. This might throw a kink into things if I’m busy or tired one weekend, since that will push a video out by a full week.

That kind of happened just this past weekend, which leaves me at a bit of a loss during the work week when I usually do the menial tasks of generating sheet music….which leads me to the next topic….

Breaking Up the Megamix

I know before I said I wouldn’t break up the Jay Chou Megamix Vol 1, I have a bit of downtime this week so I think I”ll take a crack at it. Check back for updates!

Coming Soon:

Here’s some tracks I’m either working on or are coming soon. Lineup subject to change without notice..lol….

Jay Chou Megamix Vol 2 (mix of his later works, coming really soon…..)

Jay Chou - Feng / Ge Qian - Mashup (requested by Don, i love these songs not sure how i missed them)

Jay Chou - The Longest Movie (it’s new and it’s good and i like it, ok)
FIR - 千年之戀 (Thousand Years Love) (requested by Xavier, althought this one might take a while)