Yuna's Decision (Yuna's Determination) (FFX) - Original Piano Arrangement

Yuna's Decision (also known as Yuna's Determination) is an incidental music piece composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Junya Nakano for the video game Final Fantasy X. It accompanies the Calm Plains location.

Yuna's Determination is full of voice-overlapping goodness! When I first started this arrangement I was faced with the challenge of how to best notate the left hand, as it crosses into the treble register many times. To change clefs would occupy horizontal space, and to use cross-staff beaming would confuse the hand distribution of notes. For this arrangement, I have decided to accommodate explicit hand distribution to the two staffs since each hand is already so busy with multiple voices. That is, throughout the piece, if a note is written in the upper staff, it is for the right hand, otherwise it is for the left hand. There is no notation to indicate this, but rather, it is usually up to the pianist to figure out.

When we get to m.16 (0:33), things get interesting with the addition of a countermelody indicated by the small notes. In the original, this line is sounded by a slow-strings synth, so during performance, try to implement an exaggerated legato if possible. That is, to keep the previous note held down for some extra duration while you play the next note.

Score is up on my website. Comments and feedback welcome. Enjoy!

Vincent Lo - Concerto Grosso in F Major

Surprise! For the past few months, I have been working on composing a Baroque concerto grosso. It was a wonderful learning process requiring many discussions and reading sessions between myself and various friends from the SFUCO. As I have expanded my writing to winds this time, there were many new fun challenges to tackle and it has been an immensely enjoyable experience. So anyways, enjoy and leave comments as you please.

i. Allegro ma non troppo.
ii. Largo.
iii. Menuetto - Trio - Menuetto inverso

PREFACE. This piece was composed for the Simon Fraser University Chamber Orchestra and I started the project in December 2010. Having composed my first violin concerto not long ago last summer, I decided to expand my instrumentation to incorporate winds into my next work. Having studied the Brandenburg Concertos of Bach, I was inspired to compose a concerto grosso in a similar style with my own personal touch.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. I would like to thank George Chung (violin), Rei Miyasaka (violin), Jerry Yon (cello), Grandy Chu (cello), Colin Hume (horn), Fatima Lee (basoon), and Maia Smith (oboe) for dedicating their time to review my writing on request. And once again, I would like to thank the entire Simon Fraser University Chamber Orchestra for inspiring me to take on this project.

Vincent Lo Monday, January 31, 2011

Kimi ga Iru Kara / 君がいるから (Final Fantasy XIII) - Original Piano Arrangement

The first time I came across Kimi ga Iru Kara on YouTube, I couldn't hear anything special about the song. But upon repeated listenings, I realized that this song is full of unique modulations that one does not typically find in Japanese pop songs. The driving force behind this piece is the key change between the tonic and the flattened fifth (B major and F major and all their related keys). Who would have thought to implement that into a pop song? That is simply genius.

Some challenges in arranging this piece was getting the page turns to be as unobtrusive as possible, while minimizing the number of pages. Also there is a part in the first introduction where I use a triplet. This is to accommodate for the rolled chord that comes right after. There are also some subtle rhythmic differences between my arrangements and the original for the sake of pianistic writing and ease of playing.

Hope you enjoy it. Please rate and comment. Score will be available at my website.

Vivace, from Organ Trio Sonata III (Bach, BWV 527) - Original Piano Arrangement

Finally!

Got owned by the flu

So I recently got owned by the flu and went through a bit of vomiting and fevering, but am all better now. I had to miss two rehearsals for my choir accompanist job, but from what I gather, things will be okay for the concert on Sunday. On the upside, I had time to recover, so it was all bed rest for the past few days. Tomorrow is my graduation concert, so I am excited for that. Will post audio clips after.