Music to my ears

One of my hobbies is playing the piano on occasion. I took lessons off and on throughout school, but kind of quit around 17. I never was all that good, but I learned enough to play some of the soundtracks.

Piano arrangments to themes, such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc., actually sound pretty accurate to the real thing. The only real difference that I have ever noticed is the tempo, which often is slower in the piano music than in the soundtrack. On the other hand, the more accurate they get, the more complicated the hand positions and notes become. A few of the chords in Star Wars; Revenge of the Sith, are actually impossible for me to play. People who know me are aware that I have massive hands and the chords are still out of my reach.

The fun of playing a soundtrack piano arrangment is listening to the notes you play start to line up to the movie you enjoy.

For instance, the main theme of Pirates of the Carribean has some relatively complicated chords, but it is playable. As I played the notes extremely slowly, I slowed down the soundtrack in my mind to match. Eventually, as my playing sped up, I started to hear the movie's theme appear more and more clearly. Today, I play the piece much faster than the tempo written on the sheet music. But when I attempt to play in time with the soundtrack, I am left far behind in the dust.

And you don't have to play piano to enjoy this or just love soundtracks. You can find your favorite songs from almost any age and genre online. Maybe it's time to dust off the guitar, saxaphone, or whatever instrument you played long ago and remember just how much fun it is to play music YOU like.

Personally, most classical music drove me nuts and that was what drove me out of piano lessons. Look around, you never know what you might find.