Relic Forest - from Pokémon Colosseum (Percussion Ensemble Arrangement)
0This is my arrangement of the Relic Forest theme, from the game Pokémon Colosseum, arranged for percussion ensemble.
Relic Forest is my favorite piece of music from a Pokémon spinoff game. I used to leave the GameCube on and let game sit there as the theme looped over and over again. Pokémon Colosseum has a bunch of bangers (go watch my Pyrite Town cover for that groovy bass line that we all know and love!), but Relic Forest is just so beautiful and peaceful that it cannot be topped in my opinion. All that said, it brings me so much joy to be in a position where I can cover this song and give it the attention it deserves.
Musically, I wanted to focus on recreating the peaceful atmosphere that comes with my nostalgia for this song and that accompanies this location in the game. At first I wasn't sure how to properly represent the string parts on mallets, but once I got going it felt more and more natural. For the first section, this involved rolling on the marimba and backing that with some piano chords. I actually recorded the piano part twice, once with regular piano and once with a subtle strings patch, and panned them equally left/right from each other to fill the mix. I think this helps create the feeling that you are actually in a forest, not just in a room looking at trees on a screen. Later, this transformed into a wood mallet ensemble of sorts (two treble marimba parts, one bass marimba part, and a xylophone part). The bells/toy piano duo works really well for melody/harmony, keeping the peaceful nature from the original. Then I had to figure out how to end a song that's meant to loop, changing it just enough to make an ending without losing the original song's character. I kept the original motif at the end in the bells as long as I could, slowly dropping the bass voices as the instrumentation got lighter, until I finally changed it just enough to resolve. Lastly, the wind chimes at the beginning and the end were a must; it's a small and simple addition that makes such a big difference. Seriously, that set of wind chimes is probably one of the best purchases I've ever made for my career.
Whoa is that game footage from a GameCube game?! I've only ever included Switch gameplay before because the 30-second screen capture was the only way I could get game footage. I'm super excited to announce I finally got a capture card! Now I can capture my own footage of almost any game that I own (except DS/3DS because those require different capture cards that are much harder to get these days). I'm still working on finding the best settings for recording gameplay, especially with older games that require the RCA to HDMI converter, but the footage I captured for the beginning and end of this video is a good start. I'm looking forward to using more gameplay in future videos!
I've really enjoyed covering some of my favorite Pokémon music this year in celebration of the 25th anniversary. What did you think about this arrangement of one of my favorite Pokémon songs of all time? Want me to cover more Pokémon spinoff music? How are you celebrating the 25th anniversary of this amazing franchise? What other songs would you like to see me cover in the future? Be sure to let me know down in the comments below. I hope you enjoyed this arrangement! Thanks for watching my video!
#VGM #PokémonColosseum #RelicForest
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Original Composer: Tsukasa Tawada
-- Programs/Equipment Used --
Mallet Parts: VibeKAT and Deagan Marimba
Performance Videos: iPhone 11 Pro
Game Video: Elgato HD60 S Capture Card/Game Capture HD and ABLEWE RCA to HDMI Converter (Pokémon Colosseum)
Audio Recording/Mixing: GarageBand
Photo Editing: Adobe Photoshop
Video Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro
Thumbnail Pic: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Relic_Stone
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Sadly this cover can't be licensed for streaming, but you're more than welcome to listen to it here on YouTube as much as you like!