We’ve just reached 1,000 views on this project! It’s still the toughest one I’ve ever completed, by a long shot, and I hope to do more of these violin-only soundtracks in the future. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for the next installment of works on this channel! ~Obsidian.
The Fontaine part sounds like you're on a ship sailing to Fontaine through mists and you reach the city that's peaking out amidst the mists with the hydro archon waiting for you at the court.
Everwinter without mercy always strucks hard. Especially on violin. Thanks for this. I wanna be able to play this too someday on violin but I'm just starting out
Ooh, glad to hear you’re starting violin! It’s a wonderful instrument to play, as challenging as it is. Maybe I should write a sheet music arrangement for this track so others can play it…
Thank you for the kind words! This project really was a labor of love, as I was just starting to figure out how to properly record myself at the time… actually, I’d already finished up to the Snezhnaya/Khaenri’ah portion of the soundtrack on a decent, but still low-quality USB microphone (which you can hear in the previews for this soundtrack and in the Signora battle theme!). But then I got the opportunity to upgrade my entire setup, and I knew I couldn’t pass off the much higher sound quality and release the version from my old microphone, so I ended up rerecording EVERYTHING, eking out more efficient ways to cover the important parts in the instrumentation. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment by Haru Suzuki, the arrangement for this soundtrack is unbelievably difficult… it’s still the biggest challenge I’ve ever undertaken for a project, and I still think it has room for improvement! Maybe adding in a piano part might make for an even better experience. Thanks for watching!
0:41 is definitely my favourite part, I love how clear the crescendos, the pianos and the fortes are!! 鼓掌鼓掌鼓掌鼓掌！！！can't wait to hear more of your covers, perhaps chasm or enkanomiya themes in the future? the strings in enkanomiya's soundtracks are very apparent, and i absolutely adore this, very underrated musician you are! (10k views when...)
Glad you enjoyed my rendition! I have a lot of awesome projects in mind, and yes, the Nameless Ruins of the Chasm come specifically to mind as a possibility. That said, my participation in the YoMusic Composition Contest and the project I’ll submit for it take first priority, so it will be some time before I can make headway on new ideas. Stay tuned!
@Salami well, your wish is granted! I have a project coming out soon on the Nameless Ruins! Check out the preview I posted as a submission to the YoMusic Contest!
Thanks so much! Stay tuned, because I already have a new project in the works. As a matter of fact it’s going to set my Signora theme cover back for some time haha
Thanks for the sub, glad you enjoyed it! Travail was strictly a solo project, recording about two dozen individual tracks of live-recorded violin over a single nine-hour period for the final takes heard here in the release, although planning the instrumentation for each part took months to complete haha Also, I haven't posted new content on my channel in a while, but I have two unfinished works waiting to be completed while I'm busy taking college courses so their releases will have to wait! 😅
When Liyue's section came on, I got chills, it's beautiful! I would listen to you play the Liyue soundtrack on repeat! And this whole entire video I was amazed, it was beautiful!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad to bring joy to my fellow Travelers with one of the things I love to do most, to make music! Speaking of Liyue, I think it’s worthwhile to give a deep explanation of what actually went on in reproducing this region’s music. (Actually, I should do this for all eight regions, but that’s for another time 😅) First, the background! I’d say this about each of the eight regions, of course, but Liyue’s music is so special in its own right. From the knowledge that ancient China came up with predecessors of the modern-day violin, to the usage of the universally beloved pentatonic scale - it really embodies so much in seemingly simple melodies! Second, the (re-)creative process. I should make one thing very clear at the outset: making a violin cover of a soundtrack of an orchestral scale inevitably needs to be condensed in order to fit in the instrument’s range. In other words, I need to just retain the bass notes and the melody, while finding a way to simplify the middle voices in between while still capturing the essence of the original music, which I will reference right now. If you go back and listen to the original Travail’s music (over Dainsleif’s narration, of course) you’ll find that Liyue’s music begins with a pipa melody over a vibraphone accompaniment, fading into an orchestral split of a flute/oboe melody over strings. Wonderful stuff, but there’s one problem: a violin has four strings, and those strings don’t really go too low in the tonal register. So the distance between the bass note and the melody is small, too small to have much activity from the middle-range notes to fill in the gap. The only solution out of this is to find a specific sequence of notes within that limited register that will give the listener an unmistakable, yet still minimalistic feel of Liyue’s music. And then, I found it. At 0:48 of the track labeled “Good Night, Liyue,” by Yu-Peng Chen, there is a wind pattern that captures the specific chord of Liyue’s main theme, while just barely holding the thin texture of the surrounding notes to indicate a delicate air. It just so happened to be a perfect fit for my needs, so I experimented with the middle voice of my condensed version of Liyue’s theme as a direct quote to “Good Night, Liyue,” and the end result is what you hear in the video.
For a section only 20 seconds in length in terms of the whole project, I understand it’s a super long explanation, but it goes to show what kind of strategizing and hard work is needed to make even a simple-sounding arrangement actually sound GOOD. I ended up having to get creative for each region, as each presented a unique problem that demanded to be solved before I could create a finished product. And I hope more people would understand the beauty and complexity of music itself so that they can appreciate it more! Anyways, I’m sorry for such a long reply to your comment, but I felt it would be nice to show a little bit of what goes on in terms of the creative process! If you made it this far, thanks for hanging with me, and if not, I don’t blame you 😆 Stay tuned for my next project, the twofold Signora theme of “Chrysalis Suspirii” and “Saltatio Favillae”!
@@obsidian9595 It's absolutely beautiful, for so much work and effort it paid off, it's embarrassing but I almost cried, you made it sound so nostalgic and it absolutely blew my mind away on how GOOD it sounded! I wouldn't doubt one second blood sweat and tears went into this rendition! I cannot believe you created this sound with just a violin! It makes my heart so happy!
Oh my god the harmonization is just so amazing and your intonation is perfectly in tune. Nailed it! Absolutely love the Sumeru and Natlan part! If you don't mind me asking why did you alter the key on the some parts though?? Thank you!!
Thanks so much, I'm glad you enjoyed my arrangement! As I was recording this project, I definitely had the most fun with the Sumeru/Fontaine/Natlan trifecta, as these sections had the most complexity and thus the most room to work with various elements on my violin. As for the key... actually, this might come as a bit of a surprise for you, but the entire arrangement has been raised by a whole step: Intro: A minor -> B minor Mondstadt: A Major -> B Major Liyue: C Major -> D Major Inazuma: F minor -> G minor Sumeru: C Major (modal) -> D Major (modal) Fontaine, Natlan, Snezhnaya/Khaenri'ah, Outro: F minor -> G minor Now, for the reason I did this... the entire arrangement was written and recorded on a single violin over several hundred takes. This is a huge challenge, since a violin only has four strings (G, D, A, E) and is severely limited in terms of low-register notes to use. To offset this, I tuned my violin's lowest string, the G string, all the way down to C... the pitch of a viola's lowest string. This was the most my instrument could take, which means that all the notes in this arrangement cannot go any lower than that low C string. Had I kept the original key of the Travail soundtrack, there would have been too many low Bb notes to count that just wouldn't have sounded good. So I transposed the entire piece by a whole step to make everything work. Sorry for the lengthy explanation 😂 I'm glad you enjoyed how it turned out... due to its difficulty, I still consider this project to be the one I'm most proud of, haha. Thanks again for the feedback! If you haven't seen my latest project, Starlit Concerto, I'll drop the link right here... it's an 11-minute song that I spent six weeks recording pretty much all the instruments I know and also non-autotuned vocals 😂 ruclips.net/video/bat0wmpoe5k/видео.html
@@obsidian9595 ah, no wonder why, I felt stupid for asking that as a violinits myself LMAO but thanks for the explanation I get it now! I'll check the link too btw, it's kinda rare to see vocal without autotune now :0
@@mistletxe no worries 😂 It's funny, at the time I worked on this project, I'd been wondering how I can push a violin to its limits in a recording session... the G string dropped to C turned to be a pretty helpful one, although I haven't really done a similar project of this scale since I started incorporating more and more of the instruments I know into my projects 😀 And hey, glad to see a fellow violinist! Represent ✊
We’ve just reached 1,000 views on this project! It’s still the toughest one I’ve ever completed, by a long shot, and I hope to do more of these violin-only soundtracks in the future. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for the next installment of works on this channel!
~Obsidian.
The Fontaine part sounds like you're on a ship sailing to Fontaine through mists and you reach the city that's peaking out amidst the mists with the hydro archon waiting for you at the court.
Exactly, I feel Fontaine’s gonna be a city cloaked in mist and fog, just judging from the music alone! Thanks for watching.
Everwinter without mercy always strucks hard. Especially on violin. Thanks for this. I wanna be able to play this too someday on violin but I'm just starting out
Ooh, glad to hear you’re starting violin! It’s a wonderful instrument to play, as challenging as it is. Maybe I should write a sheet music arrangement for this track so others can play it…
oh my... 💘 you're so talented ! it's so beautiful ! I think you are my favorite RUclipsr right now! I really love it 💕💕💕
Thank you for the kind words! This project really was a labor of love, as I was just starting to figure out how to properly record myself at the time… actually, I’d already finished up to the Snezhnaya/Khaenri’ah portion of the soundtrack on a decent, but still low-quality USB microphone (which you can hear in the previews for this soundtrack and in the Signora battle theme!). But then I got the opportunity to upgrade my entire setup, and I knew I couldn’t pass off the much higher sound quality and release the version from my old microphone, so I ended up rerecording EVERYTHING, eking out more efficient ways to cover the important parts in the instrumentation. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment by Haru Suzuki, the arrangement for this soundtrack is unbelievably difficult… it’s still the biggest challenge I’ve ever undertaken for a project, and I still think it has room for improvement! Maybe adding in a piano part might make for an even better experience.
Thanks for watching!
BEAUTIFULLLLLLL😍😍😍
Thanks so much, glad you enjoyed it! Check out my new collab project on the Nameless Ruins... 😁
i love this, seriously deserves more views!!
Thanks for watching! Hoping more of those views come eventually 😁
0:41 is definitely my favourite part, I love how clear the crescendos, the pianos and the fortes are!! 鼓掌鼓掌鼓掌鼓掌！！！can't wait to hear more of your covers, perhaps chasm or enkanomiya themes in the future? the strings in enkanomiya's soundtracks are very apparent, and i absolutely adore this, very underrated musician you are! (10k views when...)
Glad you enjoyed my rendition! I have a lot of awesome projects in mind, and yes, the Nameless Ruins of the Chasm come specifically to mind as a possibility.
That said, my participation in the YoMusic Composition Contest and the project I’ll submit for it take first priority, so it will be some time before I can make headway on new ideas. Stay tuned!
@Salami well, your wish is granted! I have a project coming out soon on the Nameless Ruins! Check out the preview I posted as a submission to the YoMusic Contest!
@@obsidian9595 a ayo 😨😨😨😨😨
Amazing bro
Thanks so much bro, glad you enjoyed it!
super amazing work
Glad you enjoyed it!
ITS SO GOOD!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Bravo!!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed this project! It's crazy that it's been almost a year since I did this 😂
This sounds very good!
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it.
oh my goodness this is so good! i love this! keep up the amazing work
Thanks so much! Stay tuned, because I already have a new project in the works. As a matter of fact it’s going to set my Signora theme cover back for some time haha
Wow definitely a sub. Also did you mash yourself up or do it with multiple people at the same time?
Thanks for the sub, glad you enjoyed it! Travail was strictly a solo project, recording about two dozen individual tracks of live-recorded violin over a single nine-hour period for the final takes heard here in the release, although planning the instrumentation for each part took months to complete haha
Also, I haven't posted new content on my channel in a while, but I have two unfinished works waiting to be completed while I'm busy taking college courses so their releases will have to wait! 😅
@@obsidian9595
🥰🥰
When Liyue's section came on, I got chills, it's beautiful! I would listen to you play the Liyue soundtrack on repeat! And this whole entire video I was amazed, it was beautiful!
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad to bring joy to my fellow Travelers with one of the things I love to do most, to make music!
Speaking of Liyue, I think it’s worthwhile to give a deep explanation of what actually went on in reproducing this region’s music. (Actually, I should do this for all eight regions, but that’s for another time 😅) First, the background! I’d say this about each of the eight regions, of course, but Liyue’s music is so special in its own right. From the knowledge that ancient China came up with predecessors of the modern-day violin, to the usage of the universally beloved pentatonic scale - it really embodies so much in seemingly simple melodies!
Second, the (re-)creative process. I should make one thing very clear at the outset: making a violin cover of a soundtrack of an orchestral scale inevitably needs to be condensed in order to fit in the instrument’s range. In other words, I need to just retain the bass notes and the melody, while finding a way to simplify the middle voices in between while still capturing the essence of the original music, which I will reference right now. If you go back and listen to the original Travail’s music (over Dainsleif’s narration, of course) you’ll find that Liyue’s music begins with a pipa melody over a vibraphone accompaniment, fading into an orchestral split of a flute/oboe melody over strings.
Wonderful stuff, but there’s one problem: a violin has four strings, and those strings don’t really go too low in the tonal register. So the distance between the bass note and the melody is small, too small to have much activity from the middle-range notes to fill in the gap. The only solution out of this is to find a specific sequence of notes within that limited register that will give the listener an unmistakable, yet still minimalistic feel of Liyue’s music.
And then, I found it. At 0:48 of the track labeled “Good Night, Liyue,” by Yu-Peng Chen, there is a wind pattern that captures the specific chord of Liyue’s main theme, while just barely holding the thin texture of the surrounding notes to indicate a delicate air. It just so happened to be a perfect fit for my needs, so I experimented with the middle voice of my condensed version of Liyue’s theme as a direct quote to “Good Night, Liyue,” and the end result is what you hear in the video.
For a section only 20 seconds in length in terms of the whole project, I understand it’s a super long explanation, but it goes to show what kind of strategizing and hard work is needed to make even a simple-sounding arrangement actually sound GOOD. I ended up having to get creative for each region, as each presented a unique problem that demanded to be solved before I could create a finished product. And I hope more people would understand the beauty and complexity of music itself so that they can appreciate it more!
Anyways, I’m sorry for such a long reply to your comment, but I felt it would be nice to show a little bit of what goes on in terms of the creative process! If you made it this far, thanks for hanging with me, and if not, I don’t blame you 😆
Stay tuned for my next project, the twofold Signora theme of “Chrysalis Suspirii” and “Saltatio Favillae”!
@@obsidian9595 It's absolutely beautiful, for so much work and effort it paid off, it's embarrassing but I almost cried, you made it sound so nostalgic and it absolutely blew my mind away on how GOOD it sounded! I wouldn't doubt one second blood sweat and tears went into this rendition! I cannot believe you created this sound with just a violin! It makes my heart so happy!
@@obsidian9595 And yes I cannot wait!! This is so exciting!
Oh my god the harmonization is just so amazing and your intonation is perfectly in tune. Nailed it! Absolutely love the Sumeru and Natlan part! If you don't mind me asking why did you alter the key on the some parts though?? Thank you!!
I'm sad I just found this masterpiece today, could've been earlier :(
Thanks so much, I'm glad you enjoyed my arrangement! As I was recording this project, I definitely had the most fun with the Sumeru/Fontaine/Natlan trifecta, as these sections had the most complexity and thus the most room to work with various elements on my violin.
As for the key... actually, this might come as a bit of a surprise for you, but the entire arrangement has been raised by a whole step:
Intro: A minor -> B minor
Mondstadt: A Major -> B Major
Liyue: C Major -> D Major
Inazuma: F minor -> G minor
Sumeru: C Major (modal) -> D Major (modal)
Fontaine, Natlan, Snezhnaya/Khaenri'ah, Outro: F minor -> G minor
Now, for the reason I did this... the entire arrangement was written and recorded on a single violin over several hundred takes. This is a huge challenge, since a violin only has four strings (G, D, A, E) and is severely limited in terms of low-register notes to use. To offset this, I tuned my violin's lowest string, the G string, all the way down to C... the pitch of a viola's lowest string. This was the most my instrument could take, which means that all the notes in this arrangement cannot go any lower than that low C string. Had I kept the original key of the Travail soundtrack, there would have been too many low Bb notes to count that just wouldn't have sounded good. So I transposed the entire piece by a whole step to make everything work.
Sorry for the lengthy explanation 😂 I'm glad you enjoyed how it turned out... due to its difficulty, I still consider this project to be the one I'm most proud of, haha.
Thanks again for the feedback! If you haven't seen my latest project, Starlit Concerto, I'll drop the link right here... it's an 11-minute song that I spent six weeks recording pretty much all the instruments I know and also non-autotuned vocals 😂
ruclips.net/video/bat0wmpoe5k/видео.html
@@obsidian9595 ah, no wonder why, I felt stupid for asking that as a violinits myself LMAO but thanks for the explanation I get it now!
I'll check the link too btw, it's kinda rare to see vocal without autotune now :0
@@mistletxe no worries 😂 It's funny, at the time I worked on this project, I'd been wondering how I can push a violin to its limits in a recording session... the G string dropped to C turned to be a pretty helpful one, although I haven't really done a similar project of this scale since I started incorporating more and more of the instruments I know into my projects 😀
And hey, glad to see a fellow violinist! Represent ✊