With Nirvanna the Band the Show back in action, I was inspired to put together a version of the Wii Shop theme It works well on uke. But there are a lot of unusual chord shapes that might take a while to get under your fingers.
Tag: Game Themes
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Koji Kondo – Zelda Medley (Tabs)
Shamefully, I haven’t played a Zelda game since A Link to the Past. So these arrangements are heavily influenced by that era.
Zelda’s Lullaby: A chill start to the medley with gentle picking and a soft Cmaj7 chord. There is a big leap up the neck in bar 6. But this part is slow enough that it’s not a big challenge.
Main Theme: Ramping up the pomposity and changing the key to F. There’s another big jump in 16. This one is at a quicker tempo so it’s more of a challenge. From there, you get the descending note until you hit the C.
Ilia’s Theme: Back to a more relaxed feel. This time, the challenge is a big stretch between the 4th and 10th fret in bar 23. If you’re struggling there, you can change the A-string, 10th fret to A-string, 7th fret in bars 22 and 23. It changes the feel a little but it still sounds nice.
Kakariko Village: The challenge here is to emphasise the melody notes so it doesn’t just sound like a melody-less picking pattern. Otherwise, nothing too difficult.
Hyrule Castle: Switching to C minor and more pomposity. Where the Main Theme is grand, this one has some menace with the chromatic notes on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th frets. 8-Bit Music Theory did an excellent video on this tune.
Song of Storms: A final key change to E minor and the trickiest section of the piece.
Links
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Kung Fu Master (Arcade Game Theme) (Tabs)
A recent nostalgia trip compelled me to knock up a version of Masato Ishizaki’s music from the 80s arcade game Kung-Fu Master.
The tune is very quick. Even slowed down, it’s still a challenge. In order to cut the finger movement to a minimum, it’s arranged campanella style so the work is done with the picking hand and fretting hand doesn’t have to move much.
Links