Linkin Park - What Ive Done

Original music is by band Linkin Park. I rewrote this music for piano and guitar duet, had to work it out by ear. Link to original song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzuo_UObpuA Any comments appreciated.

Linkin Park - What Ive Done

I would be careful to upload stuff where I don't own the copyright.

Hmm. So basically its a Linkin Park transcription. I dunno man, it sounds ok, but when you're re-arranging music like this you need to be awful careful what instruments you use. here you've used a piano and a guitar, (two accompanying instruments), both playing chords almost all of the time. A melody instrument like a violin or a flute would fit in very nicely. You have to strain to pick out the vocal melody from the right hand in the piano as it is.

Take the verse- the piano could easily play both its own part (Melody & Block Chords) as well as the "riff" that the guitar is doing, in the left hand, which would make the guitar redundant, and leave you room to experiment with new instruments.

Its an accurate transcription, I heard a lot of rhythmic repetition- and I know thats the way Linkin Park fly, but with this it kinda sounds like "duh duh duh duh/ duh duh duh duh"- in other words way too many chords being banged out. Look at the Electric Guitar line starting at bar 11. Thats fine in Punk music or whatever, but it imposes on what youre trying to do. Try to spread the chords out more so as not to emulate their rap/metal style of playing. Arpeggiation, for example.

Found the pre-chorus (let mercy come/ wash away... bar 29-31) pretty weak. Everything just stops dead, while the guitar pedals the D. Not only is it boring, but its unpleasant in spots, it clashes with the pianos C in bar 30 and 31. Im sure you can find a better way to execute it.

Not a bad attempt, but re-arranging music means more than just throwing the different parts of the original track onto new instruments. I know its a nice melody and all that, but for this to stand well by itself it will need some revision. I look forward to future posts, which should probably go into the Pop/Rock/Jazz Ensemble section of the forum.

I agree with Sabian: it's good you were able to do this all by ear, but if you're going to re-arrange someone else's song, you need to give people some incentive to listen to your version instead :dunno: Change some things up! :nod: