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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

张学友 - 祝福 [Jacky Cheung - Zhu Fu] (Piano by Kai Ming)

祝福 [pinyin: Zhu Fu], is one of my favourite childhood pop songs by 张学友 (Jacky Cheung).

It has a beautiful melody, with a typical structure that starts off with a soft introduction before reaching its climax. I decided to remove the second half of the introduction to make it sound less repetitive. The bridge gets a little emotional as it paves the way for the climax. The piece is ended with a repeat of the introduction (with a slight variation at the very end).



As with most of my other plays, this piece is presented in C major. I find that it is the simplest key to master for most beginners like myself. I have some friends who have criticized my choice of key (e.g this song was originally presented/sung in xxx Major, you have used the wrong key etc).

In my opinion,  most songs are written in a specific key to suit that particular singer's vocal range. Since our fingers are not bound by our vocal limitation, I do not see the need to abide by a singer's vocal range to determine the key for your own playing, especially when there are 12 fantastic keys for us to choose from. Happy playing!

====> Click here to download the mp3!! <====== (hosted on OpenDrive)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Boys Like Girls - Two Is Better Than One (Piano by Kaimingz)

It's that time of the year again when flowers start to clutter the desks around office cubicles (and some classrooms!). Happy Valentine's!

This song, sung by American boy band [Boys Like Girls], featuring Taylor Swift, was released in 2009. It made it to the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.



In the original song, it begins with a solo guitar as the accompaniment, before being followed by the rest of the band. In my piano rendition, I have tried to make it sound close to how I feel (the rhythms, drums etc) after listening to the original vocal parts (duets) and their accompaniments.

Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what other style you would choose if you were to play this piece!

<=== Click here to download mp3 ===> (Hosted on OpenDrive)