DARK SOULS 3 - Dragonslayer Armour on Piano

Composer: Yuka Kitamura
Arrangement: Moonlapse

Sheets: https://musescore.com/user/37002291/s...

Hi everyone! We are heading back to Dark Souls III today for another piano cover. Surprinsgly, I couldn't find any arrangements of both phases of this song yet, despite it being over 8 years since this beautiful game came out. This is a fantastic track and I really enjoyed diving into it. I know phase 1 gets the most love, and I agree it is more memorable and catchy, but I also really appreciate phase 2 for its bold uniqueness and ethereal quality.

Nonetheless, both phases of this track do a great job of showcasing very different sides of Yuka Kitamura's compositional style that she brought to the Dark Souls III OST. In phase 1 we have a very quintessential Dark Souls sound, minor key functional harmony with some spicy neighbor tones - this fierce medieval-sounding style is used in Slave Knight Gael, Yhorm the Giant, Abyss Walkers, Twin Princes, etc. It's dark fantasy harmony but twisted in the best way. This is probably the sound that the series is most famous for.

Phase 2 brings a otherworldly, dreamlike, unsettling, and icy quality that evokes imagery of unknown and ancient magic. We see this approach more in Yuka Kitamura's spectrally charged pieces like Dancer of the Boreal Valley and Pontiff Sulyvahn. It's not her most popular compositional style just based on which tracks ended up being the favorites, but I personally really love it and there is a lot to learn from analyzing it.

Next up I'll be making sheets for Black Knives from Elden Ring and Burnt Ivory King from Dark Souls II. I can't wait until the new songs for Shadow of the Erdtree drops - I am going to be jumping on arranging my favorite from that right away. Hopefully there will be at least 1 Yuka Kitamura song that she wrote before leaving From Software?

I also recently released an orchestral track on this channel called Earthblood Construct (Phase 1) - so I have unfinished business there to work on as well with writing and releasing phase 2. A special thank you to those of you who've listened to my original compositions, much appreciated! If you are new to my channel, you can expect to see primarily From Software OST piano covers (I made an exception for King of Puppets from Lies of P), with some original orchestral works mixed in and the occasional 8-bit cover as well. As always, my detailed music theory breakdown can be found pinned in the comments. Thanks for watching and I hope you enjoy this arrangement.

Side note - I actually made a spreadsheet resource to try and get a sense of the 'coverage status' of the Dark Souls III OST as a whole - meaning which songs have piano arrangements, sheet music, and/or other types of cover performances. It's probably missing a couple entries but it was fun to make. If that sounds interesting to you, here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

We are having lots of fun discussing video game music, composing, and everything From Software in the Moonlapse Piano discord server, come hang out!

Discord:   / discord  
Bandcamp: https://moonlapse.bandcamp.com/
Musescore: https://musescore.com/user/37002291

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