DARK SOULS 2 - Burnt Ivory King on Piano

Composer: Motoi Sakuraba
Arrangement: Moonlapse

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

Hey everyone,

Here is my first piano cover of 2024, and I've decided to do a little throwback. I have been listening to the Dark Souls 2 soundtrack a lot lately and it's really fantastic and quite underrated in my opinion. It's really interesting to hear some of the earlier Yuka Kitamura tracks and compare them to how she sounds later on Elden Ring - and it's fun to see Motoi Sakuraba firing on all cylinders. This probably won't be the only DS2 song that I cover.

When looking across all 3 Dark Souls soundtracks, it's hard to find Motoi Sakuraba tracks that translate well (or easily) to piano due to his chaotic compositional and harmonic style. He highly emphasizes the rhythmic aspects of his music, played by low strings and brass, which doesn't sound as good on solo piano as more melody-focused songs. However, this track feels very different from his normal work and stands out because of it - it has a well defined structure, slow moving melodies, and unusual but cohesive harmonic movements. I knew right away it would make for a great piano cover.

When I was first re-listening to the DS2 soundtrack this year (besides playing it when it came out) I thought that this was for sure a Yuka Kitamura song before I looked at the artist name! I love both Kitamura's and Sakuraba's music equally, and I have covered a ton of Kitamura songs at this point. I've have been a bit sad that I hadn't hit any Sakuraba songs yet, so I was very excited to arrange this one and I hope you enjoy it.

I am aware that there is a lot of controversy surrounding DS2 on the internet. I was lucky enough to play it at a time (initial launch) when I was blissfully unaware of this, and I fully enjoyed it just as much as I did Dark Souls 1. If you join the Moonlapse discord server you will find that it is a 'no DS2 hating' zone lol. I have really fond memories of nearly the entire game, but the DLC was the best part for me. All three of them were incredible, and I loved the diversity of biomes/colors that they brought (green, red, white). Sinh The Slumbering Dragon and Old Iron King are incredible boss fights but I think Burnt Ivory King is probably the most awesome one. I'll never forget the contrast when plunging down from Frozen Eleum Loyce into Old Chaos to fight the king and his Loyce Knights. The fact that there is a massive scary tree and some ice blocks in that deep red fiery arena makes for such a unique setting, as those things are not usually found in 'fire-associated' video game zones. I also love fights with adds/dual bosses so that made this one even better for me.

Side note: If you haven't listened to the Aava, The King's Pet soundtrack in a while you need to, it's gorgeous.

The music theory breakdown of the track will be pinned in the comments below. As always, thank you so much for watching my videos and I really appreciate all of you! Let me know what you think. More to come soon.

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

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