"Edelweiss" free arrangement

HarryLikas

I have arranged "Edelweiss" using a left-hand arpeggio style built from the notes of each chord.
I've arranged over 1,200 piano arrangements and created 65 tutorials, all available at www.Patreon.com/HarryLikas . I offer tutoring for pianists who want to master this system, as well as the Barry Harris approach to improvisation.
I also served as the technical editor for Mark Levine’s "The Jazz Theory Book" and contributed to "The Jazz Piano Book."

Sophia

Nice, thank you! Paging @Nightowl because her very first recital piece was Edelweiss. I’m sure we’ll both enjoy this version too 😀

HarryLikas

Sophia
Thank you, Sophia! I really enjoyed your video—hearing you bring the arrangement to life made my day. The multiple camera angles and editing were a nice touch, and I appreciated the natural, spontaneous feel of the whole thing. It means a lot that you took the time to share it and give a nod to the arrangement. Well done, and thanks again!

Sophia

Well, I had some fun learning this piece... and playing with multiple camera angles as well as my new Mac video editor 🙂 It was a spur of the moment thing, no brushed hair, pretty clothes or cleaned up piano/room. It's not a recital worthy piece because it wasn't done in one take, not even close. But that's okay because it was recorded to honour the arranger anyway 😃 Thanks again @HarryLikas 🥰

Nightowl

Sophia Oh wow, that's a beautiful arrangement, much prettier than the very basic version I played! You played beautifully and the multiple camera angles all fitted together seamlessly - kudos to you for getting to grips with all the software to put the video together so professionally!

I notice you have several guitars behind you... some of them being family heirlooms, perhaps? Maybe now you have the software you could record yourself playing guitar, to accompany yourself on piano! Throw in some rhythm beats from the other piano and you could become a one woman band! 🤩

WieWaldi

Sophia This sounds awesome. If one didn't know, you stitched it together from multiple takes, it would be recital worthy. Harrys arrangements could be a good source for 40 pieces a year. (OMG - 60% of the year has been passed away And I am sticking 33% of the pieces, only)

thepianoplayer416

Sophia

Wonderful playing. It's a nice arrangement. Thanks for sharing...

Some people would sing as they play. People who play guitar chords would sing the melody. When playing piano people would play the melody so singing becomes optional.

I'm going to add the piece to my Christmas playing list. Every December the movie version of "The Sound of Music" with Julie Andrews & Christopher Plummer would be aired on at least 1 US TV station. Performing any song from the musical at a party including "Edelweiss" would liven up the atmosphere. At a Christmas party, I'd invite the audience to join in the singing the 2nd time playing:

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me
Small & white, clean and bright, you'll be happy to meet me
etc.

rsl12

Sophia Great performance, great video editing! Look at your fingers fly and still land lightly on the proper keys!

Sophia

Thanks Nightowl 🙂 I agree that it’sa very pretty arrangement, and I have a feeling I’ll be trying more of Harry’s sheet music.

I didn’t play it all that well really, but I wanted to move on from the piece now, so it gave me a chance to practise sound editing as well as video editing. I’m petty sure that’s what the professionals do as well, when it suits them 😅

The guitars do indeed each have stories attached to them, but I’ll bore you with that privately someday 😋

Sophia

Thanks Wie Wie 😻 It’s not even that hard to play, but where it gets tricky is the speed. I can play it fairly smoothly at about 100bpm and I was thinking to record it at that speed, then decided to cheat. At 124bpm, I will invariably need a few tries for some of the harder measures.

A few more weeks of polishing would probably get me there, but eh, there are blues lessons being neglected… again 😈 Plus I’m learning a lot about editing. Like Nightowl, it’s all a massive learning curve for me too - but so much fun!

Sophia

Thank you 🙏

thepianoplayer416 I'd invite the audience to join in the singing the 2nd time

What a sweet idea, now I want to see a video of that party 😍

Nightowl

thepianoplayer416 There is a slight error in the final line of your post - the lyric is "You look happy to meet me."
(I am someone who watches the film every Christmas and the lyrics are etched in my brain for all time. I feel no shame in this. 🙂)

WieWaldi

Nightowl

thepianoplayer416
There is a slight error in the final line of your post - the lyric is "You look happy to meet me."

Damm - how do you know?!?
Okay - it is time to watch that movie. 1965... almost 3 hours... With getting beer-pauses (and bringing beer away ) this is about 4 hours. 🥱OMG - this will be a long weekend. But this movie is mentioned so often. This solfege stuff. A lot of well know songs (except me not knowing them). And on top of it: this movie was shot in the alps. Very near Bavaria. And I haven't seen it. Such a shame...

Sophia

WieWaldi this movie was shot in the alps.

The scenery in the movie is breathtaking. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half If the story, it’s adorable. Then things suddenly turn grim and at that point, nine out of ten I switch it off by then.

Nightowl

WieWaldi I know because I've seen it at least once a year, nearly every year of my life! I also remember most of the dialogue. The music is fantastic, the scenery is stunning and Julie Andrews sings like an angel. Also, Christopher Plummer is so handsome in uniform - what's not to like?!? 😃 OK, actually there is one scene where I use the mute button - where the children sing "So Long, Farewell" - that's a good time to get tea/beer.
There is a rather stereotyped view of Germans portrayed in the film, so I can imagine it might not be popular In Germany, but as a Bavarian maybe you will have a different outlook. 🙂
It's based on a true story, although it was sugar coated to saturation point and greatly embellished, but if you google the back story you might find it very interesting. For instance, the real Maria Von Trapp made a brief appearance in the film. I could write a book on this subject, but best stop now.

rsl12

You're going to watch it?? I'm curious what the Bavarian response is. Have you seen "Die Trapp-Familie"? It's very different!!

Sophia

Well… proper keys is debatable 🤫 There are a lot of mistakes in those takes, but they aren’t noticeable because of all the camera cuts. Plus it’s pretty easy to play relaxed when mistakes literally don’t matter. 😆

Of course the largest drawback I was forced to use the metronome, because otherwise I couldn’t play it five times in a row and still stay in sync. I added the audio later, in stages.

The really disheartening bit is I did the entire thing in a single morning, while recording a genuine piece takes several nerve wrecking days. And then still isn’t flawless 🥹

rsl12

Sophia There are a lot of mistakes in those takes, but they aren’t noticeable because of all the camera cuts.

Oh, I didn't realize you spliced together multiple takes! In that case I'm impressed with your editing skills! It looks like six camera angles, but if you stitched different takes together maybe it's as little as 1 camera, 4 angles, and 2 zoom-ins. Did you cut up the midi files or did you just splice the audio? If you did the latter, I cannot tell at all!

Sophia

Here’s how I did it 😊

I wanted to play around with Final Cut Pro‘s multiple cameras feature, but I only have one tripod and phone. So I recorded the tune five times in a row from various angles (you weren’t far off with your guess of six). All I had to do was stoically continue to play no matter what.

Then I used FCP to merge them into a single multicam track. Of course the sound was unacceptable with all the clashing mistakes, but I just muted it.

Then I went back to the piano and recorded the sound separately, in stages. Then I spliced all the good bits together in Audacity and added the final result to FCP.

The final step was playing the video with all those angles shown in a grid and clicking the one I wanted to show. Literally less than two minutes’ work, the time it took to play through.

It was quite an eye-opener how you can create something impressive so easily. If I can do that with just an hour of spare time and no editing experience to speak of, I can just imagine what a team of professional editors would be able to come up with…

navindra

Sophia This is very interesting. First of all, there has been some debate about Harry's hands-off submissions to PianoTell, so it's very cool and informative to know that these are useful. Nice contribution indeed!

With the chord markings that Harry has, I wasn't sure if he intended for the chords to be played straight or for there to be some improvisation on them sort of like a lead sheet? Or are the chord markings purely educational?

Also, just how many guitars do you have??

Sophia And my what a video! I couldn't tell it was multiple takes with a single phone! I've never done anything like that myself before... this is surprisingly seamless! Bravo!

Sophia I used FCP

It was FCPX that finally pulled me hook, line, and sinker, into the Apple ecosystem over a decade ago. FCPX was actually quite controversial at the time because it was basically a complete rewrite of FCP 7 with a very different interface and workflows. I didn't know better but I was completely blown away with how easy it was to create a multicam video just using the trial version of the software. I got a MacBook Pro, FCPX, and I haven't looked back since.

Which Clavinova do you have?

A big hat tip to you for pulling off such a creative and original effort!

WieWaldi

Nightowl There is a rather stereotyped view of Germans portrayed in the film, so I can imagine it might not be popular In Germany, but as a Bavarian maybe you will have a different outlook.

I know there is no German synchronization. I always wondered, why, haha. Not sure about how Bavarians or Austrians or Swiss think about that.

Jane

Nightowl The music is fantastic, the scenery is stunning and Julie Andrews sings like an angel.

LOL…
I may have seen the movie once (I don’t have kids).

So my major memory of this song is from the Amazon series The Man In The High Castle. Much creepier…

Nightowl

WieWaldi I don't quite understand what you mean by "no German synchronisation" ... do you mean this film was never shown in Germany? Maybe that was because there was already a German film of the Von Trapp story, which would naturally be preferred by most Germans, due to being in their native language. Totally understandable as not everyone has your superb grasp of the English language - including some British people! 😁 I would be very interested to read your review of the film - maybe you could post it on one of the threads about films featuring music, or even start a new thread about this film (if you liked it enough to bother).