Music Blog No. 11

One thing I have realised after becoming a musician is that I never really have any time to myself where I can engage in any recreational activities. One such activity being playing video games, something I used to do a lot as a child and early adolescent, but ended up not doing as much when I started doing music. It's sort of funny; I enjoy video game soundtracks, but it's almost rare for me to actually play video games for hours on end like most people my age. I recently started playing this game called No Man's Sky. From what I can ascertain, it's a survival game where you play as an unnamed cosmonaut and you are given the opportunity to travel to an estimated eighteen quintillion (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 to be exact) planet spread across 256 galaxies. I'm not sure why I chose to play this game, I'm not really into astronomy and people like Elon Musk has ruined the appeal of space travel to me. That said, I am nearly finished with my portfolio. I have one last cover to do and I have spent a lot of time trying to choose a song. Originally, I was thinking of covering the song Live and Learn by Crush 40 (Which can be heard on the soundtrack to Sonic Adventure 2). I proposed that idea to my lecturer and he said it was a good idea when considering that the first four tracks on this portfolio are also video game related. That way, it almost comes full-circle. However, I quickly scrapped that idea because the solo seemed a little too challenging for me. Needing to find a song to cover, I remember hearing a song in an episode of The Angry Video Game Nerd (Episode 198: Commodore 64). In the episode The Nerd (played by James Rolfe) discusses the Commodore 64 console, its many games, its copy protection and, the main subject of this journal entry, its music. At exactly twenty three minutes and forty three seconds (23:43) in, the title theme for the 1988 release Netherworld plays. This song, entitled "The Purser Stole My Gun" was composed by Finnish musician Finn Jori Olkkonen (AKA: Petrik Salovaara). Consisting entirely of guitar, bass and drum samples that were inputted through MIDI, the song is essentially a bit-crushed power metal sounding song. I have heard a cover of the song by a YouTube content creator named Tomi Malinen. I am using this cover as my reference, as I cannot find any tablature for the song. The rhythm part of the song is fairly easy, as it mainly consists of power chords. My main worry is the lead part.