Layton content in 2021? Not the reality I expected, but I'll take it! I played maybe an hour of Curious Village on my DS, and enjoyed it! The Layton universe reminded me a lot of the Ace Attorney games (yes I know there's a crossover), but with more emphasis on interactive puzzle solving, which is a really really cute addition!
I've wanted to cover this song on the channel for SO LONG, I can't tell you how many times I've listened to the live version of this theme. In fact, I finished writing a complete arrangement in June of 2018, but never got around to recording it! I think the accordion part was the biggest roadblock for me - I didn't know any accordion players who I could confidently ask to play the part, plus I didn't know anything about writing for the accordion! Now that I have one of my own, and have learned to play it at a somewhat rudimentary level, I understand it a lot better, and was able to use it to fill in the gaps of this arrangement (which is a completely different one than the 2018 one that I never actually recorded). Full disclosure, that run at 0:57 in the accordion part is SO HARD to play, and what you're hearing is a hodgepodge of a bunch of takes that I did of that melody. I'm pretty confident I could get it down well with enough repetition, but it would take a LOT of repetition that I wasn't quite willing to do for this video, hehe.
This arrangement was influenced by some Brazilian rhythms, including batucada and baiao (not that this video is a perfect example of either of those two things lol). A lot of people think of calm bossa nova music when they think of Brazil, but man, I think of the big loud batucada street drum performances... would love to visit someday and hear one of those for real! The layers of auxillary percussion I added on top of the drum groove really help glue all the parts together. I've always thought that percussion is the most underrated role in the ensemble. It may look really easy to play something like the shaker or the triangle, and physically speaking, it is somewhat, but a good percussionist / percussion section adds SO much to a piece of music! It's just like... fun high frequency ear candy!
Anyway, I hope you dig this arrangement! So happy to finally be able to do this one after a couple of years of waiting!
\"Professor Layton's Theme\" from \"Professor Layton and The Curious Village\" composed by Tomohito Nishiura
Mix by @Julia Henderson
Edit by Peter Gilette https://twitter.com/djSteamyPete
