ELDEN RING OST - Lichdragon Fortissax on Piano

Composer: Yoshimi Kudo Arrangement: Moonlapse Sheet Music: Discord: This is definitely the most challenging one I have transcribed so far, and took me a while, but wow this song is so good. I just wish this boss took me more attempts because I was only able to really appreciate this tune listening to the OST afterword. ---Theory Comments--- There is some incredibly amazing harmony in this track, but I will start with something I found quite interesting - two jazzy chord changes but applied in this epic orchestral context. In the main chorus of phase 2 (03:19), we have a fairly standard (but awesome) i VI ii V chord progression in Am. However, the main melody note lands hard on C# when we are on the B half diminished chord, which evokes a ’B locrian natural 2’ sound. This scale is commonly in lots of jazz music used to attain and ’outside sound’ on improv when playing over a half diminished chord, but here Kudo uses that natural 2 as a main melody note, which in this context feels bombastic but natural due to the descending melody leading into it. We also get a very cool tritone substitution transition around 2:25. Kudo sits for what feels like forever on this weird chord that I realized i basically just a A#7 with a sharp 11 and natural 9. The next section starts on Am7, this is also a common jazz resolution (of course found in other genres as well, but jazz comes to mind when i think of a dominant chord with a sharp 11 resolving down a half step). For jazz improv you might play in A# lydian dominant over this chord - another scale which in my opinion can provide an ’outside sound’. Hearing this type of harmony go from jazzy ear candy to epic boss music when used tactfully and intentionally is super interesting to me - the composers clearly have an extremely large foundation to build from. One final note - the intro to phase 2 has an outstanding chord progression. A# m, Amaj-b6, C# min in 2nd inversion A# m, C# min, Amin, A#7-9#11 We have multiple chromatic mediants happening here, which is a surefire way to get that dark epic movie score sound we can observe here. The A#m moving up a minor third to a minor chord, then down a major third to a minor chord, is absolutely villainous. Minor chords from outside the key sound way more scary than ones from inside the parent key, and Kudo knows it. My favorite one is the Amaj to C# min/G#. This is basically Amaj moving to a minor chord a major third up, but to keep the bassline moving downward and relatively static, Kudo chooses to keep the 5th in the bass, giving us a chromatic bassline walkdown. Love it. Chromatic mediants mixed with inversions is definitely on my experimentation radar now, because I have always used them in root position. Thanks for listening to my ramble if you made it to this point lol. Not sure which track I will do next - I have my eye on Demon Prince from Dark Souls 3 because it does not appear that anyone has done a piano cover for that yet (somehow). #eldenring #eldenringost #lichdragonfortissax #dragon #fortissax #eldenringmusic #piano #cover #arrangement #tutorial #pianotutorial #pianocover #vgm #fromsoftware #lichdragon