A couple of years ago I started to think about the Yoda theme very seriously. I love the music of John Williams and have been a huge fan of him as a composer for decades. However, in my opinion it is very difficult to find good arrangements of his music for piano. John Williams does not specialize in piano music. He writes magnificent scores for full orchestra.
But it is very difficult to translate the magnificent sounds he creates to the sound of the single instrument.
As I adapted the Yoda theme for piano I used every trick I’ve learned over the last few decades to try to make it come alive as a piano solo. As is frequently the case when I am working on something very creative and challenging, I threw in more ideas than I could comfortably play myself. I had a hunch that it could eventually work, but I left it hanging with the idea of coming back to it.
Recently I revisited my arrangement and carefully shaped it so that it is tighter and better structured.
I also made it more playable by making countless adjustments to the score to make it comfortable for my own performance. For pictures my choice was obvious. The scene that you see is the first time we see Yoda in the Star Wars films. This is the iconic scene where the master trains young Luke in the Force, and it is one of my favorite scenes from all the movies I have ever seen in my lifetime.
This is a cool piece
This is one of the better pieces from the star wars soundtracks and you played it perfectly.
Ok, the old one was really good, this one’s sublime. I don’t know if it was intentional, but first one hears Yoda the Jedi Master, top of his game, and the second time around it’s Yoda the Exile in Dagobah, and then just a whisper in Luke’s ear. I know you varied the dynamics on the 2nd go, but it serves the story.
I would love to play this piece. Very interesting.
I still really love Yoda’s theme and just the feel of all of the original trilogy music. I was thinking about sitting down and marathoning all the star wars movies next week once school finishes and I’m really looking forward to listening to the music in them (at least the first 6).
Beautiful!
Nice work, Gary. I enjoyed listening. Easy on the ears. I agree with Louie’s comment.
I like this. It stands on its own, even if you don’t know Star Wars and who Yoda was, this music would still grab you and tell you things.
I enjoyed both the transcription and the playing of it.
You have also featured this among the Star War Themes in the other section, and I enjoyed going back and forth in my listening.