Those of you who follow me on Twitter are probably already aware, but about six months ago I created a YouTube channel where I am arranging and recording covers of various video game music. This had been a goal of mine for nearly two years prior to actually starting my channel, but I had a hard time getting started. Playing music has always been an important part of my life since my mid-teens and especially during my college years, but in recent years I had sort of fallen out of it despite my best efforts to stay motivated. It wasn't until I had the epiphany that I could combine my two major interests, music and gaming, into something I could be passionate about again.
Some of you may remember the progress videos for the 2019 NES Challenge that were made by fellow forum member Wempster, and the NES-themed medleys I recorded for these videos was a good way to dip my toe into the arranging and recording process. This all came together at the perfect time, as I was already interested in doing my own VGM covers at this time but was unsure how to get started. The first medley was a 25-minute behemoth that was pretty overwhelming to work on for someone who really didn't (and mostly still doesn't) know what they're doing, but it turned out pretty well in the end and is something I'm still proud of.
Fast forward to Spring 2020, it was time for me to start working on my own projects, but again, it was tough trying to put anything together. I would begin working on one song, only to hit a snag somewhere along the way and then shift to another song instead of working through it. I eventually caught wind of a VGM cover competition that I decided I wanted to participate in, and I figured this was 'do or die' time. If I couldn't put something together for a community-based event during a reasonably generous timeframe, then this just wasn't going to happen. So I turned to my favorite video game of all time and one of my favorite soundtracks ever and finally produced the first video that would appear on my new channel. It didn't win any awards or anything, but for my first video, I'm still proud of it.
I was worried that things would fizzle out after this first video, but I'm happy to say that after this first 'official' cover, I've been sticking with it and have been putting out a video roughly every month, with the odd acoustic solo cover appearing here and there in between full covers. I still consider myself in the early phase of producing these covers, but I feel like I'm learning and growing along the way and will hopefully only get better. Doing these videos over the last six months has been extremely gratifying for me as someone who had mostly 'lost their way' with music which had been so important to me in the past. Music and gaming have always felt diametrically opposed to me since spending time on one meant taking time from another, but being able to combine my two main passions in life has been really cool for me, and I've also made some friends along the way.
Hope to see you there!
