Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum versions of To Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X

I have been looking at the forum postings and performances of this piece. I am having trouble determining the version I need. I see a downloadable version on Music Notes. com, another on a FF shrine site, and a Japanese book. I think the book version is probably the most difficult from what I have read? I would appreciate your input on the level of difficulty of the book version vs. the others and any of your experiences learning/playing these different versions.

Monica K., if you see this, I read where you have the book version and also Kawai Girl?

Thanks and I really appreciate your help, and enjoyed the various performances of this piece.

The Japanese book version (Nobue Umatsus FFX piano collections) is probably the hardest score to learn.

This is the piece I used but improvised quite a bit to be more compatible to my playing abilities and musical tastes.

I love this piece and actually am currently working on a new recomposed version of it that I will perform in the future.

Here is my video of my original performance of it. I like my new version much better but it is not in performance shape yet. Soon I hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFtWucgxYSk

The book version is identical to what is played on the FF piano collection CD. Most of it is fairly manageable EXCEPT for a section where you have to play blistering fast arpeggio runs up and down the keyboard. I have not been able to get that part down. However, those runs come up during a repeat, so you could always just play it the simpler way as it goes the first time.

I love that song ! I cant explain what it produces every time i listen to it.

How many people here have played the game? I'm going to take a stab and say not many :p Something cool about the song you might not know, you spend most of the game trying to get to Zanarkand so one of the characters can sacrifice herself and bring 10 years of peace to the land by banishing this giant monster that just kills villages and stuff. They play this song in the story scene as you walk into Zanarkand, when all the characters think that Yuna is going to sacrifice herself it's quite an epic and moving game, just like this piece of music

I played from the book version and for the most part it's not difficult until you get to that one passage towards the end. But this version is so pretty that it was well worth the time to learn that one difficult passage.

Good luck with it

Thanks all,

I downloaded the simpler version and am using it until the book arrives. I may need to also take the pledge to quit buying music until I have mastered more of what I already have.
Monica K's suggestion and Mr. S-H's approach to customize it to fit my ability a bit sounds like a workable solution. My teacher tells me to just play it slower if I have to and the piece will come up speed when it does. One of those enjoy the journey as much as the destination kind of things.
Jedi, that certainly puts a different spin on the music. Triumph to reach your goal which is a sacrifice for the good of others. I knew nothing of the story of the game.
Mr. S-H and Kawaigirl1, I have enjoyed both your performances of this piece.
Monica K, appreciate all your input on this and other topics.

Thanks again,

ss

It's useless to fight Sheet Music Addiction, supersport. Just give in to it.

Jedi, thank you for the background story on the piece. I haven't played any of the Final Fantasy games. Knowing what is going on while the music is playing makes it even more unbearably poignant.