Exploring Music as a Cellist

As you can no doubt tell, I am a lover of anything that includes cello and the soundtrack to this game is no exception. I also love slow, mournful tracks that pull at your heartstrings with every note. The Long Dark has both of these and much more! It is one of my most favorite games and I can play it for hours on end without getting bored.  For a little backstory, in this game, you play as a survivor who crashlands in the northern Canadian wilderness after a geomagnetic storm. There is both a survivor and story mode but my personal favorite is the survival mode because of the open-world map and the ability to roam as you please. It is the main theme of the game that is my favorite of all. The game was released by Hinterland Games in 2014 but the soundtrack was released in 2017 around the time of the first story mode episode. The soft piano at the beginning really plays into the idea of this game which is the quiet apocalypse. A cello then joins the piano playing a very mournful melody

 "I'll Make a Man Out of You" has been running laps around my head for weeks and I just can't get it to stop! It is one of my go-to work out songs and it always gets me excited to do whatever task I have at hand. This is the song in the movie sung by Li Shang, the commander of the group of soldiers Mulan is a part of, while he is training his troops for war. Of course, every movie with any kind of fighting has to have a training montage and this is up there with the best of them partly because of this song. Though mildly insulting to women, this song shows us the transformation of Mulan from a simple girl to a strong woman ready for battle and it is meant to empower not only her but her fellow soldier as well. Mulan also during the song has a line saying "Hope he doesn't see right through me" which is referring to her not wanting Li Shang to find out she is a woman. This song is the embodiment of hard work pays off no matter who you are. Just a little bi

     The duo that is 2 Cellos has been an absolute inspiration to me since I picked up a cello. It is one of my many dreams to be able to perform with them and learn from them because of their incredible talent. I have spent countless hours listening to and practicing their unique style. I even started writing my own sheet music for songs I love and composing my own pieces because of these two musicians. My grandma has even my ringtone set to their cover of  'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC! It's all I would listen to for months because I was trying to dissect the song to write my own sheet music. Of course, that did not pan out the way I intended it to but it still remains to torture my grandfather when I call at random hours of the day.     The Croatian cellists, Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser, first rose to fame in 2011 when their cover of 'Smooth Criminal' was posted to Youtube and was a massive hit. This lead to them getting a record deal with Portrait/Sony Music Master