Music – Instrumental MLP Fan-songs

Sorry for not having a fanfic review ready today. Not only was my week a mess, a programming project consumed all of the leisure time I’d normally use for re-reading an old favourite fanfic.

Instead, I decided to spotlight some instrumental music which came out of the My Little Pony fandom that I really enjoyed and didn’t want to risk losing track of if something ever happens to my backups.

…because, after all, if the music has no lyrics, it doesn’t matter what you think of the fandom as long as it’s good.

Why Am I Pinkie Pie (download) by DnBeanie

Inspired by a fanfic of the same name by Hoopy McGee, this is a bouncy instrumental EDM pop song that I just keep coming back to.

On a more intellectual note, what draws my attention is how it uses its simplicity. From when the beat starts up to the last 15 seconds, the entire song runs off the same regular, fast paced beat and it’s not technically complex. Basically, a beat, an accompaniment line, and a melody line. Likewise, before the melody comes in, the accompaniment manages to feel anticipatory, simply by the progression it uses and its unbroken nature.

As for the main melody, it’s bouncy like Pinkie Pie, but has a more serious air to it which I’m assuming is intended to follow the nature of the story, where a human wakes up as Pinkie Pie and doesn’t know how it happened or why.

Friendship is Magic (Orchestral Arrangement) (tindeck) by Evening Star

When I want something catchy, with a majestic feel to it, yet which isn’t “on” all the time like Sogno di Volare, this is what I turn to.

It makes me think of reading an epic. At first, the music is soft and light, like a morning sunrise in a small village. Then, it picks up and adds a sense of adventure as the heroes set off on their quest. The music then flows back and forth between the swelling, impressive passages which make the world sit up and listen, and the soft, light explorations of the heroes’ character, without which the story simply wouldn’t work.

Octavia (bandcamp) by Evening Star

Like the previous example, this track (named after a background character who plays the cello) flows back and forth between the personal and the worldly, but this leans more to the personal side.

If that was an epic “tale of a world”, like Lord of the Rings, then this is the personal study of a character whose life has been marked by “forays into the wider world”.

WoodenOverture by Tsyolin

This eight and a half minute track is an orchestral medley of four excellent songs (originally with lyrics) by WoodenToaster. While the originals have more of an electronica element, this version uses excellent samples of classical instruments and I love each on its own merits.

I recommend this both on its own merits and as a sampler of some of the catchier melodies I’ve encountered in MLP songs. Also, if you like this, you might want to try StormWolf’s orchestral cover of Nightmare Night.

Diffraction (soundcloud) by StormWolf

Now back to the more modern genres for a bit. This is a frenetic europop track that does incorporate some vocal samples, but not in any way you’d be able to distinguish from other examples of the genre. Appropriately, it was StormWolf’s contribution to an album themed around the speediest character in the series.

While it’s catchy on its own, I have a soft spot for europop and trance songs which make good use of the piano, with other ones I love including DHT’s techno mix of Listen To Your Heart, the intros to Drift Away (Sven-R-G vs. Bass-T) and Because The Night (Cascada), and the piano accents in Reaching the Sky by Atomix and Vamos A La Playa (Dan Winter Edit) by Loona.

Lesson Learnt by StormWolf

This is another frenetic pop piece and the reason I mention this one is that it reminds many people of the Touhou games. (Here’s the Phantasm Stage from Perfect Cherry Blossom for comparison.)

This particular song in inspired by an incident when the occasionally neurotic main character blows a situation way out of proportion and goes a bit nuts as a result.

Nightmare Night 8 Bit Style by Lukspups

While I’m on the topic of of songs which evoke feelings of games, I should also mention this cover of WoodenToaster’s Nightmare Night.

Aside from enjoying the sound of it, I just have a certain fondness for music which sounds like it could have come from a Castlevania game… in this case, the main melody tracks where tracks which sound sound like the might have originated in a Castlevania game.

(Filmore from Actraiser is one that has that effect even more strongly. I’m one of many who misattribute it to Castlevania if it’s been too many years since last seeing the track metadata.)

Gypsy Bard (Full Orchestral Instrumental) by BassBeastJD

I’ll close this list out with a song I’ve already mentioned in passing.

The original version of this song is from a fan-made edit of MLP sort of like an Abridged Series, in which the lyrics give the impression that the singer is putting on a mask of cheerfulness because it’s the only thing that keeps her from crumbling under the weight of her life’s tragedies. All the while, the tune is unfailingly bouncy and cheerful.

This version varies the pacing and styling quite a bit in an attempt to make up for the lack of lyrics by moving some of that weight and gravitas into the melody.

The use of ambient sounds in the beginning to allude to the events in the lyrics is a nice touch, I enjoy the song, and I’d certainly recommend it to others.

Music – Instrumental MLP Fan-songs by Stephan Sokolow is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.