Here it is, a video of me playing the Bear McCreary’s Something Dark is Coming from the Battlestar Galactica TV series.



There are so many great cues in the Battlestar Galactica series, but this has to be my favourite. Because of the music in the BSG, Bear McCreary became also one of my favourite, if not the favourite film composer.

The story of learning this piece is a long one. The first audio recordings I have of it are from 2015 and the first arrangement versions the year before. I picked up the Stick in 2012, so the learning of the instrument and this piece have largely overlapped. I’ve greatly underestimated the task – both, the instrument and the piece. So here I am all these years later still having a go at it.

My version for the Chapman Stick is based on Bear McCreary’s piano arrangement. The details of the arrangment and fingerings have changed quite a few times during the years. The biggest changes though have happened during the last month of me practicing for the video. Some changes were to make things sound better that I thought earlier didn’t sound so good just because my playing wasn’t good enough. Actually they just weren’t a good fit for the instrument. Some changes I made because of me developing as a player, I could do things now I didn’t think were possible before.

This year I decided to get at sense of closure by making a video recording of my performance. It has proven to be harder than I thought. It’s still a bit rough at places, also it’s in two halves to get decent takes from beginning and end.

Considering my history with the piece, I may return to it some day once more.

That's really great. Never watched the show but that piece is DRAMATIC on Stick.

Thanks for listening! The show is great, or at least it was - it has been a while when I last watched it.
Bear McCreary has also the live album out now - "So Say We All" - great arrangements for rock band, orchestral and exotic instruments:
https://bearmccreary.com/looking-ahead/

Hey Kaspar!

That was an amazing performance. Almost straight away I was thinking “do you want drums for that”? Then I read your post to find it was a cover but a grand one nonetheless.

It was great to sit down on a Friday night in front of the fire and listen to that.

Cheers,

I'm glad you liked it!

The original cue actually has some taiko drums in it and the BSG live version even has a powerful drumkit section.
I wanted to keep it nearer to the piano arrangement and focused on the Stick though.

Could be fun to play the band version with my group some day.

Yeah, I love how much space you created in your arrangement. At times there was a lot of suspense.

This was my introduction to this piece, and it didn't disappoint.
I love the sound of the R-Block, and the growl you get out of it with those bass power chords is fantastic. Very good playing, well arranged for the instrument, over a wonderfully moody piece. Bravo!!

I think that's a Stick w/ an ACTV2 but carbon's gotta verify

Thanks Luc!

Yeah, that's the ACTV-2.

So...what ARE you using on the bass side?