[Guitar Hero Anime] Card Captor Sakura - "Purachina (Violin)" - Maya Sakamoto

--== Song Description ==--

What can I say? This is probably the only song that I can, with one hundred percent certainty, say is truly my favorite out of anything I've ever listened to. Lovely vocals, an inspiring melody that would probably fit perfectly in some Disney movie somewhere, a set of typical rock instruments accompanied by a wonderful set of strings, and hardly even touched by synth nonsense. What did that mean? Well, hell. That meant I had to put it into Guitar Hero. Only problem was there are barely any guitars in this song.

So what did I do? I played my guitar controller like a violin.

--== Chart Development ==--

It was relatively easy to chart; only problem was that I knew next to nothing about playing violins or reading violin sheets. There are probably a lot of chords in the chart that don't exist in the actual song, but I can't realy tell just by ear. =/ In the future, I'd like to have a skilled or professional fiddler take a look at the chart and check it for accuracy, and maybe give me some techniques as to how I can better play a squeaky Fisher Price plastic violin. By then I'll probably end up redoing the entire thing, so hope for an improved Purachina 2.0 in the future!

--== About Development ==--

This is my first ever chart of a violin song. I've wanted to chart Purachina for a long time now, since it's one of my favorite songs ever, but the guitars are so quiet that I can barely hear them. I thought about doing the bass, but that just didn't seem like as much fun (though I probably WILL do a bass chart for co-op mode in the future). So I left the plans and never came back to them.

Then I stumbled upon what I can only describe as an epic display of musical nerdiness in the form of DrParkMD517's "Violin Hero - Dragon Force Expert" video, where he (Sean) apparently wrapped several pieces of duct tape around a real violin bow and used it to move the strumbar. I wanted to try the same, except with a song that had real violins in it, to see how well I could truly emulate the Fake Fiddle Fantasy.

One thing that did bother me about DrPark's makeshift violin controller was that you couldn't actually play a long note on it like you could a real violin, continuing to draw the bow across the strings for the duration of the note. Its range was limited to the like 5 centimeters that the strum bar could move. So I decided to make my bow a little differently.

Since I did not have a real bow or violin like DrPark, I ended up rifling through my kitchen drawers and came across what appeared to be an abnormally long chopstick (friend tells me it's a "dowel"). I then took about 6 inches of duct tape and wrapped it around the kitchen utensil so that it covered about 3 or 4 inches. I made it tight enough so that the strumbar could be affected by the force I was applying, but loose enough so that the dower could slide around within the duct tape cylinder. I used this as my makeshift bow. Most likely, one would be able to easily do the same thing with a real violin bow by wrapping the duct tape around the hairs of the bow, though I have no idea since I don't own a real bow.

I ended up choosing the Rock Band 2 Stratocaster as my improvised violin, particularly due to the distance of the solo frets from the guitar body and the looseness of the strumbar. I'll probably give the GH3 Gibson Les Paul a shot in the future, since the body of the guitar surrounding the strumbar is much less wide, and will hopefully give my bow a little more vertical leeway, though the thickness of the neck on Guitar Hero guitars really makes my hand cramp.

Note there's no way for the game to actually enforce whether you're drawing the bow (abnormally long chopstick) across the string (strumbar) or not, so during the sustains, it's not actually necessary to continue to pull the bow across the guitar but then what's the point of it being Violin Hero if not to mimic a violin as closely as possible? =P

--== Difficulty ==--

Play it as a guitar chart and it's not so tough. Play it like a violin with no prior violin experience and it's a pain. But still fun!

--== Other Notes ==--

Yes, the footage are legit. Yes, I really am playing Guitar Hero with a(n improvised) bow peripheral. However, the live footage is NOT the same playthrough as the gameplay footage, which is why I appear to make mistakes in the live and they don't show up in the gameplay. I've improved vastly since I first taped my concept, so I'll do a retaping later in the future, but I'm too laaaaaaazzzzzzyyyyyy right now. -.-

Also: Nowadays I use my keyboard's space bar to activate Star Power, so even if I don't tilt the guitar or press the Back button, I CAN still activate Star Power with my foot. (Or, potentially, a ridiculously exaggerated headbang, though that'd probably hurt more and make me miss a few notes. Though it'd be AWESOME if they invented some way to launch Star Power/Overdrive with a headbang. :D)

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• guitar
• hero
• custom
• purachina
• platina
• maya
• sakamoto
• card
• captor
• sakura
• violin

[36POINTBLANK]

@yamamoto114 thats gh3. Im the dumbass?ha in ur fucking dreams asshole.

[yamamoto114]

@36POINTBLANK

Xpadder. Translates controller buttons to keyboard keys. Yes, there's a workaround, YES I would have explained it to you if you hadn't been so obnoxiously juvenile, and YES, I just proved you wrong AGAIN. If you had just said "RB guitars don't work with GH3" from the beginning and left out the high school playground insults, you wouldn't have made yourself look like a complete retard. Precision of communication fail. Grow up a little before you try to prove me wrong again.

[36POINTBLANK]

@yamamoto114 no im not in middle school. Rb guitars do not work. Gh ones do. So go fuck urself since u cant get a girl to do tht for u

[yamamoto114]

@36POINTBLANK You're right. Saying you're in middle school is a terrible insult to actual middle schoolers. You're just a dumbass. Guitar Hero WT and beyond are all compatible with Rock Band instruments. LOOK IT UP and get your goddamn facts straight before you make yourself look like a complete fucktard in front of vastly more intelligent people.

Also, I have a wife and child. Try again.

[36POINTBLANK]

Gayyyyy rock band guitars dnt work with gh anyway dumbass!

[yamamoto114]

@36POINTBLANK You're probably still in middle school. Don't worry man. I was there before. A few more years and you'll be smart... I hope.

[yamamoto114]

@beatsalgado I'm a law student at Berkeley, what the fuck are you?

[goxdrooxgo]

this punk rock crowd is going GAGA over this young girls anime tune...and midori is TEARIN it up...i kinda got a laugh out of the irony...well played bro.

[docnom]

LoL Weird Idea but that's a good idea :D

[telethatesstarossa]

love quarrel LOL

[RavenEyeProduction23]

childish arguments, but I really like the concept of a violin hero. Brilliant



[rockerslash98]

wooooww no sabia que existia ñ_ñ xD xD xD xD

[MegaDennismenace]

I might sound stupid in asking this but is that a custom song and how do you put custom songs on guitar hero 3, can you put any song you want on guitar hero 3? I have a the Nintendo Wii version

[MegaDennismenace]

I might sound stupid in asking this but is that a custom song and how do you put custom songs on guitar hero 3, I have a the Nintendo Wii version

[DrummingDemon94]

@36POINTBLANK wow...you're an idiot for making such a big deal over him using a rock band guitar on gh3 xP