Finally, we dwell over escape. The escape from the daily monotony, the same old music, the regularity of everything, and most times, this escape is hard to find. But it’s always there, and it’s not very far away. This time, we talk about that escape. These instrumentals are here because of how much we’ve learnt with regards to music theory and about the instruments themselves, to the point where every voice plays with our souls, with every emotion we have, toying with us till everything is gone. It’s this escape that helps us push past the monotony, each melody giving us purpose, or maybe you just want something new to listen to, and these recommendations are for you.
An unlikely place to find this relief is classical and neo-classical music. One can easily find themselves lost in the harmonies of the obvious Beethoven and Mozart and Yiruma and so on, but what’s so much cooler is hearing their renditions on badass guitars, and a VERY famous example would be Tina S’ cover of the 3rd movement of Moonlight Sonata, with her own patches and tones that give a whole new dynamic to the entire piece. There are many popular classical guitarists too; Tommy Emmanuel and Ana Vidovic, with rather excellent fingerstyle techniques that are simply a delight to listen to and astounding to watch. Many other youtubers, like Eddie Van Der Meer have acoustic covers of popular songs, along with Charlie Parra Del Riego’s acoustic pieces and John Butler, their classical pieces are simply a delight to listen to, and is definitely a must-listen for any musician.
Another absolutely glorious place where classical music takes you are orchestras. Where close to a hundred, if not more instruments come together, coalescing perfectly to give us songs that tell us the best of stories without words, riding our emotions without moving an inch, and taking such good hold and control of every note of every chord and every tense muscle in your body while never even bothering to look at you, orchestras are extremely easy to lose yourself into. The power of holding each chord, where every note in it matters, is something that can only be truly appreciated in orchestras, and the experience is truly fleeting. Googling any random orchestras and listening to the first thing, if not the tenth, or the hundredth, is highly recommended because they’re all amazing.
A huge place where the impact of these instrumentals are in the one place that is most accessible to all of us – the soundtracks of movies and games. Everyone knows how popular and impactful the soundtracks of Interstellar and Game of Thrones are, and they’re orchestral pieces. Classical pieces, and neo-classical pieces, along with experimental genres are high in demand for games and movies, simply because of the control they achieve to better portray an emotion, to make it so much more fleeting. The best example would be 2019’s God of War 4, who’s music was made by Bear McCreary, and is considered one of the best soundtracks of the year, with two instrumentals in the entire album, the two which played an instrumental role to the mood of the game, considering one of them being the background to Kratos fighting and killing a lightning breathing dragon, which can’t get any more badass. Another example would be Deltarune and Undertale, a game whose core gameplay relies on being a good person, and being nice to all your enemies, and the music in it played a detrimental role in making sure this concept didn’t get too overly cheesy and cliché, and the music definitely left it’s mark in the hearts of every person who’s played it.
If it hasn’t been evident enough, instrumentals are everywhere. Often in the background, but they’re the reason the world’s a brighter place, making everything around it so much more brazen, and soon enough, these instruments are going to be the stars of the show, leading with their own voices, with music that will definitely make the world a prettier one to live in.
By Sharan Aditya
Chords & Co. 