Persona 5 Piano Solo Score Original Soundtrack Collection Music Japan

To preface, I'm an experienced pianist with a deep love for Shoji Meguro's Persona 5 OST. When I noticed Yamaha didn't have a live performance album of the pieces arranged for this book--as is usually tradition with JRPG piano books--I thought I'd buy this collection, perform them myself, and release the recordings for others to listen to.I had a difficult time reading through and learning these arrangements. The first track "Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There" is mostly fairly accurate to the original, but you can see from the product picture that the left hand is not well-written for a pianist, and full of highly syncopated and often confusing movements. I don't think the arrangement for this track is strictly a matter of difficulty, but it seems to have been arranged with disregard to the very tempo it calls for, as though the arranger thought the pianist was a bassist. Further, there's a whole section of the piece that consists of--and I'm not exaggerating--nothing but see-saw left hand G octaves for an entire page that does an incredible disservice to the original track, not to even mention how uninteresting it is to perform or listen to. This first arrangement here is emblematic of the problems throughout the book: sloppy arrangements that don't come anywhere close to approaching the versitility of the instrument, and many of which seem to be made with disregard to the performer who will be learning and performing them."Life Will Change" is the next track and it fares no better: the left hand continues see-sawing between octaves of the root of whatever chord is required for the duration of the 6-page piece (not counting the 2 repeats and DS al coda). Although the right hand plays an accurate melody, this arrangement is far less difficult than the previous "Wake Up" in a way that is somewhat insulting to the performer having just come off the brutal previous arrangement. Later tracks like "Will Power" continue this boring see-saw of a left hand. "Triumph" is essentially a copy-paste of the melody onto both hands. "Our Beginning" is a short 3 page piece, but I'm amazed at how boring it is as well--most of the last page, for example, was the same copy-pasted 2 bar vamp. And I'm confused at why the publisher of the book thought it was a good idea to include 2 versions of "Hoshi To Bokura To"? One of these is confusingly even labelled as a "piano version"! That said though, both arrangements are written fine--and one of them includes lyrics--so maybe I should be considering one of them as a sort of bonus track."Blooming Villain" isn't what I'd call a particularly good arrangement, but it's much more servicable in a way that challenges the performer. Granted that the original track doesn't lend itself well to being performed on piano, but at least in this arrangement the melody is, more often than not, supplemented by a fun bassline. "Rivers In The Desert" is similar. Between the boring left hand parts and the, although accurate, dull melody line that had me hitting Gs for measures at a time, this piece doesn't work well for piano.I will give kudos to some of the arrangements that do much better though: Last Surprise, Price, The Whims of Fate, Tokyo Daylight, Sunset Bridge, Aria of the Soul, and Beneath the Mask are much more pianistic and better written. It was fun and rewarding to learn these pieces, despite a few of them having a lazy "DS al Fine" that asked the performer to repeat 2-3 pages all over again.I won't say I regret the purchase because this book will be more useful to me as I continue to make arrangements of the music from this game, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this book to other pianists who are looking for P5 piano works to learn. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like there are many other options for pianists in the way of P5 arrangement offerings elsewhere, so this might be the best we can get at the moment. If it would be useful to other potential purchasers, I've performed all the pieces in this book with very few changes. It's available anywhere music can be listened to under the title "Piano Collections: Persona 5" by David Russell. Thanks for reading; hope this review is useful to you.

The sheet music book arrived two weeks ago and I've been playing it every single day. I've had enough time to play through every song at least once and can say that the arrangements in the collection are faithful to the original version (meaning the version with all the other elements in it, such as electric bass, strings, vocals, etc.). There are 16 songs in the book, most of which are staples (e.g. Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There; Beneath The Mask; Velvet Room Theme; Price, Sunset Bridge; Last Surprise). Most of these are really quite excellent, and as someone who wants to improve his piano skills, these pieces are also a great way to pick up some jazz piano experience. Every arrangement includes chords for the song, in case you want to use the chords to make your own cover or arrangement. The only thing I would complain about is that it doesn't have more tracks for the price and that some arrangements (like for Blooming Villain or Victory Theme) are a little simple (re: boring) for left hand.

I was a little hesitant to buy this as I don't play any instruments myself but I got it anyway because my girlfriend plays piano and MIGHT like it. However once I got it for her, she absolutely fell in love with "Beneath the Mask". Now, most weekend mornings and nights, I get to hear the amazing sounds that are the Persona 5 soundtrack.

The book has all the major pieces, including the Aria of the Soul. It is unfortunately, in a glue-bound book so it's hard to keep open, but that's what clothes pins are for.

I bought it as a present, and the recipient was enthusiastic!

Easy to read, fun to play