The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Solomon Linda / George David Weiss / The Tokens - Piano Cover 

Unfortunately no, I did everything by ear.

Wow

This one was actually the least demanding piece I've uploaded to my channel. The chords and the melody were simple and there weren't many details in the composition I had to pay attention too. I can't really tell how long I practiced this one since it's already been in my ‘repertoire’ for a long time and at one point it just becomes muscle memory. For newer pieces with more complex chords and melodies, I sometimes listen to the pieces note by note and write notes down in MuseScore so I have something like a lead sheet as a guidance and then try to come a with a way to play it. This takes the most time and I often come up with unplayable arrangements which is also the reason why there hasn't been a new video on my channel for ages. There isn't really a simple trick or guide on how to arrange a piece so it ends up sounding good. I'd say it takes a bit of experience and it becomes somewhat of a subconscious process. The left hand is mostly improvised. Recording the video is the most frustrating part because it usually takes several hours since I'm not really able to play well reliably and it takes a lot of attempts to get it good enough for RU-vid. I was less of a perfectionist when I put my first videos online though so they took less time and went up with some audible mistakes.

@@manuelradatz Thanks for such an honest and practical reply! It's actually encouraging to know that the youtube videos out there, arent something most people can just conjure up on command perfectly :) I also appreciate the tip on Musescore. Thank you!

Hi, I probably won't create any sheet music for my piano arrangements. I wouldn't mind the time it takes to transcribe them to be honest but publishing them online could lead to copyright issues. I know that most people don't care about that, they release sheet music for music that they don't have the rights for and usually nothing happens to them but for me it's not worth the risk. (Putting cover songs on RU-vid however is okay since RU-vid takes care of the rights.) I don't think I'll release any Synthesia-style tutorials either if that is what you mean since whenever I play the piano there are usually mistakes all over the place. Maybe you don't hear them when listening but it is far more notable in those tutorial videos. Sorry ;)

What kind of blog do you want to use it for? And in what way?

Hi Manuel. Thank you for your response. It’s a travel blog and I would like to use it as a background song.

Yes, you're free to use it but I'd ask you to give me some credit (adding a link to this video to your blog video description is absolutely enough if you upload your travel blogs to RU-vid).

There is one thing I forgot to mention: Actually I'm not the only one you need to ask if you want to use the song because technically, the song itself is still protected by copyright as well. I guess it should be fine if you use it because it is often tolerated (I didn't ask anyone either) and I've never heard that anyone had gotten in trouble because of using a piano cover in a small blog but I just wanted to make it clear.

Great thank you for your response Manuel. You are right. I will definitely give some credit. Thanks a lot once more.