weezer - Only in dreams (steelopus version) - arranged for Mallet Percussion Ensemble

I couldn’t let today pass without acknowledging the blue album. Happy 20th birthday to the album that had the most dramatic affect on my young life. If you care about anything else I’ve said about weezer in the past, there are currently 132 tagged posts for you to dig through.

I arranged this 8 years ago, just as I was finishing up my undergrad Music Education degree.  It is essentially a note-for-note transcription of this classic song.

My experience as a percussion minor introduced me to many a varied new technique, including my favorite which was bowed vibraphone.  When you bow the bars of a vibe, they emit a pure pitch that fades in and out (youtube example).  The first time I heard the technique, I immediately thought it sounded a lot like electric guitar feedback, and decided I would find a way to use it in that sense.  That spawned this project.

Unfortunately this recording is just a somewhat flawed MIDI version (there was no way to actually fake bowed vibes when I made this back in 2001), but it gets the point across. I’d still like to find a real ensemble to perform it.