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2024: Improving piano skills is a gradual process, here's my latest attempt at the EQ theme for the 25th anniversary.

2019: I recorded much of the early EverQuest music between 2013-2016. Then character actress Margo Martindale sabotaged my music career by giving me a free WoW sub. And I think she was working for Russia.

In October 2019 I recorded a new piano transcription of the EQ Theme. 

2013: I started playing EQ when I was 15, just a couple months after its launch in 1999. And I very much liked the music; sometimes I’d just roam around to hear the songs. Many years later, someone extracted MIDI files from the XMI files in the EQ directory, and posted them on the EQ forums. 

In college I had taken a class on Finale and bought it, but had never really used it – there were ogres and such to slay. In 2013 Finale offered an upgrade to the full 2012 software for $100 if you owned any previous version (which seemed like a bargain off my 2003 academic edition). I thought it would be fun to learn Finale by transcribing my favorite computer game music, especially since the original EQ songs weren’t available as MP3s. I played around with the North Ro music, Kelethin and a few others. 

Then in the summer SOE announced Player Direct, with a video of someone performing the Kelethin Theme on piano! Instead of persecuting fans for intellectual property infringement, some companies have become enlightened enough to appreciate the free advertising. So I got serious and transcribed the Original EQ Theme. Once I’d finished recording my Chopin Polonaises album - which I’d spent over two years learning - I put in a few weeks of practice on the EQ Theme and uploaded it to YouTube. EQ posted it on their Facebook page and it quickly got over a thousand views (my Chopin music mostly had less than ten).

I've posted a .zip with the the 422 MIDI files that someone extracted from the EQ directory to the EverQuest MIDI Files section.

My EQ music videos are on YouTube in this playlist, and also in the Videos/Sheet Music section - each with my piano arrangement sheet music.

I plan to continue transcribing Jay Barbeau's music, performing it on YouTube, and posting the piano sheet music here.