Instrumental Solo - Level 2 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1271184
By Billie Eilish. By Billie Eilish O'Connell and Finneas O'Connell. Arranged by Thomas Gunther. Children,Contemporary,Film/TV. Individual part. 4 pages. Thomas Gunther Music Productions #863576. Published by Thomas Gunther Music Productions (A0.1271184).
About the arrangementÂ
This is pianist/arranger Thomas Gunther's beautiful and highly accurate piano solo arrangement of the 2023 Barbie Movie features Billie Eilish's song WHAT I WAS MADE FOR. Â It includes even Billie's quiet humming passages.
This solo piano version can be played all by itself, or with Billie's recording of the song.
It is easy enough to learn for pianists that have no amazing techniqual skills, but can be challanging in different ways, as explained below.
From the Arranger Thomas Gunther
 The most challenging task when writing this solo piano arrangement of What I Was Made For was to notate Billie's rhythm accurately. Her melodic rhythm is very important as it supports the flow of the lyrics perfectly. Notating a singer's rhythm can unfortunately never be 100% perfect (notation is by definition quantized), but I think I got very close.Â
An other challenge was to get the accompaniment sound like the original without stepping on the melody notes.Â
Looking at my final version I think it is as good as it gets for a piano adaption of this highly emotional song.
I really hope all you Billie Eilish fans out there will enjoy playing this arrangement!
How difficult is it
As mentioned earlier, the song looks simple, but to play it well there is a lot of things the pianist has to take care of. The most challenging aspect is to sustain some notes by either using clever fingering or employing the sustain pedal. Also, dynamics are really important, especially when ballancing the accompaniment against the melody.
Fingering
I included fingering numbers to give the pianist a starting point. But fingering is a highly subjective affaire. Every pianist should feel free to adapt her/his own fingering as see fit.
Sustain pedal usage
The sustain pedal usage is very important in this arrangement (I included sustain pedal markings for this very reason). For one, it helps sustaining some notes that can't be held otherwise, and of course to make the sound fuller (more cinematic). It is important to use the pedal to create a sense of space (distance). After all, the original recording uses a lot of reverb to achieve that.
Chord Symbols
I did not include pop chord symbols because the harmony to the the song is very simple and based around 4 diatonic chords. It would just cludder up the score. At PopJazzKeys.com/Barbie I talk a little bit about the chords.
