Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Three Tune Tuesday post.

As always, thanks to @ablaze for making this series. Lots of people participate in it! Follow the tags to find a ton of good music recommendation.

Today... Studio Ghibli. That's pronounced with a soft G by the way (or in other words a J sound). The name Ghibli comes from Italian and the original Italian word actually would have a hard g sound, but in when Miyazaki took the word as the name of his studio, he used the Japanese pronunciation jiburi.

So yeah, Studio Ghibli has been in the news the past few days, as OpenAI added the ability to ChatGPT to mimic many different art styles, the most popular of these being Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is incredibly popular all over the world, so it's no surprise this became the most popular of ChatGPT's new art styles. Many people love it, but many more are really angry about it, because in order to give ChatGPT this ability they had to scan all of the Ghibli movies frame by frame. So in a sense, OpenAI is stealing the art style. There are numerous clips going around, one of them has Miyazaki calling AI a crime against humanity, and another one showing how he cares so much about details that he spent over a year animating a crowd scene that's only a few seconds long.

Anyway, this isn't the post to get into that debate, whether you think the new ChatGPT feature is good or bad. But with Studio Ghibli in the news, I thought we'd look at three covers of songs from their movies.

All of these are done by a trio calling themselves Ensemble Japan. The lead player plays a beautiful shakuhachi (a Japanese flute), and there there is a piano player and a violin player. All the songs were originally composed by Joe Hisaishi.

All Ghibli movies are beautiful, but Totoro may be the most beautiful in a sense, because it represents childhood innocence. There is no bad guy, it's just two girls and their adventure. This is a great song from the movie, one that if you've seen the movie may even have you chocking back some tears.

Princess Mononoke is all about nature and the environment, and this song sums up the movie. The performer writes "This song represents the grandeur of Japanese nature" and I really can't argue with that. It's a wonderful piece played wonderfully here.

Spirited Away is actually my favorite Ghibli Movie. All of them are good, but this one is really special. This is a wonderful cover of this great song.

So what's your favorite?