Another Strike of Teen Girl Spirits (Part 2)

(continued from part 1)

The group consisted of girls from various ages. Most of them were born in 90s era. There are some of them who were still in school, while some others had become university students. However, this age differences did not lose the group solidarity. The practice and performance showed their compactness and familiarity. However, their popularity was payback for what they had been doing since the day they were approved on the group. Following their story, their hard work worth their popularity.

Even the name was JKT48, were JKT stands for Jakarta, some of the members were not originally from Jakarta. They came from Bandung, joined the audition, and got approved in JKT48. For their performance, the members must go through the practice everyday. Because all of them were still students, the practice time was at the evening. Some members may also come late because of their school / university activities. For the Jakarta people, it wouldn't be a big deal to get into the practice location. However, reading the story, the Bandung girls must go to Jakarta right after their school time is over by the travel transportation. They would have to go in a hurry so they would not came late / too late to the practice. The practice was usually over around midnight and, can you imagine that these Bandung girls must insist to come home to Bandung at midnight by herself, using the last scheduled travel transportation, and go to school again in the next morning ? These activities were repeated almost everyday especially when approaching their theatrical performance period. I put high appreciation for the girls for their hard work. Also, don't forget that beside theatrical performances, JKT48 was also sometimes perform on special events and got involved in TV commercials. These girls must set their schedule smartly.

Additionally, the fact is, it was not so seldom that their hard practice was colored by tears, especially when approaching theater performance. It was because they were required to give their best performance to their spectators (and don't forget, there might be "Japanese standard of hard work", because there performance quality might affect the AKB family group in large scale).

However, there were rumors about some of their parents were still disagree / in doubt for letting their girls doing these JKT48 activities. Somehow, i would kinda feel the same if i were the parent. Having your daughter went out from evening to midnight (especially the Bandung girls who went across the city) and would be having the academic activity again on the next morning. Wouldn't you be worried when your daughter went across the city every night and return to home again at midnight, using public transportation by themselves ? So the girls must also make efforts in convincing their parents for their presence in the group.

I haven't got a chance to watch their theatrical performance but i really want to. Even though I haven't watched their performances directly, from the videos uploaded and people comments, I could conclude that their performance was amazing. The fans rushed in getting their theater tickets. Long queue appeared on the theater gate before their performance started. On the pictures and videos uploaded, the crowd was highly excited with the performance - coupled with many interactions between the idols and spectators. The interesting fact i found was that JKT48 could transform the "cute" image of AKB48 girls shown on the performances into "powerful and spirited girls" image. You can compare the "Wasshoi B" sung by B team of AKB48 with "Wasshoi J" performed by JKT48.

Everyone who loved AKB48 family usually has their own favorite member or oshi, sometimes they have more than one. So does in JKT48 where their fans must have their own oshi. Well, honestly, my oshi in JKT48 is this one : Melody Nurramdhani Laksani.

This Bandung girl's position and role within the group is kinda similar with Atsuko Maeda in AKB48, so far in my observation.

Well, coincidentally as i write this blog today, there is an event in JKT48 Theater. The event was the last day of JKT48 performance on Pajama Drive show series that had been held for days. Unfortunately, the show was also a graduation for one first generation member, Neneng Rosdiana or Ochi. Many fans were sad and deploring her quitting. However, we may just hope for the best, for both Ochi and the JKT48 group.

 

Another Strike of Teen Girl Spirits (Part 1)

At this post, let's move a while from classical music and orchestra theme. This time i want to go Pop, posting in Pop music theme.

Pop musics in Indonesia currently is having a great influence with boyband / girlband outbreaks. There are countless such music groups, from the very famous one to the unfamiliar ones. The groups was also ranged from kids to adult ones. Different with boy/girl band outbreaks in 90s era, which mostly influenced by western pop music, this time, it was great influence from eastern (mostly and especially Korean) pop music that combined singing with high intensity of dancing. You can also see that there are great acceptance for this outbreak in Indonesia, even in the world.

But there is one group, teen girl group, that brought out new concept to this group singing. Some people that do not really know, still recognize them as a girlband, but actually they are not really into it. Rather than a girlband, they are more to be called an idol grup. While girlband was busy with stage performances in many musical events or television, an idol group was more focused their stage performances in their own theatre. This idol group was named JKT48.

The term "idol group" means idol you can meet everyday, so every time you want to see them, you just come to the theater to see them. The concept came originally from Japan. There was a group named AKB48 that had their own theater and  perform in daily basis in Akihabara area.The group consisted of 48 girls doing singing and dancing performance to entertain the spectators. The team was divided into three groups which are team A, K, and B, where each of them had their own captains. Later, the founder, Yasushi Akimoto, expanded the business by developing another idol groups with similar concept, such as NMB48 (in Namba, Osaka), SKE48 (in Sakae, Nagoya), HKT48 (in Hakata, Fukuoka), and SDN48 (idol group with more mature content). AKB48 was also starting to have sister groups overseas like in Indonesia and China. However, the development and training of the overseas groups were still under supervision of Japanese producer. They were also occasionally involved in particular special events in Japan, so was JKT48. The original debut and the recruitment of JKT48 was the two examples.

Even the name was JKT48, the group were still consisted of 24 young girls. The producer recently was doing the second generation of JKT48 recruitment and we wish for the number 48 to be fulfilled (even unfortunately one of the first generation members was reported quits the group).

JKT48 was recently celebrating their one year anniversary. During the one year journey, who could have thought that they could gather a huge number of fans with full support and excitement ? If you ever witness JKT48 performance (in theater or other music events), you can see the euforia and powerful spirit of the fans. They yelled the chanting mix* and screaming their Oshi* names. Every time they do theatrical performances, the enthusiasm is always high. Many people often don't get the tickets because the tickets were sold out. while many other people still haven't got a chance to see their performance because of the distance or any other obstacles. Additionally, even the fans' euforia with the performance is high, what makes the fans more excited is the opportunity to interact with their idols after the show or in any other events. Usually after the show, the fans could shake hand or high five with all the members, photo session is also often allowed if possible. There are also other events were fans could interact with them (and the enthusiasm is always high), such as JKT48 guidebook signing and bowling together with JKT48 members. So many fans that get along with the song and mix, some ridiculous non-fans said that they were paid audiences. Well, which production team would bother hiring that many audiences, then train and pay them just for the group popularity ? Morevoer, the fans' enthusiasim did not reflect that they were paid audiences.

*Chanting Mix : Yell shouted along by the audience in some song parts. The regular mix for AKB48 family (including JKT48) are :
Tiger ! Fire ! Cyber ! Fiber ! Diver ! Viber ! Jya jya !

If the mix part is longer, usually the mix continued with Japanese and Ainu languages.

*Oshi : Consisted of two words, "oshi" and "men". "oshi" means push / support, while "men" came from "menba" ("member" in Japanese pronounciation). So "oshi" means the group member whom you most giving support or the most favorite member.

Even now they had so many loving fans, they journey did not begun easily. There is not a few people who were mocking and underestimating them on their introduction. Some people underestimated them, said that they did not have marketable look and talent and it will be difficult to get public attention, considering that Indonesian music had been flooded by boyband / girlband music groups. Some people said that they were just another group who copied Asian girlband concept.While other people said they were just another girlband with young members - just another kind of kid / teen exploitations.

However, the road for success is never easy. There will be obstacles, there will be some party who were mocking. But the JKT48 members kept training hard since their initial introduction. I think the recruitment process was still on-going during that time (after the introduction), because comparing with their debut now, i recognized there were some missing members from their first introduction (or maybe the missing members were just quitting by themselves). Before their first performance to public, there were videos that showed their practicing activity. I think the viewers were only those who had great expectation with this group and who were curious. Me myself was just knowing them in a cursory.

I cannot really remember which came first : their first stage performance or their first Pocari Sweat commercial, but i recognized them again since the Pocari Sweat commercial that showed young girls in a beach. Because I had listened to many Japanese music, i recognized the music featured in the commercial. Then the first time I saw their performance was at a music show on Global TV. At that time, I had not really known about them and did not really curious also.
But then I learned about AKB48 and their idol group concept, also how great the enthusiasm of Japanese public of this group. Additionally, the more often JKT48 performances in many TV shows and events (with the far more enthusiasm of the fans compared to the first time i saw their performance) had triggered my curiosity. I was interested of how powerful AKB48 and JKT48 fans' spirits at every time they watch their idol's performances.

Well, you know what even they have had a great success and public acceptance, their struggle for the group was commendable. Even their parents may still become one of the obstacles they have to face. I will continue the story of this girl power on later post......

(continued)

Say Anything

Hello,

Here we go again with another post in a new month. I feel like there was a quiet long time span since my last post, wasn't it ? However, this viral disease is slowing down my progress in making and exploring compositions, and creating blog post.

As we step further, this time i want to post my exploration result of a complicated composition. I cannot ignore this composition even i had done finishing it a few months ago, as the composition took quiet efforts in getting it done. It took around four months for me to complete exploring this composition, beside my other activities. When i finalized the arrangement, convert it into audio file and arrange the video file, I felt pretty satisfied and comfortable with the result, as simultaneously feeling unbelievable that I could done such arrangement.

The song is "Say Anything". Another popular ballad song from the legendary band X-Japan. The song was originally had ballad rock melody. However, many X-Japan songs had another versions afterwards. Yoshiki Hayashi, the leader, was the one who composed this song, and also the classical version that i explored and posted on this blog. The original song was released in 1991. Moreover, Yoshiki created the orchestral version of "Say Anything" and featured the song on his classical album, "Eternal Melody", in 1993.

The original song was only consisted of several Rock instruments : electric guitars, bass, drums, and Toshi's vocal - complemented by strings background to make it ballad and more emotional. However, the orchestration version was more complicated with many classical instrument sections played in the song. The new arrangement itself was quite different with the original arrangement. Those are what made me feel complicated in exploring this song and took longer time to complete it. The classical version included all basic classical instrument sections : Strings (included harp), wind, brass, and percussion sections. This arrangement i made was a modification of classical "Say Anything" recorded on "Eternal Melody" album and "Say Anything" that was performed on Yoshiki's Symphonic Concert in 2002, conducted by Konstantin Dmitrievich Krimets.

The song was begun by several string instruments' solo performances. And then oboe joined the melody, accompanied by strings. Gradually, the intro melody was dominated by strings, until the verse melody part where it was initiated by cello and wind instruments. Thereafter, the melody was mainly synergy of strings and winds. The brass sound did not come out until the chorus part. As the melody flowed, the emotion was mixed up. There were silent segments where only one / a few instruments dominating the melody in soft manner. There were also times were the music went elegant where all instrument played their parts in high dynamic. The original song was fully emotional. The lyric was full of sadness and hatred. Somehow, Yoshiki could conjure this fully emotional song into a full of elegance classical melody.

The multitude and completed instruments that played on the orchestra made me having difficulties in arranging the parts. As the parts contained of bars, notes, and also dynamic and tempo information for many instruments, i had to adjust the ideal placement so the visibility will be clear enough. Nonetheless, in some parts, some bars and clefs were found stacking up. I try as possible so it will not disrupt the visibility. Below are some messed up parts :

Well, basically i had no idea what to put on the video to accompany the song. So, i just put a collection of my favorite band, X Japan, pictures. If you found out odd images of X Japan (with such costumes), they were going non-mainstream by carrying Visual Kei style to Japanese music culture, which later was going popular and followed by other music groups. The pictures were compiling a story of X Japan journey, started from their early years in late 80s; How they made the journey in 90s and disbanded in 1998; The lost of one popular member, Hide; Reunited in 2007; And with the new formation, they made a new journey - World tour and spectacular stages. The successful world tour in 2011 had made the world called out for their second world tour, especially the unvisited countries. Even they had gone through several transformation, X Japan still remains in their fans' hearts, those from 80s era and those coming in later years until now.

X Japan Members (from their first major album until now) :

• Toshi      - Vocal
• Taiji        - Bass
• Heath     - Bass
• Pata       - Guitar
• Hide       - Guitar
• Yoshiki   - Drums and Piano
• Sugizo    - Guitar and Violin

And it turns out that today, one of the member is having his birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATA !!

Say Anything Arranged for Orchestra-J :

And I thanked for everyone whose pictures I used on the video.

Nodame Cantabile : Coda

As mentioned before, this post is continuation from previous blog post about "Nodame Cantabile : Capo"

Beside the insistent comedy by the ridiculous characters, there were also other things that made Nodame Cantabile one of my favorite J-dorama. Earlier i had little knowledge about classical pieces but watching this series had broaden my insight of classical music. I also became more eager in exploring classical music field. A good thing included on the show, it was often when a piece was performed, there would be facts informed regarding the piece played (usually narrated by Chiaki's voice). Sometimes there were also other information regarding classical music or orchestra in some scenes (such as explanation about the difference between Basson and Faggot that had similar characteristics ). It gave more insights for the TV viewers. Furthermore, another positive thing of watching Nodame Cantabile, everytime i watched the episodes, seeing Chiaki conducting the Orchestra or Nodame playing the Piano, i was always got more motivated and pushed to do more. After the show, I usually got encouraged to continue composing or do Piano practicing.

There were many pieces performed on Nodame Cantabile. I could not remember all of the pieces but at least there were some internationally known pieces that i could memorize because following the series. Now i recognized and memorized the melodies of Beethoven's "Symphony no 7", Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Mozart's "Oboe Concerto KV 314", which i did not know at all before watching Nodame series. When watching Addie MS' Twilite Orchestra were performing repertoire from Nodame Cantabile series, i had been familiar with most of the pieces. Some pieces are obligated to be performed such as Beethoven's "Symphony no 7", Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", and Sergei Prokifiev's "Montagues and Capulets". Those pieces are well known by the serial lovers.

 I also found out the melodies i'd had ever heard on some events. Now i know that :

It was Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No 2" that was played as background music on Yoshiki's drum solo performance on X Japan's concert. 

It was Dvorak's "Symphony No 9 : From the New World" that i heard on "One Piece anime series

And i immediately recognized Ravel's "Bolero" was played at the beginning of Girls Generation's "Paparazzi" music video clip.

Regarding my interest in classical music, seeing some pieces were performed on the series, with its complicated and challenging playing, i got encouraged to try some compositions. The compositions such as Liszt's "Mazeppa", Mozart's "Turkish March", and Stravinsky's "Petrouchka" had got my interest to play it on piano. However, without a hard-enough practicing, one would not be able to play the pieces properly. I admit that i had done the practice much less then it should be. Hahaha.....

Every great mangaka (comic creator) i'd known usually study deeply about the theme they raised on their manga. Takeshi Maekawa has great understanding about chinese Kung Fu when creating "Kung Fu Boy" manga. Eichiro Oda has a wide insight about oceanic history so he can created a very famous and successful comic serial about pirates, "One Piece". So did Tomoko Ninomiya where she put many classical pieces that i had not even known yet on the manga. From many sources, i could not get the explanation whether Tomoko Ninomiya understands musical theory or classical music and able to play musical instruments but from a source, there is an information that she got helped by a person who inspired her to create the Noda Megumi character. Interesting fact mentioned is the inspiring person was also named Noda Megumi and she was a piano teacher in Fukuoka. (Both Noda Megumi (the real one and Ninomiya's) had the same name, same characteristics (The real Noda sent a picture of her messy room to Tomoko Ninomiya and drew Tomoko's attention), and also same hometown. The real Noda Megumi was also said as the one who composed "Moja-Moja Suite", Nodame's song creation on the story.

  

About the audience level rate, i could not decide the rate of the series because there were a few of mature contents but the joke was ridiculously hilarious and very comical. So, i made a conclusion that this live-action dorama might be aimed for adults who were still having a part of childish spirit (like me !). However, even the theme was generally about classical music, everyone could enjoy the dorama because the story was light and did not put many difficult musical terms.

fine

Blowin'

A simple composition made for this time. This is not actually a song but this melody came up as one of the original soundtracks of "Taiyou no Uta" TV series that was aired on Japanese Television on 2006. The soundtrack was originally composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, the musician that had done several works on Japanese dorama and anime.

"Taiyou no Uta" TV dorama was adapted from an a movie with the same title. The dorama was starred by Takayuki Yamada and Erika Sawajiri. The story was about a girl who suffer a disease that restricted her to be exposed by the sun. Ultraviolet radiation had become lethal for the girl, so she just had midnight time for enjoying outdoor activites. Most of her night time was spent by playing a guitar on her favorite spot near. At one moment, she met the surfer guy whom she often stared from her window. As the relationship developed, Kaoru (Erika Sawajiri) and Koji (Takayuki Yamada) spent their quality time on Koji's scooter, went around the seaside neighborhood, and sitting by the sea. The setting was on seaside housing. So most activites shown on the series are seaside people activites like surfers, playing beach volleyball, fishermen, and beach party. But Kaoru and Koji were focused on musical band where they eventually created a pop music group (the main purpose is for realizing Kaoru's dream for being a stage performer).

As if creating a seaside ambience, i felt that this "Blowin'" song was illustrating a soundtrack when people spent their time on the coastline - walking by the beach, sit around. The magical moments when you were on the coastline are the sunset or the sunrise and i felt this song was also illustrated the moments (maybe because it was the period of time when Kaoru Amane can make herself outdoor). The "Blowin'" title might mean the wind that we feel blowing our faces on the coast.

Somehow this song had a past memory to me, more like a sad memory. One day, my shuffle playlist turned to this song. It was rewinding the memory but instead of awakening the sadness, i suddenly got an idea and got triggered to compose another version of this song.

On the original version, the melody was lead by an acoustic guitar, from beginning to the end. The main melody was accompanied by a small number of instruments like piano, strings,  another acoustic guitar, electric bass, and synthetizer sounds. Even the music tempo is not so ballad, somehow it had melancholy ambience.

Without changing the melody, i add and eliminate some instruments. I add woodwind section on the song with oboe and clarinet for leading the melody. So, instead of hearing guitar plucking, you will hear the woodwinds blowing on the whole song. With my composing tools, i can barely modifiy the synthetizer sounds, so i just add simple percussions to accompany the melody. There were no major changes to piano or strings sounds.

By these modifications, i found that the song was a little bit more classical and had the mood changed. And i also found it more simpler than the original one.

Because the song and the series had seashore theme, i also put the same theme on these post, video, and also the new song arrangement. Some pictures displayed on the video were taken by my friend, Haga Tara S, the soon-to-be great photographer.

Nodame Cantabile : Capo

I like watching Japanese Drama (J-Dorama), especially the comedy ones. But the main reason i 'd prefer J-dorama to other countries' TV series (Korean, Taiwanese, or western) is because they were only consist of few episodes (mostly around 10-12 episodes). It was different with Korean or Chinese TV series that mostly had over 20 episodes, or western TV series that had continuous episodes aired in several seasons (or Indonesian TV series that will not end as long as there are TV audiences). I had watched many J-doramas and i can conclude that mainly J-dorama contains dramatic scenes, comedy, and moral of the story.

One of my favorite J-dorama is "Nodame Cantabile" . For classical music lovers or orchestra players must have been familiar and should had watched this classical music theme TV series. Even the popular Indonesian orchestra group, Twilite Orchestra conducted by Addie MS, had ever held two concert with Nodame Cantabile theme. There are many elements that this serial contains : Classical music, comical comedies, orchestra, drama, lovers, etc.
"Nodame Cantabile" originally was a manga created by Tomoko Ninomiya. This manga was then developed into a "live-action drama" aired on Japanese Television. Later, it was also developed into anime series. The most appreciation come to the manga and the "live-action drama". Maybe one of its success key is the theme as there are not many manga / TV serials come up with classical music theme.

 

The first time i heard about this series title, i did not recognize that this was a classical music TV serial.  But when i started to watch the first episode and knowing that it was mainly about classical music, my interest was about rapidly rising to follow up this dorama. I had to admit that this series is one of the best J-dorama i had ever seen, mostly because the classical theme contains and the stupid, ridiculous, comical jokes that performed in the series. 

Note : I had to explain that the "Nodame Cantabile" i mostly talked about is the "live-action" drama one. I did not read the manga, nor watching the anime series. The real-human performers made the story depiction and the characters' motion were more real and did not make sense simultaneously (ignore it if you couldn't understand the meaning, haha...)

The main characters are Shinichi Chiaki (Cast : Hiroshi Tamaki) and Noda Megumi / Nodame (Cast : Ueno Juri). I appreciate both actor and actress because they were successfully described the real characters of Chiaki and Nodame, the hard-headed Chiaki and the clumsy Nodame where at the end both of them established an interesting relationship. Another fact about the actor / actress is they had to learn about classical music and playing the piano so they would portray the characters properly. However, the instrument playing on the series / movies were performed by professional musicians, so did the orchestra performances.

Another interesting part about their relationships is that they complemented each other. Chiaki always yells, sometimes becomes rude, when Nodame's spirit is low (also when Nodame did disgusting matters). Unwittingly, he was the one who was the most willing to teach / assist Nodame for  becoming a better piano player (even at the end, he realized that Nodame had her own  distinct view about piano playing). The other way around, Nodame was also becoming influential in Chiaki's life. She tried to drive out Chiaki's aerophobia (afraid of traveling by plane) to make Chiaki's dream of going to Europe come true. She was also the first (and the most enthusiastic) one  who pushed Chiaki in realizing his dream to become an orchestra conductor. Chiaki, who formerly got annoyed by Nodame's existence, gradually admitted her as one of important pieces of his life and then the love relationship started to grow.

One of my favorite part of this dorama is the comical and ridiculous comedy (as it was adapted from a manga). Characters who are the most often doing stupid things are Nodame and Masumi (the timpani player), where they often fight because both were having special feelings for Chiaki (an exception from my interest to J-dorama is I always hate when there were 'yaoi' parts on the story ( you could browse the 'yaoi' meaning by yourself )). Those ridiculous moments such as Masumi's disgust expression every time Nodame flirts or seduces Chiaki and Masumi's embarrassment when Chiaki is nearby. He could suddenly become faint. It was also funny when Chiaki found out disgusting facts about Nodame and her room. Meanwhile, Nodame's most comical moments are the "Gyaboo..." expressions. Other characters who also sometimes become entertaining are Stresseman the conductor and Mine the violinist. All those characters become funny and did stupid things while they were on a drunk party. I often laugh when watching the "live-action" series.

Hufff... I feel that this post about Nodame had been long enough, whereas I still had some things to write about Nodame Cantabile on my draft.
So i had decided to split the post into two sections. This writing will be continued on "Nodame Cantabile : Coda".

Longing -Togireta Melody-

I should have posted this composition at the beginning of September 2012, but due to my health problem, i’ve just had the chance to complete the song and put it on my blog at this time.

Another composition originated by Yoshiki Hayashi for X-Japan. The song “Longing” was launched on 1995. “Longing” was originally having two forms : one is “Longing – Setsubou no Yoru”, where there was only Toshi’s vocal with strings background and the other one is “Longing –Togireta Melody-“, the one with more complete instruments such as drums and electric guitar. You can listen to the songs in singles CD with the same title.

This time, i tried to make some improvements, rather than just studying and imitating the song to examine my listening skill. This was also in order to make it more compatible with classical instrumental orchestra, such as disabling the drum part and replacing the electric guitar sections.

I made the song begun with cello domination to make a it more deeply emotional. I want to make an instrumental composition, so i filled the singer vocals part with flute and clarinet, and for the chorus part, the vocal part was filled by strings instruments. Piano also played an important part in this song, just like the original composition, to accompany the flow. My favorite part is the violin duet part in the middle of the song. This part was originally played by electric guitars. Because the theme is orchestral, i tried to replace it with violin duet and somehow i really love the result, even this part was only for several seconds. Furthermore, the original “Longing -Togireta Melody-“ duration was longer than the one on my composition but i cut some parts (another chorus repetition) and it seemed more ideal with this shorter duration. 

You may wonder the the picture slides on the video was mostly fulfilled with loneliness theme. As the song title spoke, and so did the melody, the mellow song was generally about loneliness and sadness. That’s why i also tried to adjust the orchestral melody with this theme so the song would not lose its original picture. 

The Senses

One day i was watching MasterChef US reality show on TV. It was the first season of MasterChef US.  Among the elimination rounds, there is one round where the MasterChef candidates were served a dish (at that moment, the dish was some kind of soup). They had to taste the dish and then guess the ingredients mix. In front of them are plates of various kind of ingredients and they have to guess correctly about 10 from 24 ingredients that were used in the mix. The 3 judges (Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich) then determined whether the participant's guesses were right or wrong.

At that time, in my mind i was thinking ""How the hell it can be done ?""How possible it was to identify the ingredients used, one by one, from the dish that had been mixed ?". I was considering that a normal person (including me) would not be able to identify the ingredients that many. Mostly we may identify ingredients that dominated the taste or had prominent taste among others. I thought it was impossible to  disjoint the taste and identify the sources.

But there is something i realized when i was exploring the music. When i am exploring the music, i try to listen carefully to the melody sources and eventually i will recognize approximately what musical instruments were played. It was a similar job to the people who taste the dish and recognize the ingredients. We might be unable to guess all instruments and ingredients correctly and but at least we could describe how the big picture was drawn.

So, what differs these things ? I think it's the role of senses. Everyone who were dedicated to their work, were actually optimizing their senses. Not to mention that they are also sharpening their other skills, but it is how particular senses played an important role for particular jobs. People who work on music were optimizing their sense of hearing while the chefs were utilizing their sense of taste. If we look further, these (and other) senses were also working on other fields, such as hunters optimize their sense of sight to recognize their prey between trees.

Regarding this role of senses, those people who do the job usually require and utilize multiple sense, rather than one sense only. Beside optimizing their sense of hearing to analyze the sound harmony, an orchestra conductor may also use their sense of sight to detect any faults. Chefs may also use the sense of smell to explore the dish, but there is always one sense that play an important role for particular jobs. For special case when this dominating sense did not work well (e.g disability), other sense would be required to cover its role. It was like a piano player regularly uses his hands to play the piano, but when facing disability, if the person had strong passion, it was not impossible that he/she were still continuing his/her piano playing using his/her feet. 

This is how i view how particular sense were contributing in particular activities. They played an important role to people in making creations.

So, can you name any more jobs that identical with particular senses ?

Amethyst

The song 'Amethyst' was originally composed by Japanese Musician Yoshiki Hayashi for his legendary band, X-Japan. The song was regularly played as opening scene of every X-Japan concert. As the song flows, the X-Japan members will enter the stage one by one or in group. The classical nuance, combined with elegance, played important part in describing the magnificent concert.

The song was developed by multiple classical instruments. I arranged the 6-minutes composition with basic orchestral sections : Strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion. The base of this arrangement was taken from Amethyst piano scores by Yoshiki, combined with all that i caught from my hearing.

Begun calmly by several instruments, mainly by strings. The flow of the song filled with fluctuating mood. Some parts were filled only by a few instruments, while some others were build by many and various instruments.The final part was the climax where all sections had their roles. Overall, the flow was escalating and rose-up when reaching the ending.

The classical elegant nuance was describing something precious and elegant. It illustrated how Yoshiki associated X-Japan with the Amethyst gem. It is something i also want to present in this arrangement of mine.

Prologue

The story behind Orchestra-J. How and why it was created. First of all, i had interest in classical music. I have a dream of conducting an orchestra but still haven't met the resources yet. I am also have no guidance nor clue about how to get there. Somehow, i had an idea of creating what i was called "Virtual Orchestra", because the instruments wasn't played by physically real performers but came from my computer. By having this blog, i finally have a room to make a spill. Initially, In this orchestra there were only two things that i rely on : My Laptop and My Hearing Sense. So, you may think my work is good or bad. But, remember that there were only three elements in starting this orchestra : Me myself, My Laptop, and My Hearing Sense.

So, here we are.. Please welcome.. Orchestra-J...