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.