When You Play What You Love

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Sometimes we feel the pressure when we are facing a musical exam or musical performance ahead. Me myself had also been on that situation for several times. But, if you had ever experienced, when we play the musical pieces that we like, do you feel lighter than when you play the song that you did not really like ? What else any convenience you observed when you play the thing that you love ?

I would like to tell a story related to the topic. In the school where I was teaching, at student examination week, the teachers were also being examined by the school owner. So we have our own target to elevate our grades just like the student. At my beginning, before I even teach a single student, I was told that I will also be included in this teacher examination. For the school owner also wanted to know me better. For information, in this city, where I was far away from my hometown, I had not afford to have a piano in my room. Furthermore, I had not been touching the piano for quite a while. Facing the examination that will be held within two weeks time, I had a bundle of examination materials that I had to practice. Having my primary job during working hours made me have to practice at the evening after work. Almost every evening, for a couple hours, I spent for piano practicing. Sometimes I was left alone practicing while the others had gone home.

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And finally the examination day came. Even I had been practicing every evening, I feel that my performance would not be very good enough but just "in average" or "acceptable". Considering my two-weeks-practice was also the first time I touched the piano again after a while. It is unfortunate that during the examination, with my "only average" performance, I found out that I missed several examination materials I had to practice, so the total score was not good enough. I was afraid of failing the test. Then the last part of the test is playing the musical pieces.

I played two musical pieces. With such performances, the examiner rebuked many things such as my incorrect sitting position and my too-many moves. The standard playing position should be : all part of the body was steady, the only body parts moving actively are the fingers -- not your arm, head, or body. There was also critics for playing technique such as pedaling and fingering. With that many critics, I only got acceptable points  for both songs -- not helping enough. Then came the worst part. I should be playing three pieces while I just prepared for two ! I explained that I only had a narrow time to prepare it all but the examiner insisted for another piece. She said "Well, it did not have to a piece from the exam book, you can play any song that had similar difficulties".

Then I just spontaneously took a musical piece from my bag. The piece was ten minutes long composed by Yoshiki Hayashi, my music idol. The piece title was Anniversary - Piano Concerto. I really loved this piece because it was beautiful. Yoshiki obviously put great effort in composing this song (as this song was dedicated for the Japanese Emperor on his birthday). Even I had played this piece before, I completely did not prepare for playing this piece. I did not play this song at my practicing time. Well, I just go through playing this song from the beginning to finish. You know what... The first expression came from her was starring at me and commented "wow, you looked so enjoy playing this song !". I was kind of surprised. The fact is, during the piece playing, I did many more body moves than I did on two previous pieces. I also did not observing my playing technique in details. I just focused in playing the melody and actually, I did enjoy playing it. At that time, I was forgetting that I was on examination and under monitoring. I feel the pressure was released. Another fact was : I think there were quite number of faulty melodies, more than I did on the previous pieces I had practiced but the examiner seemed do not concern too much about it. She did not mention at all regarding my informal body moves and playing technique after I played the last piece.

And you know what.. the last piece helped elevating my score. Even the total score was not that good, I was saved from failing the test. Considering that the last piece was the one I did not practiced and have much longer duration among the other materials, it was such a miracle. And actually, the Anniversary piece was much more complicated the other pieces. Furthermore, the examiner wanted to hear the original music, so I turned on the music from my mobile phone. The original performance was fully orchestrated and, moreover during the evaluation, she said if someday the school was holding an event, I may have the opportunity to perform this piece, accompanied by some kind of orchestra formation. Do you know how shocked I was ? Aside of the "Just Okay" score, I got shifted feeling from gloomy to wonderful.

From this little event, I learned priceless thing that I had experienced myself.

• It is how when you play the song you love, miracle may happen at anytime. 
• And when you play the song that you love, you will be encouraged to do it beautifully.
• Then when you enjoy doing the thing and playing it beautifully, people do not sweat on small mistakes. They will get distracted on how you are being yourself on delivering the melody.

So, when you are facing an musical examination or performance, choose pieces that you really like so you will forget any stress but only drifted away by the melody you played.

I thing it was not only applicable on playing music. On every single thing, we should choose the ones we like most. So, I think it is correct for the proverb : Do what you love, or if you were still not able to do it (such as when you are forced to do the pieces you do not really like), at least : Love what you do.

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.

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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".