Scene from 'Swan Lake' Ballet by Tchaikovsky

Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893) was a Russian Classical Music Composer. He was considered as one of the best Russian composer of all time. His musical works are including : Symphonies, Ballets, Operas, and Overtures. Some of his famous fabulous compositions are The Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake Ballet Suite, Romeo and Juliet Overture, Symphony no 6 (Pathetique), and Piano Concerto no 1.

'Swan Lake' was a ballet performance which story was based on Russian folk tales. It consisted of four parts. The story was about a princess who was turned into a swan because of a sorcerer's curse. The ballet performance premiere was in 1877 at Bolshoi Theater. It was informed that Tchaikovsky spent around one full year to complete the song, despite that he tried to finish the composition as soon as possible. 
The 'Swan Lake' premiere was not well-received by the public and Tchaikovsky music, as one of the elements, was also included on the negative comments. It was perceived that the music composition was too complicated and too difficult for the dance. 

Even the original composition of Swan Lake was initially receive negative comments, currently the 'Swan Lake' suite was recognized as one of Tchaikovsky's brilliant works that brought him to one of the most important ballet composers.

Source : 
- Wikipedia
- classicalmusic.about.com

Below is a famous scene theme from Tchaikovsky 'Swan Lake' Ballet suite with my own piano composition. Played by me on piano.

Silent Jealousy - X Japan (Piano Part)

Silent Jealousy is one of X Japan's most popular songs of all time. The song was released on 1991, composed by the band's leader, Yoshiki Hayashi. The actual song was full heavy metal combined with strings and piano melodies. However, in this video, i only performed the piano sections of the song.

When You Play What You Love

favim.com

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.

musiah.com

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.

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.

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.