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.

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.

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. 

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.