Musical Guidance : The Ideal Practising

It's been a long time since the last time I made a post on this blog. Well, since I have been getting new inspiration to make another post again, I think it's best to spill it out immediately.
A few weeks ago, I attended a music seminar. The speaker was Jacqueline Leung, a professional pianist from Hongkong. I felt very lucky for having an opportunity to attend this seminar because the content was incredibly useful. I think I will have to share this guidance for those of you who might need it. At this post, I will share about the lessons that Jacqueline had given about music practising. You might think that there was no big deal about music practising but many people find difficulties in mastering the pieces while they were not doing an effective practice. As a professional piano player, Jacqueline had had a bunch of experience and had a practice method for achieving a great performance that might be applicable to us. So, this post is about how to achieve an effective music practising.

P.S : Though the article will be referring to piano instrument, it is not restricted to piano but might also be worthwhile for other musical instrument player.

Approaching a New Piece

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When you are going to play a new piece that you had never seen before, you might find it kind of difficult because you have not figure out about how to ideally play the piece.

• Study the Score
• Skimming the piece in whole from the beginning to end. You might figure out about the song description and  how the best practice to master the piece.
• The Sections
• Discover the sections such as : Introduction, Verse, and Conclusion. You might split-up your instrument practice based on the sections. So you might have different practice method for each sections.
•  Highlight Melody
• Observe the sections. Where is the dominant melody ? If it is a piano piece, which hand plays the melody ? If the piece was consisted of several instrument, find out which instrument plays the dominant melody during the sections.
• Identify Key Changes
• It is not seldom that a piece contains some key changes. Skimming the piece will help you identify if there were any key changes -- so you will be prepared when you started playing it. 
• Imagine the Character and the Tone 
• Discover the most ideal and convenient way to perform the piece

Have a Practice Plan
Every time you started the practising session, do not play straight through all the practice materials as it will not be effective enough. You must have a practice plan and a time frame. You must have a timely plan for your own effective improvement.

• Monthly plan          : What are the pieces that must be completed for this month ? then the next month
• Daily plan               : What materials will be practiced for today ? then for tomorrow and days ahead
• More specific plan  : Decide - you will play xx minutes for scales, xx minutes for finger exercise, etc.

One important notes that Jacqueline highlight is "Do not try to practice all pieces every day". You have limited time and energy so you must find the most effective way to master your materials. You must decide what you need to work on and the priorities for today and the upcoming days.

Take Breaks
Everyone has limited energy, so do you. You will need to take breaks to rest and refresh your body and brain. Otherwise, you would feel exhausted while effective practising was not achieved either. Jacqueline suggested that you should not practice straight three hours in a row. Your brain and body need to rest. You should take break every hour. While taking a break, you might take notes regarding your practice for evaluation. You also can go outside and get some fresh air before start playing the instrument again.

Bite Size Practising
What a "bite-size" means is to breakdown the passage into groups. You may have your own way to divide the piece into groups, whether is based on bars or the sections. Bite-size practice will help you to focus on specific sections. Started with slow practice per group and as you improve, you can add the groups and eventually, you would have been master the whole piece.

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Improve Your Skill !

Beside just playing the pieces from beginning to end, you might need to improve your technical skill. You can build your finger strength by playing pieces like Hanon. You also can develop finger independence by playing right and left hand separately. Also experiment the weight between when you are playing by pressing the tuts lightly and pressing it heavily. By improving your skill, you'd be prepare for all kind of playing style and find your most convenient ones.

Exploration of Tone

You should discover the tone and the character of the piece you are playing. And you should also find out what message that the composer wanted to deliver. To get the message, we should explore the background of the composer such as where did he come from and in what era did he live ? And also what were trending during that time. Jacqueline told an example of French composer who made a composition based on the painting by the famous french artist, Monet. also a Hispanic composer who wrote a composition that describing matador games.
It is also often that a piece was written with a tempo range (xxx - xxx). You might be able to experiment with the speed while playing to find out the most ideal tempo for you and the song.

Count ! and Use Metronome
Well, keeping up with the tempo is sometimes become a barrier. However, counting is a must so you will play the melody correctly and keep the tempo stable. If you find difficulties in counting, a metronome might be a big help

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• Metronome helps keeping your tempo stability
• When facing challenging passages and you find difficulties in figuring the beat or difficult to keep up the tempo, metronome will help to build up security so you will play the melody correctly

Nonetheless, you should begin with slow tempo until you get used with the passages. Then after you can play the melody correctly, you may increase the speed slowly until you can achieve the real tempo. By the time you could play without being accompanied by metronome, you would have been able to make counts in mind. If you still find it difficult to play without metronome, counting out loud may also help.

Besides all the points explained above, Jacqueline also suggested to practice other element to improve your playing skills. Practising fugues can help improving balance shaping and experiment with piano pedal (such as depth and changing points) was also significant in creating different mood. 

All the elements explained were recommendations to achieve an ideal music practising rather than just playing the pieces at once without specific target and objectives. Once you get used with the sequences, it will be easier for you to implement it when you begin new pieces.

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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.

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.