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rhodochrosite) wrote2022-01-07 08:53 pm
rhodochrosite) wrote2022-01-07 08:53 pm
Entry tags:
adventure (singular) in music arrangement
sometime last year i decided to try my hand at making a piano arrangement for a song... i have classical training but i've never been any good at composition so i thought i would test my abilities. i did <color - fuji syusuke & hirakoba rin>, which is my favourite tennis song, since i anticipated i would be listening to it a lot and i didn't want to get sick of it lol.
the arrangement itself is pretty basic, more a transcription than an arrangement tbh. mostly just right hand covering melody + descant and left hand covering most of the rest of the instrumentation, but i didn't really pay attention to like... playability when i was doing the arranging and it shows. some of the fingering is sooo awkward... i also skipped the second verse because there's no way i would have had enough creativity or stamina to think of another way to notate the verse melody.
basically my process was 1) figure out the chords 2) note in the right hand melody 3) fill out the accompaniment / embellishments to match the song instrumentation and pace/buildup according to the chords. since a piano is only one instrument compared to the multiple instruments in the original, i tried to mirror the texture with thicker chords and smaller subdivisions of notes (like uhhh semiquavers instead of crotchets. god i swear i have a diploma i've just forgotten how to talk about music), or pare it down to like single note melody + very bare bones accompaniment when the original texture is thinner. i think the hardest part was coming up with different ways to arrange the same melody. like the instrumental theme at the beginning is repeated twice more later in the song and i wanted to do it differently every time... you can see by the end i just reused the left hand crotchet chords from the beginning and the right hand harmonies from the middle because i was so over it but it's okay because there's an extra descant part in the right hand that makes it at least sound different. btw i loveeeee the ending i think it's so beautiful. the middle part is probably my least favourite section of the arrangement i really don't like the left hand countermelodies i came up with in bars 36-38 but i'm not sure how i could have made them better.
the first chorus reprise an octave up at bar 40 is veryyyy cliche but i like it haha... it's not in the original but it's based on the <two hearts remix> which uses a similar device to like quiet the song down before it launches into the final chorus/climax at bar 48 for the extra Drama. that part is probably the best out of the whole arrangement, i think the contrast between the very simple and quiet and music-box-esque rendition and the loud ott last chorus rendition is nice!! and i really love the descant part in bars 44-45 (which is directly from the two hearts remix so it wasn't me or anything BUT I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH). the last chorus has the thickest texture and most embellishment obviously, and by that point in the arrangement i was a bit more comfortable so it has a lot more interesting / original touches. i'm most proud of bars 52-54, which are basically entirely my own riffs on the original theme trying to capture the spirit rather than the letter of the song and i actually think i did a good job on them.
anyway i learned a lot!! i'm clearly no animenzzz but the end product is not too bad. i have like various embarrassing and ambiguously complicated feelings about music so it was nice to do something just for fun with no particular expectations and i'm proud of myself for getting it done!!! i think if i ever do another arrangement i'll try and be more adventurous in playing with the original song so it's less like a straight up transcription, but i'm not a creative person lol so we'll see...
and here is the sheet music, sorry for writing on the world's flimsiest ugliest manuscript paper and also for the beaming mistakes i undoubtedly made:
the arrangement itself is pretty basic, more a transcription than an arrangement tbh. mostly just right hand covering melody + descant and left hand covering most of the rest of the instrumentation, but i didn't really pay attention to like... playability when i was doing the arranging and it shows. some of the fingering is sooo awkward... i also skipped the second verse because there's no way i would have had enough creativity or stamina to think of another way to notate the verse melody.
basically my process was 1) figure out the chords 2) note in the right hand melody 3) fill out the accompaniment / embellishments to match the song instrumentation and pace/buildup according to the chords. since a piano is only one instrument compared to the multiple instruments in the original, i tried to mirror the texture with thicker chords and smaller subdivisions of notes (like uhhh semiquavers instead of crotchets. god i swear i have a diploma i've just forgotten how to talk about music), or pare it down to like single note melody + very bare bones accompaniment when the original texture is thinner. i think the hardest part was coming up with different ways to arrange the same melody. like the instrumental theme at the beginning is repeated twice more later in the song and i wanted to do it differently every time... you can see by the end i just reused the left hand crotchet chords from the beginning and the right hand harmonies from the middle because i was so over it but it's okay because there's an extra descant part in the right hand that makes it at least sound different. btw i loveeeee the ending i think it's so beautiful. the middle part is probably my least favourite section of the arrangement i really don't like the left hand countermelodies i came up with in bars 36-38 but i'm not sure how i could have made them better.
the first chorus reprise an octave up at bar 40 is veryyyy cliche but i like it haha... it's not in the original but it's based on the <two hearts remix> which uses a similar device to like quiet the song down before it launches into the final chorus/climax at bar 48 for the extra Drama. that part is probably the best out of the whole arrangement, i think the contrast between the very simple and quiet and music-box-esque rendition and the loud ott last chorus rendition is nice!! and i really love the descant part in bars 44-45 (which is directly from the two hearts remix so it wasn't me or anything BUT I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH). the last chorus has the thickest texture and most embellishment obviously, and by that point in the arrangement i was a bit more comfortable so it has a lot more interesting / original touches. i'm most proud of bars 52-54, which are basically entirely my own riffs on the original theme trying to capture the spirit rather than the letter of the song and i actually think i did a good job on them.
anyway i learned a lot!! i'm clearly no animenzzz but the end product is not too bad. i have like various embarrassing and ambiguously complicated feelings about music so it was nice to do something just for fun with no particular expectations and i'm proud of myself for getting it done!!! i think if i ever do another arrangement i'll try and be more adventurous in playing with the original song so it's less like a straight up transcription, but i'm not a creative person lol so we'll see...