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Sample: Ashitaka Sekki (Legend of Ashitaka)

A film like Princess Mononoke must surely be every composer’s dream – a story with a truly grand scope, powerful conflicts of ideology, several overarching themes and several interesting, recurring characters. Such content would certainly provide an endless stream of inspiration for bolder musical themes, motifs, and avenues for development within a score as opposed to the more intimate, personal works Hisaishi had scored for Ghibli leading up to the mid-90s. The work most…..

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I’ll take a brief break from anime-related discussions to discuss my latest musical endeavors. If you follow my youtube channel, you’ll have seen my latest uploads of a few Studio Ghibli piano pieces – if not, Porco Rosso fans especially should check it out.  However, this post will be centered around a more major project, which is an orchestral composition of mine, titled “Great Wave off Kanagawa”.  As you may expect, the inspiration is the famous woodblock print by Japanese …

As you’ve noticed, one of my coping methods when I become addicted to a new piece of music, or a song, is to write sheet music, so here I am again.  The song in question is the credits song for Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, called “Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta nara”.  First, here is the original song….

The original Laputa had about 30-35 minutes of score for its length of around two hours.  One of the things which stuck most in my mind when I first watched the film was the silence that was so prevalent throughout, including dramatic sequences that in Hollywood films would have exploited with plenty of bombastic music.  When Laputa was brought over for release in America, it was decided that the silence might make American viewers uncomfortable.  Some might disagree, but in the end, the result was commissioning Joe Hisaishi to rescore the entire film, bringing the runtime up to about an hour of music.  There is a potential here for an endless debate about the……

Musically speaking, that is.  This list is subject to change at a later point when I suddenly realize I completely forgot something.

#5 – Honey and Clover

The strange thing about this choice is that I think that I would have found this song irritating if I had heard it out of context.  Yet with Honey and Clover as a backdrop, everything about it seems to be a perfect fit, even Yuki’s slightly neurotic high pitched singing.  One of the …

I’m alive, just very inactive. Here’s my latest musical project, my own take on “Corridor of Time” from Chrono Trigger, a sort of “cover”, I suppose…..

…is actually a pretty good OP……

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I completely understand where all the people on blogs who criticize Tsuji for a lack of interpretation are coming from. But dang it, I still want him to win. The clarity of his Chopin etudes were remarkable. If you ever want to convince students not to hide behind the pedal, show them Tsuji’s performance. He rushed a bit through the beautiful opening of the 3rd etude, but I can forgive him. His Images were fantastic. Some bloggers said he played the Debussy like Chopin. I have no idea what they were talking about. From the second those delicate chords opened “Reflet’s dans L’eau”, Tsuji’s took on a wonderfully impressionistic touch. His choice of this suite for his program simply made me like him even more. And finally, at the end, watching this blind pianist masterfully conquer the large jumps in La Campanella, watching all the smiles found on audience members at various times, I became more than little bit emotional imagining the amount of dedication and love he must have towards music and the piano….Furthermore, in his interviews he seems like a wonderful and humble person, for whom a chance meeting on the subway with fellow blind pianist Stevie Wonder is one of his most cherished memories. Go Tsuji go!