Kimi ga Iru Kara / 君がいるから (Final Fantasy XIII) - Original Piano Arrangement

The first time I came across Kimi ga Iru Kara on YouTube, I couldn't hear anything special about the song. But upon repeated listenings, I realized that this song is full of unique modulations that one does not typically find in Japanese pop songs. The driving force behind this piece is the key change between the tonic and the flattened fifth (B major and F major and all their related keys). Who would have thought to implement that into a pop song? That is simply genius.

Some challenges in arranging this piece was getting the page turns to be as unobtrusive as possible, while minimizing the number of pages. Also there is a part in the first introduction where I use a triplet. This is to accommodate for the rolled chord that comes right after. There are also some subtle rhythmic differences between my arrangements and the original for the sake of pianistic writing and ease of playing.

Hope you enjoy it. Please rate and comment. Score will be available at my website.

Vivace, from Organ Trio Sonata III (Bach, BWV 527) - Original Piano Arrangement

Finally!

Got owned by the flu

So I recently got owned by the flu and went through a bit of vomiting and fevering, but am all better now. I had to miss two rehearsals for my choir accompanist job, but from what I gather, things will be okay for the concert on Sunday. On the upside, I had time to recover, so it was all bed rest for the past few days. Tomorrow is my graduation concert, so I am excited for that. Will post audio clips after.

Holiday begins! (well sorta ...)

Today was the last day of classes for the semester. I know this blog post probably won’t count towards my course blogging component, but what the hell, I might as well blog about it anyway. I only have one exam this semester—lucky me—as two of the courses I am taking do not have exams: one of them being the technical writing course (this one) and the other one being my graduation music composition course. So for the rest of this week my schedule is a non-stop stream of gigs! This is both good and bad since I get to play music and earn money, but it doesn’t leave me a lot of down time. We’ll see if I can get back to doing more piano arrangements next week if my schedule frees up.

Vid. 1. The SFU Chamber Orchestra premieres my violin concerto! December 3, 2010.

Also, my violin concerto was premiered by the wonderful SFU Chamber Orchestra last Friday. My friend Rei has uploaded the above video recording. Enjoy!

Random thoughts on sonata form

Just like the Rondo form, the Sonata allegro form also supports memorable themes well. It is presented with a binary form superstructure, where the first and second halves are of the form A B—A being the principle theme, and B being the secondary theme. And on its return in the second half, the B section is in the tonic key. While many contemporary musicians object to the strictness of this setup, I believe that a composer has the capabaility to make some "contemporary" modifications to obscure the strictness. As in the first movement of Schoenberg's third string quartet, we can mask the sonata form by treating the recapitulation differently, whether by varying:

• the vertical configuration of voices,
• The overall musical texture of the passage, or
• even the lengths of sections by adding or subtracting parts from the melody.

While these variations may not be very novel, I believe they can too be considered as "contemporary" influences, as we are changing the form of what was once traditional, and instead using it as a vague basis for new innovations.