Started a new piece as I wrap up Noct's theme because I was getting restless from not learning anything totally new. This is an arrangement from Nier: Automata!! No, I haven't finished Dependent Weakling. I'll finish that.. eventually..

We'll also try something new with annotated score!! This is actually an unofficial transcription so there is a nice, clean PDF I can mark up. There are two recordings today :)

So I haven't really learned the very first phrase yet and skipped to "A" lol oops. Nothing super challenging here- this is pretty close to performance tempo and there are no real pitfalls to look for. But looking at this recording, I better work more on voicing for intervals.. Below the melody is in red. I have the most trouble with thirds so I'll need to work on those for bringing the melody out.

The LH bar outlined in yellow is the only real tricky part of this section because my fingering goes 5 1 2 1 at 0:03; it took some practice to get the muscle memory locked in. It's the most ergonomic for my hand size, but it's also not something I'm used to for those particular intervals.

Next is "B", which is really the whole reason I decided to try learning the piece- it only takes one (1) spicy chord to motivate me to learn a whole piece. Can you guess which one it was for this piece?

YES.. it is the broken chord at 0:34... I am nothing if not PREDICTABLE!!! That single chord alone is so delicious it is a whole MEAL!! The runner up is the more vanilla variant at 0:07. Still good, but doesn't have the same goosebump-inducing presence as the chord at 0:34.

"B" is significantly longer and also trickier than "A". I've brought the tempo WAY down in this clip.. this is the fastest I can play with near perfect note accuracy so far.

The very first chord in the RH is difficult already- it's NOT comfortable since I'm forced to play at the very edges of each key, but I guess I can at least play the chord.. voicing continues to be important as chords and intervals carry the melody. I've mostly been focusing on emphasizing the melodic beats and quietening the "filler" notes, but I definitely need to start fine-tuning the voicing here, too.

There's a lot I could say and a lot of moments I could pick out but overall I'll say that the challenge now is note accuracy amidst all of the intervals and octaves. It's all thankfully doable but it will take practice to get this section up to performance tempo. Once I learn all the notes I'll have more mental leeway to focus on musicality, and from there I can slowly ramp up the tempo with practice.

"C" starts at 0:27 and is essentially a more embellished version of "B" in a different octave. The beginning of the section always reminds me of a music box and I want to emulate the delicate silvery sound profile of one.

I already talked about the lovely chord at 0:34- that whole little phrase is just so mellifluous to me :')

From 0:41 is where things get spicy (bar 43 below); all the red boxes are octaves. I also cannot physically play the second to last chord so I'm just playing the octave and running with it.. the challenge here is again being able to maneuver to the exact limited positions for these chords/octaves with very little time. My RH octave accuracy has improved considerably in general so I do think this won't be any trouble with enough practice, but it is one of the more intimidating phrases that I've learned so far in this piece.

The bass line in the LH outlined in blue above is just a descending bass line that I wanted to point out since I'm a sucker for half-step moving lines.. The LH in "B" and "C" is very lovely even when isolated since it captures all the colors of the various chords.

Same challenges in "C" as in "B": note accuracy compounded with relentless intervals and octaves. And there are a few octave chords I simply cannot play which bums me out but I'm trying to find the best alternatives that mask the fact.

All in all, I'd say this piece feels just a tad too big for my hand size in terms of the average interval size and the octave chords that are chosen but it's manageable enough that I don't think the average listener will be able to pick up on those minor differences. Hopefully. Let me know if it is obvious, please..

The rest of the piece will launch into a different melody and is much more octave chord-heavy. The melody from "B" and "C" will not return, sadly, but it makes for a lovely opening scene. I need to study the recording more and probably also listen to the original track from the game to get a better feel of mood and ambiance.. anyway, I'll chip away at this while also polishing Noct's theme.