Dearly Beloved ~ Concert Paraphrase #1

After many years of being too intimidated to do anything more than timidly sightplay this arrangement, I’m finally trying my hands at it in the spirit of facing challenges.

I’m trying to adopt a more “open-minded” approach to progress updates (as in, obsess less over a good take and capture my progress more candidly and more often) so to that effect, this is a full take of my progress so far, but it’s going to be very obvious what I’ve worked on, which isn’t very much!

Detailed Breakdown

The only section I’ve actually practiced properly so far is around 0:52 to 1:07. The rest of this… I’ve played through a few times now and may have learned notes, but haven’t actually sat down with a met and gotten anything up to speed. So bear that in mind for this take.

Staying true to my brand, I haven’t practiced this opening part yet and it shows with the wrong notes and wrong octaves (I was so conflicted on whether to restart the take but I was also like SCREW IT let’s go!!). I still need to make up my mind on which notes to omit from some of these bigger chords… And the very opening is honestly quite difficult because it’s marked at pp but like ??? it is so hard to play super quietly in that register… with octaves… I’ll have to try hard. The rest of this opening phrase builds up with the C bass and the chords interspersed. And then we lead into the phrase at 0:49 that singlehandedly scared me off for literal years and is also the only phrase I had practiced properly by the time of this take.

0:52 for the first half isn’t so bad because I can use both hands for this behemoth of a sequence, but then my LH is on its own to repeat the whole thing from 1:00. The hardest part is the rep with the A natural because I have to go 4 1 which I am not used to… but after practicing with a met, it’s not too bad. Thankfully!!!! Also not sure why my camera is so laggy in some bits, may have dropped my phone one too many times. This wasn’t my cleanest take, but again I just committed to the wrong notes and kept going lol.

From 1:07 I slowed down because I am not in any condition to go fast… I should’ve gone even slower than I did in the take, honestly. The RH F octave hop is very tricky and I have to pay attention to it while the LH continues its arpeggios. The LH arpeggio at 1:38 is another bit that scared me, but I’m able to shift my RH octave easily in a way that lets me focus more on the jump down and then the crossovers, so it’s not as bad as I’d feared. But for this section, overall, I’m going to have to rely on muscle memory. I’m practicing veryyyyy slowly with the met to build accurate muscle memory. I was practicing and my sister thought I was shaking my head at something she had said, but it was just how much my head was moving as I was keeping tabs on both hands LOL.

I have no idea how I’m going to actually make that jump down at 1:43 in the LH at tempo, but that’ll be a problem for future me. This section is very dramatic and not even remotely melodic- lots of dense chords with accidentals. I’d only just learned the notes properly, which is probably obvious, especially from 2:02. The syncopation in this second half is pretty interesting since the RH operates on a sixteenth note system while LH is popping off with the sextuplets (as usual). And the RH has to jump around in between the upper line with supporting chords on an eighth note system… yeah. I did realize that the chords are repeated between the two halves so there’s that, but honestly the chords are so strange / I’m not yet familiar with them, so that knowledge doesn’t help quite yet haha.

2:32 is the one section of the arrangement that I can sightread. It’ll be tricky to roll those chords quietly and as openly as I’d like. 2:45 gives a bit of reprieve for both the listener and the player as we enter a very melodic and open section. Gotta love those double striking notes in the RH at 3:10… it used to just be the G but now the A flat and A above it are starting to double strike, too.

I quite like 3:12 with the repeating notes in the RH; it’s actually the first time I’m playing anything with repeated notes, which is exciting. I used to sightplay this with all the repeated notes played with the same finger because I didn’t know any better, but then one day I realized “aha!!” and everything made so much more sense. The descending broken sixths at 3:26 remind me of the arrangement of Noct’s theme (pretty sure it’s the same arranger). The second half of this section is easier because the LH doesn’t have any octaves, which I have to stretch for.

3:42 is lots of chords + melody!!! I think I had missed the lower note in the LH chord at 3:48, which is why I repeated it. I’m not too concerned about this section since it’s quarter notes, but I do anticipate challenges at tempo for the chords from 4:10 or so, what with the consecutive strange hand shapes. I had to omit the top note for the ninth for the LH chord at 4:15 and it makes me really sad lol…

And 4:21 is probably the second most challenging part of the piece (based on my expectations, anyway). The LH has huge sweeping arpeggios that span 4 octaves, while the RH has quarter note chords throughout. The LH arpeggios have crescendos and decrescendos but I literally didn’t play them at all in this take, whoops. The one saving grace, I guess, is that the arpeggios are almost all white keys save for the D major arpeggios, which are still achievable. I’ve started practicing my arpeggios for the first time ever because of this section so I hope all the effort can translate to other arpeggios I encounter later on, too. I’m actually not sure whether the second set of G major arpeggios at 4:52 are supposed to be all in one hand (LH) or if the last three notes are supposed to transfer over to the RH to give LH time to jump down? The arpeggios are notated with the last three notes in each set in the treble clef, whereas the previous sequence for G major didn’t??? Very confusing. I almost feel like it’ll be easier to keep all the arpeggios in the LH anyway instead of splitting between hands because at tempo, it’s going to be more challenging for my RH to stretch open to octaves. But we’ll see as practice progresses, I guess. 5:19 is going to take a lot of practice with the ascending intervals- again, very reminiscent of Noct’s theme. I am a little concerned about the stretch at 5:37 in the LH pinky down to D at tempo, but hopefully it’s not too bad.

Some more dramatic chords at the height of the piece for one last reprise of the melody at 5:44 with plenty of omitted notes (crying blood at this point) and then we enter the final page of the arrangement which is all dramatics as we run towards the finale. The ascending arpeggio at 6:04 is one of my favorite parts for a couple of reasons: 1) it’s such a fast and intense build up and 2) it’s one of the easiest parts in the arrangement LOL. I can totally picture this part on a harp for some reason. Then the section at 6:08 is another reason I’ve always shied away from this arrangement- it’s 32nd chords + octaves nonstop as we go down the keyboard. At this tempo it’s somewhat manageable, but I may have to omit some notes in the RH to reach a reasonable tempo. That would be a bummer, honestly, but also, what can I do… especially because this is at the end of the piece. Might be a different story if this sequence was near the beginning when I’d have more energy left, but I really don’t know if my RH could handle full octave chords by the end. We’ll see, I guess.

And then we have MORE ARPEGGIOS, this time in E major. And then some final bombastic chords, again in E major.

Current Thoughts

At this point, I’ve spent a little bit of time on this arrangement and it’s feeling scarily attainable?? But also, that’s moreso when I’m playing in chunks- looking at the overall structure of the piece, I’m not actually sure I’ll be able to get through it in one piece LOL… I guess time will tell. Also, this is probably the biggest range I’ve ever had to play on; we go from the lowest C all the way up to the highest G. I had to move my stand a little farther to the right to ensure it doesn’t get in my way!

For starters, I don’t think I’ll be able to play at the written tempo of 86 bpm (at the beginning and for most of the piece). The arpeggios are way too demanding at that tempo and my hands can only do so much, even with rigorous practice. So far, I have been able to hit 80 bpm for the most challenging LH arpeggio bit after 0:52, so I think that can be my target. Honestly, losing 6 bpm in this arrangement is not a big deal for me- I might even count it as a victory. But yes, I am trying to make peace with the fact that I definitely don’t have the chops to play like the recording, and probably won’t ever get to that level in this lifetime unless I quit my job and just practice my arpeggios 8 hours a day lol. And don’t even mention all the omitted notes in the chords… I am still dying inside…

Anyway, I do think that I’ll be able to play some version of this eventually with enough practice, but it’s probably going to take a lot of practice to get to that point. This arrangement is definitely a lot of fun to learn, though; similar to Xion’s theme, there’s a lot of variety in phrases and also a lot of dramatic chords, which are always super fun for me. The arpeggios are tricky, yes, but I am enjoying learning and building up some EXP with them properly for once.

This arrangement still feels daunting in many ways, but I’m happy that I also feel like I can take it on at long last. I really hope I can see it through to the end… pray for me LOL