Happy belated Holidays and Happy New Year for 2021!! Here’s my last piece for 2020; I played a lovely piano arrangement of “Tender Strength” from Genshin Impact (link to the arrangement!). I never got to meet Venti in-game (my run with Genshin lasted exactly one evening), but his backstory is extremely Emotional and this piece also has such a bittersweet vibe… which is exactly my brand so I had to play it haha.

Detailed Analysis

The opening is the part I fell in love with from the original soundtrack; it’s just piano, and relatively simple, but the chords with the melancholic melody already invoke Emotions… the melody repeats at 0:28, this time with a heftier LH accompaniment. This piece definitely had the most “air time” out of anything I’ve played this year, which made it fun despite the challenges. There are several moments where the RH fills in as part of the LH like at 0:28 and 0:34; it’s really fun to play, though I had to be careful to make sure the RH sounded balanced with the LH as much as possible (and against the “true” RH melody). The RH chord at 0:39 was a little big for my hand but managed to play it in this take, phew. The melody introduces octaves at 0:41 in the RH with a LOT of air time for the LH; it was more challenging than I expected to coordinate at tempo. I like the little bit where the RH fills in the lower register at 0:46. Some chords are way too messy in this take but I’ve had to make peace with it. I split up the fingering for the broken chord at 0:50 since I wanted to keep it relatively at the same tempo, but it’s more ergonomic to play it this way. The second broken chord didn’t have to be split up because I wanted to add a little reprieve and slow down a bit at the end of this section.

The section at 0:54 is one of my favorites; it’s in a higher register and the blocked chords in the LH did a really great job of capturing the essence of the orchestrated track, especially with the moving notes. Took some practice to emphasize those, given it’s in the LH which requires 300% more babysitting for anything lol. We arpeggio downwards as we head towards the climax; 1:07 is an appetizer for what comes next at 1:20. The phrase from 1:14 was a bit tricky for my RH with the many consecutive octaves, but I was able to get it pretty well!

1:20 is the reason I wanted to learn this arrangement- the triplets in the LH at 1:22 and 1:25 are IMMACULATE!! However, that was definitely the easy part; the jumps in this section were more than I’ve ever played before, so it took some practice. The RH jump especially at 1:26 was the trickiest and I just let Jesus take the wheel LOL. The LH octaves at 1:28 were very cool and I love the rapid ascending bass line here. Unfortunately, the peak of the phrase at 1:28 didn’t come out as cleanly in the RH as I would’ve liked, but the note accuracy is there.

We enter the highest register at 1:47, in a flavor similar to what we had at 0:54, though it’s less dense this time. Playing blocked chords at quieter dynamics is so hard… I wish I spent more time on practicing that. The broken chord at 2:06 is super lovely, though my double striking G came in clutch and DOUBLE-STRUCK… sigh… and then we conclude with another broken chord, a G major second. This one was a bit tricky at first since I have to swing a bit to play it fluidly and quietly, but I’m happy I was able to play it as written (I almost considered splitting it at first because it felt a little.. daunting).

Conclusion

I underestimated this piece at first since it seemed simple at first glance, but once I realized just how much air time there was and at a moderate tempo like 72 bpm, it called for way more practice and time than I’d first estimated. It also took three separate days of recording to finally get a decent take… this one isn’t perfect and there are things I’d do differently, but it’s good enough to post so I’ll live. But the camera is also slightly tilted?? Sigh… one day I’ll get it. Hopefully lol.

The biggest challenges were in the small phrases with octave chords that are big for my hands (or just too big to play; there’s one where I had to scrap the bottom note near the end), but that’s the same for any other piece I learn. I wish I could play the quiet parts quieter, but that’s something I’m working on continuously. Maybe if I revisit this sometime in the future!

Anyway, this was a smaller piece that was fun and challenging, and the arranger really did such a great job with somehow preserving the sound of a full orchestra within one piano, so kudos to them. Still crying over Venti though :’)