Kairi’s Theme #1(?)
I’ve been hacking away at “Stand Your Ground” for the past couple of weeks and am still struggling with recording, so here’s a random take of Kairi’s theme, which I’ve been revisiting as a warm up/cooldown piece recently. Also, my audio file turned out really wonky, so it’s phone audio today.. and this was my ONE take of the evening since my phone ran out of storage in the middle of the second one lol. This isn’t quite a genuine First Impressions post, but it’s the first time I’m posting the piece, so we’ll go with it.
Detailed Analysis
So I already learned this piece in its entirety about 2 years ago now, but this was before I started recording myself semi-regularly, so I don’t have any decent full recordings. I’ve been shaking off the dust for the past week or so, but never broke down any sections.. regardless, I remembered a lot more of it than I expected.
The beginning chords still leave much to be desired; it’s so hard to get the LH quiet with evenly played intervals. Also, in general, most of the broken chords in the LH need work. They aren’t consistent, and it’s also difficult to get these quiet while also achieving a crisp roll. The melody and chords at 0:25-0:26 are a big reason for why I wanted to learn this piece in the first place, and that bit still makes me wiggle happily.
The piece really begins at 0:57, when we return to the melody with a fuller arrangement. I especially like the interval in the RH at 1:03.. I was worried I’d hit a wrong note so I slowed down briefly lol. I need to work on accenting the big chords in the phrase at 1:06, and also breaking chords cleanly.
1:16 introduces some octaves in the RH, but it’s manageable at this tempo. I don’t really remember the LH fully yet so it took some focus to manage both hands at once, hence the slight buffering pauses. The chord at 1:34 in the RH is actually a ninth, but I can’t reach that (can barely reach this octave chord) so I’m either going to shift the C up an octave, or just omit it entirely.
I really love the section at 1:43!! It has a rather “twinkly” energy that serves as a nice break after the denser section preceding it. And the various broken chords add a nice touch. I spent some time working on the phrase from 2:01 and it shows! My muscle memory came back after a few plays. I have to use my RH to hit a note for the LH at 2:07- it’s free real estate, baybee!
The section from 2:19 is my favorite part, even though I cried blood over learning this at first two years ago. I, in fact, spent so much time on this that I still can play the first parts of this pretty reliably at will. It gets trickier from 2:28 in the LH with the arpeggios that force me to stretch and/or jump a bit. I was able to play this at tempo at some point, so.. I’m hoping with some practice I’ll get to that point (and maybe even exceed my past self).
I don’t remember much from 2:49 since that’s the part I spent the least amount of time on.. but it’s coming back slowly. It’s simple and familiar enough for me to just rely on my ear to relearn rather than squinting at the 8193 ledgers, at least. I remember I dedicated some practice specifically to the polyrhythm at 2:51, and I’m happy to say I STILL GOT IT!!
I’m not able to fully play the RH chords from 3:09, but that’s okay. And I really love the ending broken chord.. such a lovely resolution.
Current Thoughts
This is definitely one of the few pieces I feel like I achieved at least 95% completion on, though I realize there’s a lot I can improve on since I first learned it two years ago. Voicing, of course, comes to mind, as well as managing the LH volume, especially in the lower registers. Some of the trickier octaves from before now feel easier with newer fingerings I’ve learned from other pieces, and the octaves in the last part of the piece are gratifyingly far more accurate than before. I still struggle with the Bb to C octaves, but I generally struggle hard with that particular pattern, so it’s okay. At least it’s more consistent than before.
The only section that would be a real challenge is, of course, the last section from 2:19. There’s a lot of polishing to be done, like with the LH falling out of sync from the RH for the sextuplet arpeggios. And relearning the LH arpeggios in between the melodic phrases. And relearning the last couple of phrases..
In any case, this piece holds a lot of sentimental value to me, and it’s nice that I’m able to play it somewhat despite how much time has passed. Though, to be fair, the first two pages are relatively simple, with the last page being the big hurdle. I might work on this to bring it back up to speed, I might not.. but since I’ve been playing it a bit lately, I figured I’d record it while it’s somewhat fresh.