音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

Since I wrote a post about the A.T. III Hymmnos preview in the last December, I couldn’t stop talking about the new A.T. Hymmnos albums. On yesterday, January 26, that was January 27 in Japan time, the albums were finally released!
Certainly, I need to say something, because I’m an A.T. Hymmnos fan!
When I just got the songs from one of my friend (zurra, some of you would know him). Then, I was in my lab, and thus unable to scrobble them to my last.fm page. Anyways, I copied the files into my digital player. However, I played each song for only seconds, until “EXEC_COSMOFLIPS/.” came out.
That’s the song I’ve been waited since I tried the preview!!! OMG, this song was so awesome. After coming back home, I looped it for about 20 times before playing all other songs (including the super cute Akiko neko-song! lol).
Now, I wanna talk about my own impression towards those songs. I don’t know the A.T. game story, thus what I talked will only be music-based!

[SUZUNO=MIYA side:]
1. GUST – Grow
A good introduction with some epic ambience.

2. Azumi Inoue/井上あずみ – Kazeshirube/風標
This song was in the preview, and I recognized her voice then. It’s basically a calm song. It’s not that Ar-Tonelico-ish, but the melody does have the element of telling a legend.

3. Au(Gusha-Ningen)/あう(ぐしゃ人間) – EXEC_CUTYPUMP/.
This song is … crazy… @_@ and I mis-thought the kinda-bright part was sung by Haruka… >_> however, for darkish songs, this is not that good as “EXEC_PAJA” series from A.T. I. Be frank, I don’t like this song. >_<

4. Haruka Shimotsuki/霜月はるか – EXEC_FLIP_FUSIONSPHERE/.
Here, the Haruka-ish A.T. style comes back. It’s basically a good song. It sounds gentle yet strong. Just, I have nothing special to say here…

5. Haruka Shimotsuki/霜月はるか – EXEC_ViiBaCi_MjiiRa/.
I can’t understand anything from the title… but it’s kinda like the “PAJA” songs. So I think I like it!

6. Yayoi Yula/柚楽弥衣 – chmod b111000000/n
A.T. III seems like to get strange titles… I’m sorry if such titles are related to the game story. But, they are really, really strange to me. Anyway, in the preview, it was already there. What I felt from this part was a bit difficult to describe. It was like in a very ancient era, and people were gathering in the twilight, having some secret ritual… did I think too much? lol

7. Haruka Togawa/東川遥 - EXEC_Z/.
Orz, I don’t understand this title too… and firstly, I thought this singer would be Rekka Katakiri and just knew she was not in the preview at all. -__- According to zurra, this song is a bit I’ve-sound-ish. It’s true. The electronic elements are so overflowing that it’s hard to ignore. The song is just average, but I like the I’ve-ish rhythm.

8. Rekka Katakiri/片霧烈火 – METHOD_HYMMELI/.
This song isn’t that Ar-Tonelico at all! It keeps reminds me her album “hareyakanaru sora no yukue.” The beat, the sound effect, and the way she sings! But, I can say it’s a nice song.

9. Noriko Mitose/みとせのりこ – XaaaCi.
Another song with a weird title… I wish there was someone may interpret them combining with the game story… ._. This is also the ONLY Noriko Mitose song in the two albums… yet I like Noriko’s voice so much… it’s unfair!! This song was in the preview too, and I recognized her immediately! In this song, the background is kinda noisy, but still in a range I can accept. The rhythm is fine. Noriko performed so well, and the total ambience of the song is superb. Noriko is really a good chanter!!! And I think this song is too short!! I wanna listen to more Noriko's voice longer... >_<

10. Haruka Shimotsuki/霜月はるか –hoshi meguri no uta/星巡りの詩
This one has a good melody, very comfortable melody. Haruka’s voice fits it very well. But, still, I want to say it’s not that Ar-Tonelico-ish, at least this was based on my feeling of A.T.1 and A.T.2.

11. GUST – Glow
A small epilogue, I guess. Mainly, it’s an ethnic track.

Overall:
This album isn’t that good as what I expected. Some classical sound elements of Ar Tonelico were lost here. New Hymmnos singers sang well but the total feeling of the album is not that Ar-Tonelico-ish. Especially, the chorus part: it was not very intense enough to reach the “epic” level. Also, since new singer joined, I’m missing Haruka and Noriko. Especially Noriko!!! They made a huge change, but failed to reach what they’ve achieved before… In all, I was a bit disappointed by this album…

I’ll talk about the SAKIYA=RUMEI side later.

夜にある友人に貝田由里子さんの歌『午後の描写』を紹介されて、もう一曲の『夕餉を囲みて』を知り、ついでに『ことのはクラシック』シリーズを知っていた。二曲ども美しい旋律を持って、歌詞のほうも美しいなんです。クラシック音楽が好きな私には聞いたとたんにこの二曲を大好きになってたのです。
実はね、CD全曲を聴くことなしに、私はなんとなくこのシリーズは必ず上品だと結論としてたのよ。だって、もっとも私は貝田由里子に誘われこの曲たちを試していたの。
わたし、貝田由里子さん大好き～
もちろん、今の私はこの二曲を繰り返しに聞いているところです。

あとで『ことのは』サイトにアクセスしてた。そのイントロを読んで、だんだんこのシリーズを分かるように気がしたの。
ほかの言葉とは違う、日本語には特別なものがいる。「言の葉」っていうのはただの「ことば」じゃなく、私にとって別の言葉に直訳することできないほど、微妙な意味が囲む。この歌詞に使われた「ことのは」は、平凡で繊細な感情がある。そして、世界中におおく広がるクラシック作品と、貝田さんの天使のような声(梶浦由記さんより)とくみ上げ、こんなにもすばらしい歌になったのです。
クラシック音楽はおんがくの一番、そして日本語は言葉の一番、ということだね。

During the night, I was introduced to a song, “gogo no byousha / afternoon sketch” by Yuriko Kaida. Then, I came to know another song “yuuge wo kakomite / surrounded around the dinner,” as well as the “kotonoha classical” series. Both of the two songs were have beautiful melodies, and the lyrics was very beautiful too. As a classical music lover, I liked them as soon as I tried them.
I didn’t try all songs from this series actually, yet I was very sure that it would be a nice series. Anyway, I was attracted by Yuriko Kaida firstly.
I really like Yuriko Kaida~
Thus, now I’m looping the two songs.

Afterwards, I visited the “kotonoha” site. I thought I knew more about it after reading its introduction.
Different from other languages, Japanese is very special. The Japanese word, “kotonoha,” doesn’t mean “kotoba (words)” alone. There is something subtle in it that it’s difficult to translate it into a single word in other languages directly (as far as I know). The lyrics of these songs were kind of using these common yet delicate words, plus the famous classical pieces, and Yuriko Kaida’s angelic voice (according to Yuki Kajiura), here we’re listening to these pretty works.
The best music should be classical music, and the best language should be Japanese, that’s what I get from them.

(I write this just because I want to change my last.fm sidebar content.)

click "Read more" only if you WANT to read this super long post...

I was born in a classical-listening family. Western music was all I listened when I was still very, very young. But you can’t remember much of things because you were too you to memorize them. The only thing I can still recall clearly is, I liked Mozart’s work Serenade K.525 movement 1 when I was six-year-old. That was in one night, I asked to use my mother’s new CD player before I went to bed. Thus she randomly inserted a CD, which contained this track – my first loved classical track.

Anyways, when I became older, my music life was kinda in a vacuum. Maybe it was from 1992 to 1996, which I can’t remember exactly. A lot of things happened, yet they didn’t stay in my mind. I listened to so little music. Occasionally, when my family listened to some pop songs from Hong Kong or Taiwan, I reacted like they worth of nothing (I still think so; no offense, just my own feeling). That was rather a boring period in my life.

Then, an animation series from Spain attracted me. That was “The Mozart Band.” That animation told good stories, and taught me lots of knowledge about classical music. Since that year (1996 or 1997), memories about these classical melodies were waking up, and my keenness for classical music was regained. I started to search all resource of classical music. I listened a lot, and felt in love with classical music. I don’t know what you would feel if you could have a chance to hear a little girl talking about piano and violin, concertos, operas, etc.

That was just astonished, to the fact that I didn’t learn any of instruments. Actually, my family ever wanted to buy me a piano when I was five or six, but I finally refused to learn it, according to my mother. Also, my mother has a violin, but, still from her, I’ve never got interested in playing it. One of my aunts bought me an electric piano. Again, that heard from my mother, I only played it randomly. That YAMAHA electric piano is still in my home, set upon our bookshelf, and is in idle all the time. I’ve heard about that a lot of people learn much about classical music when they learn an instrument. However, that is not the case of me.

Because of that animation focused on only four composers, what I listened to in that period were mostly their works. When I started to listen to local radio music channels, I got more chances to touch other composers’ music. Time from 1998 to 2001 was the most various time for me. I listened to tons of music whose genres varied completely. Firstly, I listened to everything I heard. Little by little, I started to choose. My taste in music shaped during that time. I liked classical, but not all kinds of it. I more liked music in baroque, classical, and romantic eras, but I didn’t like others like impressionism, and late 19-/20-century music. For modern music, I couldn’t accept both Chinese and western pop songs. I didn’t and still don’t know the exact reason. “They’re just not my style.” I always tell others who asked me about it.

Classical, classical, only classical music was around in my life until 2000. That was a crucial year in my entire music life. Japanese animes went into my life, with the specially-styled Japanese songs/sound tracks. My first Japanese song was the opening theme song of “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” and I loved it very much, as well as its background music. Luckily, the composer of the anime, Shiro Sagisu, made the music epically beautiful and impressive. His style is like classical, yet with modern elements, and therefore, his music bridged the gap between classical music and Japanese modern music. I also liked GARNET CROW a lot. Their genre is typically J-pop, but their music sounds special. Unique. Yes, this word can be used to describe their songs comparing to all other J-pop works. Sometimes, I even didn’t dare to listen to their song “wasure saki,” which would make me in a rather depressing mood for some unknown reasons.

With I watched more animes, I listened to more Japanese music. As well, some of them were very good, and some of them I didn’t like at all. Before 2004, my music was still limited in classical music that I’ve already liked, and some of Japanese pop songs and sound tracks. I also read magazines about Japanese animes, and thus, I knew more about the kinda-new-to-me music kingdom. I liked a few Japanese composers and singers/bands, like Shiro Sagisu, Yoko Takahashi, Ritsuko Okazaki, Kou Ootani, Mai Kuraki, GARNET CROW, Katsuo Ohno and so on.

Yes, I liked them a lot, but for me in that time, I just liked them. Anyways, another critical period came in 2004: that I realized how nice modern music can be made my life cannot be apart from Japanese music.

I felt in love with Yuki Kajiura’s music.
Well, I don’t want to spend much of time to talk about her and her music (I’ve already talked for lots of times). Just, from “Gundam, ” See-Saw, “noir, ” FictionJunction YUUKA, and “.hack//SIGN,” I started to pay more attention on her music. Once and once again, I was touched by her ethnical and catchy melody. She soon became my goddess of music.
Yet everything happened in that winter, in 2004.

Gradually, I listened to more music while watching less animes. The position of music was replacing that of animes! It was another story of how I touched Japanese doujin music. It was about also about Yuki Kajiura. One day, when I was searching about FictionJunction YUUKA, a blog about Japanese music popped up. I read a post about Akiko Shikata. Yet, strangely, the reason for me to find out her music was only I liked the CD jacket of her album “RAKA”!! From her, I knew Ar Tonelico and Haruka Shimotsuki afterwards. From recommendations from my friends, I knew Sound Horizon. By accident, I started to listen to Rekka Katakiri. I discovered piles of artists, and got enough information about them. The variety of my listening music was exploding, in a somewhat limited range.

I knew, there were more nice composers and singers I still didn’t know or haven’t noticed. Like KOKIA. I’ve already listened to a few of her songs in 2005, but I’ve never realized how excellent she was until 2008. Now, maybe you’ve guessed, 2008, was also an extremely time point in my music life. “The VOICE,” the best KOKIA album for me, made me soon infatuatedly fell in love with her and her music. Generally, her style can be put in J-pop, yet hers isn’t that J-pop-ish (could be various on this point). She can sing extremely low notes, and high notes as well, which I absolutely admire. The most important point that made me fell in love with her more than all other artists (sadly, including my goddess Yuki Kajira, although she’s still my goddess…) was, that her music can really touch my heart. As what she said in one of her interviews, “warmth” is very important in her music, and a good piece of music must have contained the composer’s “heart.” Music is the gift from the god; it enables people from different places in the world being linked together without language. She made it.

Classical and Japanese music are all I listen to. I seldom listen to other music style, except Merlin’s Magic, a New Age band. I knew them in 2004, from the zodiac series music. In their music, you can be very relaxed. I often listen to them when I’m tired and don’t want to listen to any others, and when I study because they won’t get me distracted. I’ve also tried a little other New Age music, but I still vote for Merlin’s Magic till now.

I always know that I’m limited in what I listen to. I always know there must be more nice music to be discovered. I always know sometimes I prejudge some music because I myself am greatly picky on music. I always know I can’t even mention all my favorite artists in this post. It has already been a very long (and maybe boring [?]) post, though I believe if I don’t end it here, I can write another 2.5 pages.

I love music. Music is half of my life.

Damn, I’m not accustomed to type a new year’s number each time. It happens in the very beginning of EACH YEAR.
Well, anyway, here I am. I don’t want to be a bad blogger. I just read my previous blog entries, and I realized that I wrote much more before. What I found as well was my English in that time was so unreadable.
Thus why I’m here, typing madly on Microsoft Word. I’m going to write something important issues I need to do in this year.
Well… I know, such thing should be better done in the first day of the whole year or the last day in the old year. However, today is just the third day, and actually, I did the similar thing in the fifth day in the last year. It would not be that bad in this case, I THINK!!

Okies, now, the main part of this post:
My 2010’s to-do list.

1) Do more research: I need to figure out why my experiments didn’t work though. Then I’ll work more on it. And, in this summer, I need to think on whether or not I should leave here to fetch my PhD. I may transfer myself to a PhD program within 2 years, but the earlier I decide (even though I would change my mind afterwards), the better.
2) Pass the level 7 driver’s license exam. To be able to drive a car is very, very important.
3) Learn more German, French, and Italian if possible. As you know, I like to learn languages. I want to be multilingual. I’ve started to learn some German in the last year, but I was just pause and pause again by some reason. Recently I have just finished re-reading the lessons I’ve already learned, and in this year, I hope I can learn more without much serious pausing. Also, French is another language I want to learn; plus that French is also an official language of Canada, it’s more necessary to learn it. For Italian, I just want to learn it for singing, so it’s not very prior to the other two languages.
4) To check for if KOKIA will go to Europe in this year. And if so, find a chance to GO TO EUROPE!!!!! Omg, I just love Europe more than any other places, and I love KOKIA more than any other (modern) artists!!!
5) Post more. I just like to see my own writing stuff on my own blog with my self-designed template. Kinda narcissistic, huh? But, that’s what I do like!
6) Start my story. I started it in 2008 winter and halted in 2009 spring. orz. This time, I can’t stop anymore, I want to continue; I want to finish MY STORY!!! -___-
7) Sing/draw more. Hmmm… no comments for it. xD

That’s all I can think up currently. Yes, yes, I know sometimes to write down your to-do list for a whole year is stupid, because you can always ignore what you’ve said before and change your plan at any time. But…
A new year HAS TO have a good start, right?

I tried my first bottle of ramune today.
I found it in a Korean/Japanese food shop. There were three kinds: melon, watermelon, and strawberry. I took the strawberry one without hesitation. Hmm, you know why, don’t you?
Since the moment I found that, the song “piano” by FictionJunction YUUKA was haunting around my mind all the time.

It took me a bit time to figure out how to open it. (The fact was: I ignored to read the instruction on the seal, and finally realized that after getting my fingers hurt, orz.)
The taste was good. I love strawberry favour anyways. But after a happy drinking, I was in trouble of how to take the marble out. The simplest way should be to break the bottle, but I really didn’t want to do so.

So, I went to wikipedia. It says that recent ramune bottles have plastic caps. You may turn the cap clockwise and the marble can be taken out. However, it just seemed that my hands had no enough strength to open it, and even with the help of a spoon, fork, knife, scissors, wrench, the plastic cap just stuck on the glass and didn’t fall off. At last, chinks went upon the glass after a firm holding of the wrench.
Seemed I broke the bottle already, huh…?
Fine, there was nothing more difficult than what happened in that case.
I warped the bottle in a piece of cloth, then gave the thing a gentle-yet-strong hit.
Klang!
The bottle, as what you can imagine, was broken.
I didn’t keep the bottle, but at least, I got my trophy, a ramune-marble.

One of my friends, zurra, just linked me to “Ar Tonelico III Hymmnos” sample, and I almost failed to stop looping it!
Although it’s only a sample, which was like a medley of the whole album, it was very nice.

Here’s a link to the sample: http://www.team-e.co.jp/sp/artonelico3/hymmnos.swf

Akiko Shikata + Haruka Shimotsuki + Noriko Mitose + Yuuko Ishibashi have been a classical combination for the music world of A.T. But this time, instead of Yuuko, there are more people are new to A.T.: KOKIA, Rekka Katakiri, Yoko Ueno, Azumi Uehara, etc. (we’ll miss you, Yuuko… ;__;).
When I just heard of that KOKIA would be in A.T. III, I was very surprised. I believe most AT fans would not imagine KOKIA would be in it! Her style is variable, and some of her songs are very ethnic; A.T. is kinda ethnic too. However, no one (I guess) knew how KOKIA would perform. Yet her part, though only several seconds long, is really, really nice! No, I’d rather say, that’s AWESOME!!!

Then, I tried to figure out the other singers in the sample.
Akiko Shikata’s and KOKIA’s voices are the easiest to recognise. Their voices are that unique, according to zurra. But for others, I was not very sure…

This is what I figured out for the singers in the sample:
1. akiko
2. azumi
3. kokia (awesome)
4. noriko??? (reminds me ArT II)
5. @__@
6. haruka? (too short orz...)
7. akiko
8. ...????
9. akiko (cute :3 )
10. azumi? (not familiar with her voice)
11. yoko?
12. rekka?
13. noriko?
14. chorus???
15. kokia

After I wrote that, I was told that there are also singers like Au, Haruka Togawa, Yula Yayoi, etc…. but, who are they? ^^;
I’m afraid most of my attention has been focused on KOKIA, but I can’t withdraw my mind that the ninth part of the sample, which was sang by Akiko Shikata, was so cuuuuute!
Anyways, I can’t tell more of my feelings until I listen to them FOR REAL. I finally managed to stop looping the sample.
“that’s dangerous.” Typed zurra. XD

I can’t wait to listen to them!!! After listened to the sample, I stopped my music player, which was playing Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto, and I switched to listen to Ar Tonelico Hymmnos CDs.

P.S. the jackets of A.T. III reminded me “Jigoku Shoujo.” LOL

I didn’t know what I thought, but since today, December 8, 2009, I officially reset my youtube channel.
Well, I really don’t think youtube has a good interface like what a blog has. I can’t organize my stuff, video notes, comments well on youtube ? they look messy for me… but youtube is a good place to upload my song covers. For me, I’ve decided, from now on, I want to upload my songs and link them to my blog, and tag these related blog posts “singing.” Maybe I just want to get rid of my old crappy songs, I don’t know… XD

I wanted to restart a new account on youtube first, but I realised later, that I can’t change my registered email, because it’s linked to my gmail. When I tried to create a new account, I was logged out from my primary google account, and re-logged in with the new email I used… >_>
So, I finally decided to reset via cancelling all my previous stuff. I didn’t delete either my account or my videos (songs, actually XD). I don’t want to delete them, they cost me much of time to make! Fortunately, youtube supports private links, thus I could be able to still make my videos open to everyone by these cryptic links, great~

Okies, I have already set all my old stuff private, and kept a secret link to each one. (Here is a google document linked to my old stuff, if you have interest to listen, then please go. XD). Now, I can officially restart here.
Anyways, good luck for me~