downtime

[I. Shinji, 1997 Evangelion Symphony by the New Japan Philharmonic]

Hi guys! Welcome to episode seven of Tenny’s Tunes. I am your host, Tenny.

For the past couple episodes, we took a look at some of the greatest pieces composed during the Romantic period in the 19th century, from Rachmaninoff’s prelude to Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. In analyzing and learning to perform what many people like to broadly call “classical pieces,” there is a certain level of freedom for you to create your unique interpretations, but in the end, you are to pretty much obligated to follow the notations for changes in loudness or texture of the sound set forth by the composers.

For me personally, I started off learning classical pieces on the piano by memorizing the music scores, so music theory didn’t occur to me as something really important until the time I took some of the music level assessments that required me to learn theory. Still, it was solely for the purpose of passing the tests, and I didn’t see the need to apply theory anywhere else.

That is, until my junior year of high school. You know how YouTubers these days like to use background tracks in their videos? Some of the most common choices, like pop music in America, trap beats, and anime music, appeared in so many of these videos I had come across that I decided it would be a good opportunity to practice my theory skills by analyzing the fundamental chord progressions that form the skeletal structures for these catchy tunes.

I think this week is a good time to share with y’all a past example of one such practice. The music you are hearing in the background is a 1997 rendition by the New Japan Philharmonic of “I. Shinji,” a piece composed by Shiro Sagisu, the legendary Japanese musician who created background tracks for countless movies and animes alike. The music summarizes the internal conflicts of Shinji, a young boy who undergoes depression and existential crisis in a Japanese cartoon show in the ‘90s called Neon Genesis Evangelion.

As you may have noticed, this symphonic rendition features a piano concerto, where the piano serves as the forefront instrument guiding the orchestra through each segment. There were no official music scores of the pieces performed that were released, so I attempted at recreating the piano concerto by listening to the performance over and over. I believe there is still room for greater improvement, but for now, please enjoy my rendition of “I. Shinji.”

I am Tenny Tsang, and this is NBN Audio. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time on Tenny’s Tunes.

[Piano Adaptation - I. Shinji 1997 Philharmonic Version]

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Hi guys! Welcome to episode six of Tenny’s Tunes. I am your host Tenny.

Last time we discussed Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor, which describes his very own funeral he dreamed of as a 19-year-old. It was said that the piece grew so much in popularity that Rachmaninoff himself grew sick of playing the piece every time someone in the audience asked him to perform it.

This week, we follow the same logic by briefly exploring another piece of music so popular that anyone studying orchestral music should know. Scheherazade, composed in 1888 by the great Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who lived from 1844 to 1908.

A brief background before we introduce Scheherazade, which is playing in the background. Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer and a member of The Five, a group of prominent 19th-century Russian composers who were working on creating a distinct Russian classical music genre at the time. In particular, Rimsky-Korsakov developed a nationalistic style of classical music, which features a fusion of Russian folk song and exotic harmonic, rhythmic elements, a practice known as musical orientalism. In contrast, he takes inspiration from Western compositional methods when organizing these into the final, coherent piece.

Interestingly enough, Rimsky-Korsakov had been a young navy officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, which traveled to the United States during the American Civil War. Naturally, his experiences on the sea would have influenced his composition style later on.

Scheherazade, one of the definitive milestones in Rimsky-Korsakov’s career, is a fitting example of this. For anyone who has read One Thousand and One Nights, a.k.a. the Arabian Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, this name should ring a bell. To be honest, everyone should have read at least some stories from the Arabian Nights; otherwise, you were missing out on a big part of childhood.

Scheherazade is the female storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights who told stories to the Sultan in order to stay alive. At the time, the Sultan became convinced that all women were deceptive, and thus he would kill all of his wives after the first night spent with each one. Subsequently, nearly all of the families took their daughters and fled for fear of them being killed, except for Scheherazade who was confident in her storytelling. Each night, she would tell vivid but unfinished stories to the Sultan so that he would keep her alive to finish them. This continued for about three years until the Sultan finally decided that Scheherazade would be his wife, once and for all.

The symphonic suites in Scheherazade features four stories in One Thousand and One Nights: The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship, The Story of the Kalandar Prince, The Young Prince and Princess, and Festival at Baghdad The Sea. The music is currently playing the first part, The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. If you noticed, the music elements serve to convey the commanding voice of the Sultan as he demands Scheherazade to entertain him during their initial encounter.

I would now like to play you the middle portion of the third movement, The Young Prince and Princess. It’s my favorite, even though I enjoy every movement. See if you can hear the range of powerful emotions between the two characters as a love story begins to develop. I am Tenny Tsang, and this is NBN Audio.

[Play Scheherazade III. by the U.S.S.R. Orchestra, Released 1969]

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(Clair de Lune, Debussy)

Hi guys! Welcome to episode five of Tenny’s Tunes! I am your host, Tenny.

Looking back, we have covered a variety of music, from popular Japanese anime original soundtracks to what I call the genre of online artists. The reason being, so many talented musicians exist on the Internet, showing off their unique styles, that attempting to attribute each one with a specific genre in music history is a tedious, if not impossible, job. Therefore, I thought to myself, why not define online artists in general as a new genre to make our lives easier?

Okay, I am going off topic. The thing is, I realized we haven’t yet discuss what is considered a giant among the genres, and that is classical music. As you might have guessed, my parents and grandparents raised me up as a kid who learned to play classical pieces on the piano, like just about the rest of the five hundred million kids in the world. A common misconception is that people tend to refer to any music, produced primarily in Europe from the 1600s to the 1900s, as “classical music,” and that is not technically correct. The 1600s is known as the Baroque period, and the musician that contributed the most during that time is arguably J.S. Bach. Many of his pieces are still widely performed by pianists and sung by church choirs. The classical period actually stretches from around the 1730s to the 1820s. Prominent composers include Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, etc. Music during this period can be characterized as technical and very clean-sounding. Now, Beethoven is considered primarily from the Romantic period, which follows the classical period, although some people also view him as a bridge between the Classical and Romantic periods. As the word itself implies, romantic music is best expressed through powerful emotions. Think Beethoven Symphony No. 5. Search it up on YouTube.

Today’s music selection is not by Beethoven (it will come in the future, I promise). Instead, we will explore Prelude in C Sharp Minor, composed by the 19-year-old Sergei Rachmaninoff, considered one of the last great Romantic composers. An unconfirmed rumor behind this piece describes how Rachmaninoff had a dream where he was attending a funeral. As he gradually walked toward the coffin, he discovered that it was his own body that was lying in the casket. Examining this piece from a technical standpoint, the beginning chords give off an ominous but sacred vibe, reminiscent of a church setting. As the tempo speeds up in the middle, I imagine the character, Rachmaninoff himself in this case, slowly descending into madness as the anxiety builds up with each step closer to the coffin, culminating with the ultimate realization of his own death as he discovers his lifeless body lying before him. Again, the story is unconfirmed, but it is known that Rachmaninoff claimed he was sick and tired of performing this popular piece every time someone asked him to play it.

(Prelude in C Sharp Minor Recording by Rousseau)

Spoiler alert. The music you are hearing in the background is Prelude in C [Sharp] Minor, performed by Rousseau, a talented pianist on YouTube whom I follow. I learned this piece a month ago myself. Aside from the tricky chords that often led to me tangling my fingers together as I practiced, the piece overall is fairly easy to learn, although it might sound a bit difficult and fast-paced at first. Unfortunately, I don’t have the best equipment for piano recording, so I went with the best alternative by using Rousseau’s recording.

I will now play you the middle section of Prelude in C Sharp Minor. See if you can find the corresponding parts of the story. Enjoy ~

(Middle Section Recording By Rousseau)

Music composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff, performed by Rousseau. I am Tenny Tsang, and this is NBN Audio. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time on Tenny’s Tunes.

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[Background: Thelonious Monk - Don’t Blame Me]

Welcome to episode four of Tenny’s Tunes. I am your host, Tenny!

Now, I wanna spend some time taking you back to childhood. Our childhood.

In cognitive psychology, we learned that crystallized intelligence, such as skills, knowledge and experience, increases with age while fluid intelligence, the ability to assess and solve problems in novel circumstances, decreases as we grow older. This leads some people to believe that the mind of a child is way more creative than that of an adult’s.

In other words, we can become smarter and wiser, but never more creative than our younger selves.

Scientific studies have produced persuasive evidence for this argument. A 1968 creativity test on 1,600 children conducted by George Land and Beth Jarman demonstrated a sharp drop in creativity score, from 98 percent at 5 years of age to 12 percent at 15 years old, all the way down to 2 percent around 31 years old.

A gradual decrease in the capacity to think outside the box: seems like most of us undergrads don’t think about it too much. Several people I met throughout my life thus far have expressed interest in learning Chinese from me. In exchange, I would also practice speaking a few other languages with them, such as spanish and japanese. Amid our joy of learning new phrases and being complimented by one another, many of them still told me they would have been able to, say, learn a new language much faster, if they were a just a couple years younger.

What if we could freeze aging and stay as a child forever? Just like that high school detective who turned back into a first-grader from the popular crime-solving series “Case Closed”?

I am not sure how well received this cartoon was in the U.S., but for any kid who loved watching TV in China, Japan or Korea back in the 90s and 2000s, Protagonist Kudou Shinichi, aka Edogawa Conan, the high school detective who got turned into a first-grader by a mysterious crime organization, whose name was inspired by the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, represents a portion of our childhood. In elementary school, literally every child, good and bad at taking tests alike, would worship and pray to Conan for good luck before taking a test.

The main theme of Case Closed, composed by Japanese film score producer Oono Katsuo, was and still is so popular in Japan and worldwide that even the Japanese military band performed the piece on several occasions. It is one of those melodies that gets stuck in your head after hearing it just once. A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, a fervent fan of Case Closed just like I am, had requested me to make a piano rendition, so I did. Get ready, cue the music.

(Play Recording)

Although short, it’s one of those dramatic music with an epic intro that simply demands attention. If there is one thing I learned from doing these episodes of Tenny’s Tunes, it’s that music really just boils down to the chord progression that serves as the skeleton on which the melody builds. For this particular piece, the gradual downward chord progression supporting the catchy melody fits like bread and butter with the storyline. I can just picture Conan chasing down the culprit on his solar energy skateboard and amplified running shoes. Can you feel the energy being injected into you with every chord, every single note landing on your ear drums?

If you enjoyed the main theme of Case Closed, be sure to check out some of the other works by Mr. Oono and perhaps the cartoon itself. You won’t regret it, trust me. :)

Music produced by Oono Katsuo, performed on the piano by me. I am Tenny Tsang, and this is NBN Audio. Thank you so much for listening, and stay tuned to Tenny’s Tunes. Have a great winter!

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