EGOIST - Departures (Guilty Crown ED1) | Piano Arrangement
Sheet music: https://www.mymusicsheet.com/mezzofor...
Listen on SoundCloud: / egoist-departures-guilty-crown-ed1-piano-a...
How far we have come... Tomorrow feels like yesterday, and the age of 16 have finally come to me.
I am not good with goodbyes, but that does not mean I cannot contemplate on the fact that I have learned and grown so much within the last year. Challenges came and went, intertwined with joyful moments. Though I have settled happily with my life in Australia with everything I could have wanted, such matters cannot be forgotten, even if it is just a short goodbye.
That is why I decided to arrange a short but technically challenging version of Departures, "ending" with an abrupt, non-diatonic Am6 chord from the original TV Size version resembling the journey so far, though short and complex, challenging, has not ended yet.
I have decided that I will also play this in Term 2's Solo Performance, and I will put the more extensive analysis of the arrangement below:
(...) I intentionally put an excessive amount of grace notes in the melody so as to further enhance the ‘jazziness’ of the piece, think of a muted trumpet or trombone playing these lines. In bar 24, where the piece is given a break, I initially wanted to pull back the accompaniment to a dotted quaver-semiquaver rhythm playing the root note of the chords, but it sounded too sudden of a break, so I made them as arpeggios instead to retain some movement. At the end of the piece, I gave the option either to release the Am6 chord right away as in the original TV Size of the song, or let it resonate and gradually release the sustain pedal, because both options sound plausible for me and I intend for the performer to have some freedom with the piece.
In terms of Pitch and Texture, I identified that the original, foundational chord progression for the verse is D-Dmaj7-D7-B7-Em7-Gm6-D. We start off with a plain, simple D major chord, acting as the home base to develop upon. Then we go to the next chord, adding the major 7th and taking away the 3rd so as to complement the melody and add a subtle accent to the upbeat of the bar. We then move to the minor 7th, creating suspension in the following phrase. These initial 3 chords has the root note acting as an anchor for a partial line cliché progression, evoking a calm feel but enough to begin the story. In the middle of the phrase, a B7 chord, further accented by a D♯ in the right hand, then followed by the first inversion of it acts as a trampoline to a satisfying, but unresolved Em7 chord. In bar 8, to transition to the next theme of the verse, I tried to transcribe the original and also adding some ornaments to it. In bars 10 and 12, I introduced some imitation and countermelodies as variations to the development of the verse, also giving it an elegant and deliberate transition to the next phrases. Bars 13 and 14, I incorporated some ornaments to fill the silence as well as giving another voice to the piece, making it sound more full. I initially wanted to make an ascending arpeggio line, but found that going down into the lower register sounds more satisfying and relieving. I also intend the performer to play this passage in a broadening manner, hence the allargando marking. There are also some virtuosic and impressionistic elements incorporated such as in bars 19 with the fast arpeggio to an octave in the left hand (because it is a risky move so I gave the performer the choice to either play the octave or only the root note), and 20 after that, with rapid arpeggios carrying the melody with a lot of movement. Polyphonic elements were also thought of, such as in bar 22, with a partial chromatic break, then back to the melody again. Or in bars 19, 25 and 26 where the right hand accents the first chord of the cadence, creating more tension and thus giving a more pleasing resolution. Interrupted/Deceptive cadences appear numerous times in the piece as in the original song, but the most noteworthy is in the very last bar, supposedly the end of the piece. We are held by tension with the V chord from the last bar, but instead of a resolution, we are met with a surprising Gmaj7 chord. This is transcribed from the original song. The reason for this is that this piece, in the name itself, ‘Departures’, signifies that the action of leaving is with the purpose of starting a journey. This piece is the second that I have arranged since I have been in Australia, as well as the fact that I finished arranging it right on my birthday, so that I want it to be a short, but meaningful departure from the last chapter of my life to begin a new, significant and spectacular musical journey.