Well, I really, really love this song. I love the wide, orchestral strings, the way the electric guitar adds a lot of beef to the choruses, the piano in the first verse, and, of course, Chiai Fujikawa’s vocals, which are super bright and breathy at times in all the right ways. And on top of that, I feel like this is a song where you can just hear the passion and emotion that Fujikawa puts into her performance; it speaks to me in its own way even though I can’t speak Japanese (yet).But even looking at the lyrics, I mean, who doesn’t resonate with the words even a bit? The feeling of looking forward and wondering how much longer you have with someone; the feeling of looking back and seeing times you took for granted; the feeling of looking at the present and wondering why you’re stuck in a limbo with the person you love; the feeling of knowing that it’s selfish of you to desire their affection and attention, yet you can’t help but want it; the feeling of having so many emotions that they’re overflowing and you don’t even have the words to describe them.
Of course, I can’t judge poeticism in a language that I don’t understand, but suffice to say that everything that I can is incredible.
And then on top of all that, I feel like this is a song that perfectly describes how Raphtalia feels in Shield Hero towards Naofumi. The longing, the desire, and the swell of emotions...it’s all there. It feels like Raphtalia is singing this song, and the first ED does this really well, too.
It took almost all of October to arrange this song because I could only work on it a few times a week and I’m still very bad at making out certain things in the music (all that ear training from like 10 years ago clearly has not survived). But I chose this song because it was easy enough for me to tinker around on the piano by ear and, well, I liked it enough to be motivated to finish.
This was also the first song that I’ve arranged where it has vocals. It actually made it surprisingly more difficult than Next to You since I feel as though the vocal, which only carries the melody, gives less context on which supporting instruments are important, so it became a harder task figuring out which parts belonged in the final arrangement and which ones should be replaced with more “pianistic” elements.
A few things that I knew I wanted to do going though: I wanted the chorus to be big, which is why the first one has a whole bunch of deep bass octaves and full chords in the right hand, but I didn’t want my choruses to be identical, which is why the second chorus moves the melody into the alto range and varies the rhythm a bit, which is quite vibey for me. I also knew that I wanted to maintain some of the snare rhythm in the choruses, which I guess I somewhat accomplished with the left hand.
I also definitely wanted to make the instrumental and final chorus epic. Like nothing against a lot of the other arrangements I’ve heard, but I just felt like they don’t do the guitar solo justice. I took a bit of inspiration from zzz’s arrangement in terms of some of the structure of the instrumental and final chorus. But yeah, those runs were nutty and a lot of fun to play (even if they weren’t perfect and I didn’t voice the melodies in the left hand well enough), and I botched the left hand part in the final chorus quite hard, but other than those technical flubs it was really cool sounding and gave off the sweeping, grand atmosphere I was going for.
And of course, the bridge is my favorite part of the whole song. I mean, you can tell because I almost put my nose on the keyboard. But I literally drove so much weight into the keys because I really felt it. It’s the same feeling when I get to that fortissimo section of Ballade in G minor halfway through: I just feel it in my chest and it comes gushing out.
And just for the record, the Raphtalia figures were half for aesthetic and half for my moral support, which was actually needed since I couldn’t really practice for the week before recording because of wrist issues that were related to a series of migraines I had. I’m ok now though, but I’m perfectly fine using that as an excuse for all my technical errors. Just saying.
Somehow when I was editing this turned into an AMV starring Raphtalia. At first I thought it might have been excessive, but on second thought, it’s Raphtalia, so it’s not.
I hope you enjoyed my arrangement as much as I loved playing it (even if you're not a fan of Shield Hero, which I totally get)! It’s music like this that really keeps me going, and I hope it’s beautiful to you as well.
Until next time!
- WattKeys
Title: Atashi ga Tonari ni Iru Uchi ni
Original Artist: Chiai Fujikawa
Show: The Rising of the Shield Hero
Arranger: WattKeys
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General support:
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Produced and mixed by me!
#ShieldHero #Raphtalia #Piano
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