Episode 8: Misaki and tararan tararan.
Tararan tararan.
Every time Misaki’s tiny fingers touch on the keyboard, the clear sound of piano would reverberated throughout the room.
Friday, after coming back from school, Misaki visited the Tosaki family’s room. Misaki was planning to go straight to Yui’s, but Yui kept insisting her that she has to tell Mayumi about this first, so Misaki did what Yui told her to do.
When you go out you have to tell me who’re you going with, where’ll you go, and at what time will you be back. Yui faithfully follows her mother’s teaching.
“Ahー yuー readiee?”
Yui winked at Misaki while trying to snap her fingers at the same time, but failed to make a noise.
“Ohwー righ”
Misaki replied back exactly the way Yui told her to. Even though Misaki doesn’t understand English at all, but seeing Yui speaking English so excitedly she couldn’t help but go along with her. Yui sniffled with satisfied look, and then held up a book with ‘Ta-da!’
『Introduction on composing music that even elementary schoolers can do. (Second part.) 』
“Where’s the first?”
Asked Misaki.
“Over there!”
Yui pointed to the bookshelves near them.
“The first one has one hundred and twenty pages in total. However! This one, it summarize the entire first book within just four pages!”
The author should’ve write it in four pages from the beginning, thought Yui. However all the introductory books are all like that, if everything was written within just four pages from the start then no one would be able to understand anything at all, but that is something Yui has yet to understand.
“Please move a little bit.”
Standing on the left side of Misaki who’s sitting on the piano chair, Yui pushed her with both of her hands. Misaki obediently moved to the right half of the chair. Yui immediately sits on the leftover space of the chair, and place the book on the place where you usually put music sheet there.
Misaki’s body might be tiny, but the chair for piano is still large enough for two first graders to sit together comfortably without feeling that it’s too cramped. Of course their feet couldn’t reach the floor yet, and while Misaki’s feet are facing downward quietly, Yui’s feet are swinging energetically.
Yui started studying music composition the day after she heard what Misaki said.
I’m going to do my best for my little sister’s sake, because I’m the big sister after all! Or so that’s what she felt.
And thus, while trying to recall what she had learnt, she starts playing the piano with tararan sound.
“This is called C chord!”
“Sea food?”
“It’s not a food!”
Misaki tilts her head, and from then on Yui starts teaching her from the beginning, starting from Ra and then A B C.
Misaki listens earnestly, replying back to Yui from time to time.
Although Do-Re-Mi musical scale might be commonly known, but in this musical realm it started from Ra si do which is called A B C respectively and so on.
As for C chord, it represents the three notes Do Mi and So, hence the name which comes from the first letter ‘Do’ (C) of the set. In the similar fashion, the chord which starts from Re (D) is called D chord.
Some of you might still wondered what is a chord in the first place, probably the best answer for that is the word ‘Results from researches’.
The people in music industry basically goes ‘I felt like I’ve used these same notes combination a lot……’ or something along those line and discovered the combination of notes, thus a chord. Simply put in peasant folks language, it’s a template for beautiful music.
In music composing, combining few chords result in something called ‘Chord progression.’ Of course there are some exceptions, but let’s forget that for now.
“Do you understand?”
“……Un.”
“Excellent! Then next is the rhythm!”
“Rhythm?”
The important things in music composition, are none other than chord and rhythm. If the you apply a chord to a rhythm, then it’ll sound like a song most of the time. If we apply a combination of chords to rhythm then it’d be born as chord progression, and yes of course there are templates for that as well.
Now, what is a rhythm you asked.
It’s not that difficult really. It’s the four quarter time thing that everyone has heard about before.
“Like this!”
Yui plays the notes Do Mi So for Misaki.
Please think of a music sheet. It’s the thing that has five lines with small tadpoles dot on them. If we divide those lines into four quarter, and then place four tadpoles on each section it becomes ‘Four quarter time.’
For an example, let’s take a look at the simplest composition.
For now let’s assume that the rhythm is four quarter time, and chord progression is C C C C. If we play Do Re Mi on this then,
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Like that. And here with a random lyric I just thought up……
Do Mi Soー Yesterdayー
Do Mi Soー I have eatー
Do Mi Soー A good foodー
Do Mi Soー So delishー
Though this might be just some useless information to you, but the music scale of the song about a good food that I ate yesterday can be anything that isn’t Do Mi So too. This means that even if you speak standard Japanese, in Kansai dialect, or even foreigner-like ones, it usually works on all of them. A very large range of freedom.
Once you’ve come this far, all that left is for you to use your senses to add stressing and now you’re done.
“Simple!”
“……Un.”
Misaki feels like she can also do that too.
Yui looked at Misaki’s expression and said ‘I’m good at explaining things aren’t I!’ with a proud look.
“Now let’s take a look at the chord!”
Finally it’s time for the book.
Yui flipped to the page where she had placed the bookmark, and then show it to Misaki.
“We’ll combine from these and create a song!”
“Un.”
Misaki nodded vigorously.
Immediately, she began to make an order of chords from the chord list in the book.
“Unー?”
Misaki squinted her eyes to look at the chord with tadpole dots on it. Since Misaki had never seen a music sheet before, she had no idea what these meant at all.
Which is why Misaki starts thinking.
There’s a total of five lines on the paper. Above the topmost line there are marks on it, such as ‘A’ or ‘B’, and also a symbol that occupied all lines. And the marks next to the symbol, she still couldn’t figure those out.
“This one, tap?”
“C chord!”
Yui taps on the piano and the sound Do Mi So rang out.
“This one?”
“D minor!”
Yui taps on the piano and the sound Re Fa Ra rang out.
“This one?”
“D chord!”
Yui taps on the piano once again and the sound Re Fa Ra rang out. But the Fa sound this time comes from the black key.
While looking at the chord list with symbols’ description on it, Misaki also tried to remember Yui’s word and her performance as well.
Maybe, the C is shiー. And D is Deeー. Although she couldn’t understand anything else, but for now she figured out that in C, the bottommost symbol is Do, and the pitch raises one step at a time from there. So perhaps this ‘♭’ symbol right here means that she should press the black key next. 1
Misaki blinked repeatedly, then try to play the ‘F’ chord that is written in the book.
“F chord!”
“This?”
Misaki points on a section of the page.
“That’s right!”
Apparently she was right.
Misaki tries the other chords as well.
“G chord!”
“And this?”
“A minor!”
“And this?”
“What’s that even!?”
Dejected, Misaki points to the chord she’s looking at.
“This is how you play the C seven!”
Tararan, Yui plays the piano. Seeing this, Misaki corrects her mistakes in her mind.
Next one is this. And this one as well.
Every time Misaki tried a chord, Yui would teach her about it.
Everything she does here is for Ryo-kun to be happy.
On this day, Misaki starts making her own music.
Episode 8: Misaki and tararan tararan.
Tararan tararan.
Every time Misaki’s tiny fingers touch on the keyboard, the clear sound of piano would reverberated throughout the room.
Friday, after coming back from school, Misaki visited the Tosaki family’s room. Misaki was planning to go straight to Yui’s, but Yui kept insisting her that she has to tell Mayumi about this first, so Misaki did what Yui told her to do.
When you go out you have to tell me who’re you going with, where’ll you go, and at what time will you be back. Yui faithfully follows her mother’s teaching.
“Ahー yuー readiee?”
Yui winked at Misaki while trying to snap her fingers at the same time, but failed to make a noise.
“Ohwー righ”
Misaki replied back exactly the way Yui told her to. Even though Misaki doesn’t understand English at all, but seeing Yui speaking English so excitedly she couldn’t help but go along with her. Yui sniffled with satisfied look, and then held up a book with ‘Ta-da!’
『Introduction on composing music that even elementary schoolers can do. (Second part.) 』
“Where’s the first?”
Asked Misaki.
“Over there!”
Yui pointed to the bookshelves near them.
“The first one has one hundred and twenty pages in total. However! This one, it summarize the entire first book within just four pages!”
The author should’ve write it in four pages from the beginning, thought Yui. However all the introductory books are all like that, if everything was written within just four pages from the start then no one would be able to understand anything at all, but that is something Yui has yet to understand.
“Please move a little bit.”
Standing on the left side of Misaki who’s sitting on the piano chair, Yui pushed her with both of her hands. Misaki obediently moved to the right half of the chair. Yui immediately sits on the leftover space of the chair, and place the book on the place where you usually put music sheet there.
Misaki’s body might be tiny, but the chair for piano is still large enough for two first graders to sit together comfortably without feeling that it’s too cramped. Of course their feet couldn’t reach the floor yet, and while Misaki’s feet are facing downward quietly, Yui’s feet are swinging energetically.
Yui started studying music composition the day after she heard what Misaki said.
I’m going to do my best for my little sister’s sake, because I’m the big sister after all! Or so that’s what she felt.
And thus, while trying to recall what she had learnt, she starts playing the piano with tararan sound.
“This is called C chord!”
“Sea food?”
“It’s not a food!”
Misaki tilts her head, and from then on Yui starts teaching her from the beginning, starting from Ra and then A B C.
Misaki listens earnestly, replying back to Yui from time to time.
Although Do-Re-Mi musical scale might be commonly known, but in this musical realm it started from Ra si do which is called A B C respectively and so on.
As for C chord, it represents the three notes Do Mi and So, hence the name which comes from the first letter ‘Do’ (C) of the set. In the similar fashion, the chord which starts from Re (D) is called D chord.
Some of you might still wondered what is a chord in the first place, probably the best answer for that is the word ‘Results from researches’.
The people in music industry basically goes ‘I felt like I’ve used these same notes combination a lot……’ or something along those line and discovered the combination of notes, thus a chord. Simply put in peasant folks language, it’s a template for beautiful music.
In music composing, combining few chords result in something called ‘Chord progression.’ Of course there are some exceptions, but let’s forget that for now.
“Do you understand?”
“……Un.”
“Excellent! Then next is the rhythm!”
“Rhythm?”
The important things in music composition, are none other than chord and rhythm. If the you apply a chord to a rhythm, then it’ll sound like a song most of the time. If we apply a combination of chords to rhythm then it’d be born as chord progression, and yes of course there are templates for that as well.
Now, what is a rhythm you asked.
It’s not that difficult really. It’s the four quarter time thing that everyone has heard about before.
“Like this!”
Yui plays the notes Do Mi So for Misaki.
Please think of a music sheet. It’s the thing that has five lines with small tadpoles dot on them. If we divide those lines into four quarter, and then place four tadpoles on each section it becomes ‘Four quarter time.’
For an example, let’s take a look at the simplest composition.
For now let’s assume that the rhythm is four quarter time, and chord progression is C C C C. If we play Do Re Mi on this then,
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Do Mi Soー♪
Like that. And here with a random lyric I just thought up……
Do Mi Soー Yesterdayー
Do Mi Soー I have eatー
Do Mi Soー A good foodー
Do Mi Soー So delishー
Though this might be just some useless information to you, but the music scale of the song about a good food that I ate yesterday can be anything that isn’t Do Mi So too. This means that even if you speak standard Japanese, in Kansai dialect, or even foreigner-like ones, it usually works on all of them. A very large range of freedom.
Once you’ve come this far, all that left is for you to use your senses to add stressing and now you’re done.
“Simple!”
“……Un.”
Misaki feels like she can also do that too.
Yui looked at Misaki’s expression and said ‘I’m good at explaining things aren’t I!’ with a proud look.
“Now let’s take a look at the chord!”
Finally it’s time for the book.
Yui flipped to the page where she had placed the bookmark, and then show it to Misaki.
“We’ll combine from these and create a song!”
“Un.”
Misaki nodded vigorously.
Immediately, she began to make an order of chords from the chord list in the book.
“Unー?”
Misaki squinted her eyes to look at the chord with tadpole dots on it. Since Misaki had never seen a music sheet before, she had no idea what these meant at all.
Which is why Misaki starts thinking.
There’s a total of five lines on the paper. Above the topmost line there are marks on it, such as ‘A’ or ‘B’, and also a symbol that occupied all lines. And the marks next to the symbol, she still couldn’t figure those out.
“This one, tap?”
“C chord!”
Yui taps on the piano and the sound Do Mi So rang out.
“This one?”
“D minor!”
Yui taps on the piano and the sound Re Fa Ra rang out.
“This one?”
“D chord!”
Yui taps on the piano once again and the sound Re Fa Ra rang out. But the Fa sound this time comes from the black key.
While looking at the chord list with symbols’ description on it, Misaki also tried to remember Yui’s word and her performance as well.
Maybe, the C is shiー. And D is Deeー. Although she couldn’t understand anything else, but for now she figured out that in C, the bottommost symbol is Do, and the pitch raises one step at a time from there. So perhaps this ‘♭’ symbol right here means that she should press the black key next. 1
Misaki blinked repeatedly, then try to play the ‘F’ chord that is written in the book.
“F chord!”
“This?”
Misaki points on a section of the page.
“That’s right!”
Apparently she was right.
Misaki tries the other chords as well.
“G chord!”
“And this?”
“A minor!”
“And this?”
“What’s that even!?”
Dejected, Misaki points to the chord she’s looking at.
“This is how you play the C seven!”
Tararan, Yui plays the piano. Seeing this, Misaki corrects her mistakes in her mind.
Next one is this. And this one as well.
Every time Misaki tried a chord, Yui would teach her about it.
Everything she does here is for Ryo-kun to be happy.
On this day, Misaki starts making her own music.
