John UM
The TV anime “Starry Sky” that ended this week positively challenges young people’s family environment, LGBT and other past sports animations that have rarely been touched, and meticulously describes the complex and sensitive hearts of 14-year-olds. Adding luster to this story is the music of Kyoto Pure Instrumental Orchestra jizue
Founded in 2006, jizue combines a variety of musical styles such as rock, hardcore, jazz, etc., while also being full of lyrical melody. In 2015, they once visited the four cities of Xiamen, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, and Guangzhou in China to host a tour. The domestic audience may not be new to them. And “Starry Sky” is the soundtrack they created for the video works
It was a coincidence that the cooperation was facilitated: the music director of the recording company Flying Dog in charge of “Starry Sky” was eating in the curry shop, and I heard a piece of “march of monkey” by jizue. Then I checked the name of the band and recommended it to the animation supervisor Akane and Tree
As a band dedicated to pure instrumental music, jizue members have long had the idea of participating in the soundtrack. In particular, they have a good relationship with the pure instrumental music band fox capture plan, which is responsible for the soundtrack of the animation “Adolescent Stupid Don’t Make the Dream of a Bunny Girl”. This year, after Jizue ’s former drummer, Aikawa Shin, left the band, fox capture plan member Inoue also volunteered to participate in their performance. After learning that the fox capture plan had already made the first soundtrack debut, jizue’s curiosity about the soundtrack became stronger
At this moment, they received an invitation from “Starry Sky”. Of course, the members were overjoyed and felt, “It’s finally our turn to make the soundtrack!”. At the same time, they did not know how to write the soundtrack
Jizue’s piano player Mu Xiyi likes Yoko Kanno and Otaku funny artist Iwai courage, so he has some understanding of animation. But guitarist Inoue Shoji has almost no contact with animation, that is, when he was a child, he watched “Dragon Ball” and “One Piece”, and now even the TV is not very open
The members were worried and went to a meeting with Chikan Supervisor. Chikan Supervisor proposed that they hope that they will not pay too much attention to the animated worldview and write “Jizue-like music”. When they heard this, they were relieved
Chikan Supervisor did not give specific requirements such as “hope to add such a voice” and “hope to use such a melody”, but left space for the band to create freely. But the members heard that they would write more than forty short songs of one or two minutes, and were taken aback: the original animation soundtrack had to be written so much
The members also got the music demand list, which wrote the emotion, length and rhythm that each music wanted to express. It also makes them feel very fresh
Although the three existing members of jizue can all compose music, they believe that the soundtrack must be harmonious and consistent, so it cannot be written by everyone, but by one person. The piano player Mu Xiyi has his own personal activities, and the guitarist who can spend the most time on jizue activities is the guitarist Inoue Masaru. Of course, he is not alone. For example, the piano phrases are still in charge of Katagi, and the band ’s repertoire is to find the former drummer Fan Chuanxin who has retired to participate
Chikan Supervisor proposed that the band want to write a few pieces of music that can become the main axis of the music of the work. So Inoue first started from this point. As in the past, he wrote a piece of music that lasted more than 3 minutes to establish the overall music impression. One of them is the theme of the whole work “W-星 合 の 空-”.The title
“W” means both the two athletes who form a doubles partner on the soft tennis court, and both sides of the game. The moment when Inoue took himself on the stage with his guitar and stepped onto the stage, it coincided with the tension that the athletes were standing on the field waiting for the game to begin. This was expressed with the high-speed arpeggio of the 16th note of the piano. Next, the athletes competed fiercely to compete for points, and the scene became more and more heated. The melody in the chorus gave the music a refreshing openness
This piece of music is the most jizue style in the original soundtrack, and the members also questioned, “Is it too avant-garde?” However, after recording, they felt “this is awesome!”. Because they were too satisfied, they also requested permission from the animator to include this piece in the album “gallery” released in July
The high-speed piano performance at the beginning of the song is one of jizue’s signatures. Piano player Mu Xiyi said that this phrase, the piano player can never think of it, because the fingers can not move. Guitarist Inoue uses a synthetic sound to compose such a melody. She has to practice repeatedly every time she plays, very hard
After the animation is broadcast, every week, when “W-星 合 の 空-” sounds, the response on the Internet is particularly enthusiastic, and the audience brushed “coming all “”, Which makes the members very happy
The music in the animation is not all so aggressive. “Ickle”, which is often used in everyday scenes, is diametrically opposed to “W”, written on the theme of “plain daily life”. Inoue wanted to write a very gentle piece of music, including the timbre, which excluded the cold piano, but used an electronic piano and acoustic guitar. Jizue rarely uses acoustic guitars in his own performances, and Inoue re-recorded several times when recording
Behind the gentleness, because “ickle” is a variable beat, it may be unclear if you listen carefully: “What beat is this?” This is also the personality of jizue. Their music is very complicated, with a high level of technology hidden behind them, but at the same time, they pay attention to writing the melody of the chorus with ease and approachability while composing. No matter how difficult the music is, as long as it is written beautifully, it will surely move people’s hearts
Jizue, who first tried the soundtrack, made many challenges in order to stay close to the animation content while retaining the band’s style. The theme song “sole male” of Shinmu’s father in the animation is obviously different from other music styles, and has a jazz-like instability. The band invited Dr. Nagayagawa, who played the trumpet, to the shop of the izakaya “ ポ ン “, a favorite of Kyoto musicians. Jizue’s own music has never used wind instruments. Although Inoue wrote a melody line and asked the doctor to blow it, the doctor continued to improvise, and they retained the results of these improvisations. The doctor also likes animation very much and said to them: “I can leave my name in the original soundtrack of the animation. I realized a dream. Thank you very much.”
In addition to “sole male”, there are a number of dark music in the animated soundtrack. This is unprecedented in jizue’s own music. They hope that these challenges can also be applied to the future work of the band
When receiving the commission to create music for “Starry Sky”, the band members only knew the story. They looked at the impression that the Akamoto Supervisor demanded every piece of music on the music demand list. There were many disturbing words in them, which made them very curious: “What the hell is this story?” And when the animation was broadcast, they became more and more Was surprised: “The original animation can have such a worldview!”.
Every episode of the animation has a heart-warming scene. Every character has family or own problems. This makes jizue feel that this is a story of this era
As musicians, of course, they will also pay attention to how their works are used in animation. In particular, jizue has a strong post-shaking color and a strong musical personality. They are very worried about whether their music will be accepted by the audience
Fortunately, the light color and thorny plot of “Starry Sky” form a wonderful harmony with jizue’s complicated and incomprehensible music. In addition, animation uses music in a very clever way, often making them feel that “this song is used in this place!” And “the scenes used are completely opposite to what they imagined!”. What’s amazing is that the music is so used by animation, which is very consistent with the scene, and even shows the beauty of their music. This made them marvel at the strength of sound supervision and supervision
In addition, the animation will also cut and re-join some music, but it sounds like there is no sense of disobedience, just like this is the original song. Members said that for the first time in the soundtrack, many “magic things” happened
Although jizue has a history of more than ten years, the group of animated viewers is closer to the Internet than their past audiences, and actively publish their own real ideas on the Internet so that members can hear various voices. They were able to see many praised comments, and they were also very happy. Animation audiences are more able to accept fresh music. They said that the soundtrack they were responsible for the first time was animation, which was really great
To say what is the biggest difficulty in creating the soundtrack for the first time, Inoue replied: It is the title of the song. In the original soundtrack (excluding the two theme songs), Inoue himself is responsible for the title and order of the tracks. He wanted to name 38 songs in one go, and he searched the Internet and struggled with his brain
After all, the opportunity is rare, Inoue also hides a secret sign in the title of the original soundtrack. What is this secret number, even the piano hand piece wood does not know. However, the title of the song is mainly composed of English lowercase letters, but there are a few capital letters interspersed between them. This may be a hint. I also hope that this careful thinking can add some fun to everyone
References:
- Jizue が 培 っ て き た 「 チ ー ム 力」. Retreat の crisis も 軽 やか に 飞 び 越 え た.
- か わ い 絵 柄 か ら は 想像 で き な か っ た … “暗 が %% @ @ 深 す ぎ ” ア ニ メ 『 星 合 %% @ @ の 空 』Ordinary じ ゃ な い Glamour を % % @@ 増 幗 さ せ た 音 楽 世界 を Interview ね て.
- 【 イ ン タ ビ ュ ー 】 jizue ら し さ が 存 分 に 発 荡 さ れ た 、 「星 合 の 空” オ リ ジ ナ ル サ ウ ン ド ト ラ ッ ク.
- TV ア ニ メ 『星 合 の 空 』剧 伴 を 办 当 し た イ ン スト ゥ ル メ ン タ ル ・ バ ン ド jizue イ ン タ ビ ュ ー