「.」(Jellyfish/海月) | Piano Arrangement

Here's another piano arrangement of a K song! (More) alternative names for this include Kurage (romaji of the Japanese title, 「クラゲ」) and sm21783669 (id on Nico Nico Douga).

This leans more on the jazzier side of K.'s four "public" songs. He uses pretty quirky harmonic changes and extended chords especially during the transition into the verse, and the pre-chorus (that G#7/#9/b13 is especially spicy). The lyrics are also as cryptic as always, with some people speculating that the jellyfish is an analogy for a nuclear bomb. Though, taking it literally, it's still a pretty cool story about a massive alien (?) jellyfish that hungers for human flesh :D

As for this arrangement, there were a few places I was a bit unsatisfied with. I don't think I like how I approached the rhythm/bass lines on the left hand for the verses; I thought they were too repetitive most of the time. But it was hard to bring over the feel of the original (especially the side-chaining) to a piano while making it anything other than the repeating 1/8th notes. Other times, I had to reduce a lot of the running notes/ostinatos in the background of the original to lessen the chances of your hands dissociating from your arms. The pre-chorus had the arpeggio in 1/16ths all the way, for example. On the other hand, I wasn't looking to keep the feel of the original for the final chorus, so I went and did the jazz treatment to it. Funny story, I only realised that I left out two more repetitions of said chorus when I was editing the video. Taking that opportunity, I also re-did a few other parts of the arrangement before I finally started to put the video together.

Onto the video -- I was really hoping I could emulate some of K.'s visual work for this video, too. I managed to do the side-chaining splash effect-thingy as well as the pianoroll (with the notes on the score instead). I tried to do the riser visual (the revolving dotted border) but I couldn't manage to make the dashes move via my video editor. I could've animated it on another program but I didn't want to go through the hassle. Ended up settling with the pulsing effect instead. While I wanted to also try doing the drum notation in the video (which I certainly do need some sort of animation program for), the fact that this arrangement has zero drums renders it useless, so I didn't emulate it.

Wow, you've actually read this far. Good on you! Either that or you're looking for the sheet music. It's down a little bit more...

original (YT reupload):    • .  

written by K***** | 作曲者: こ***
arranged by myself :) | 編曲者: 私自身 :)

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