Departures - Guilty Crown ED1 [Animenz Cover]

Hey everyone!

I'm back again with another video =D and no blazer as it's too annoying to play while wearing it haha - maybe I'll wear it in winter?

The bit after the key change uses a different camera angle as I tried to spice things up a bit =P

Anyways, Departures is my all-time favourite song from my favourite band, EGOIST. I first watched Guilty Crown in 2017 and instantly fell in love with the song as Chelly's voice is so smooth and really conveys the melancholic atmosphere of the song/anime. I've listened to this song on repeat for so long that I've memorised the lyrics lmao

When I first heard Animenz's arrangement, I didn't really want to play it since it wasn't 100% true to the original so I dropped it a few years ago. However, last year I found Departures in my YouTube recommended section again so I decided to check out Animenz's arrangement again. This time, I really liked the jazzy parts after playing other pieces with jazzy sections like Kigeki so I immediately went to practice it again.

I realise how masterfully arranged this piece is, especially the three-hand section at 1:42 which beautifully builds upon the opening. It was a pain to learn, though, haha. You need to be very efficient with how you choose the fingering for the main voice as the left hand has quite a few jumps involving chords. A tip for finding the ideal fingering is just to watch Animenz's video at 0.1x speed and copy his =D

The part that got me hooked on this piece was the jazzy section at 2:17. It took me a really long time to play it like Animenz as I didn't realise you had to hold the bottom D while changing pedals and letting go of the other notes. By holding the lower D, you can hear a 10th after playing the next chord (Dsus) which is why it sounds so good - 10th's are the best!

I read a comment under Animenz's video about how to play the tremolo section but I didn't really understand it. It's not that complicated, though. Just keep your wrist steady so you can oscillate it between the two groups of notes. No need to spend time lining it up with the left hand since you'll naturally do that if you play the right number of tremolos. Take it slow at the beginning or else you might develop a wrist injury!

Lastly, the cadenza at the end was so challenging to sync both hands. It took me 3 weeks to get that right and it still sounds a bit funky lol

The next cover will be Michishirube! See you then =)

Btw, I recorded this video with 4 mics - 2 AKG C414 and 2 Neumann KM184. Can you hear a difference?