04. 14. 2020
Howl's Moving Castle // Joe Hisaishi // 2004 // OST
Ryuichi Sakamoto and Joe Hisaishi are a few of my favorite pianists and composers of all time. Both have amazingly expressive pieces that convey a particular emotion or narrative. I grew up listening to Hisaishi in particular since he worked closely with the animation studio, Studio Ghibli. His compositions blow a certain atmosphere into the magical stories and have been featured in globally acclaimed pieces such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Totoro and Princess Mononoke. There are honestly too many of his pieces that I love to pick out a favorite.
This was one of the first pieces I learned to play by Hisaishi: Summer. It was the theme song for the 1999 Japanese film, Kikujiro.
This is one of his most recent work: Nostalgia
As I grew older, I began to appreciate Sakamoto’s moodier and a bit melancholic melodies. It was funny to know that I was exposed to a lot of his music before I really got to know the artist himself. I had Solitude in my playlist before watching the movie Tony Takitani, which is based on the short story by Haruki Murakami (also the author of the famous 1Q84 book!). So it was a lovely surprise when I recognized the song in the movie. Like Hisaishi, Sakamoto created scores for films such as the Oscar winning, The Revenant.
This is one of his most well-known pieces: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. It was created in 1983 for a film of the same name.
I finally convinced my mom to call the piano technician to tune our poor piano. It’s been a few years since we last tuned it (most likely because no one really plays it except me) and I’ve been frustrated with how it sounded each time I came home for the break. I remember when I used to learn the piano regularly back in elementary school, the piano technician would really work magic. The piano would sound so on point and soft and loud at the same time after he tuned it. It was amazing that he was blind.
Anyway, now that I’m older, it's interesting to hear how the piano is tuned. Here’s a recording:
Hopefully I can get my rusty fingers to start moving again after a hiatus of so many years. At least the quarantine will help with that!
