Piano Cover: Karandorie (Dusk Maiden of Amnesia)

In another short week or two, yet another season of anime will come to a close. It's always a bittersweet feeling; I'm excited to see what the next set of shows will bring, but it's a bit sad to see these shows finish up one by one. Ah, change.

My newest piano cover is from one such show on its final stretch: Dusk Maiden of Amnesia (黄昏乙女×アムネジア), which centers upon ghost girl Yuuko and her associated friends and mysteries. The show's a little hard to sum up. I'd probably describe it as a "supernatural slice of life" show; it's definitely more about Yuuko's day-to-day activities than about horror or mystery. I wasn't particularly attached to the show at first, and while I still can't say it's my favorite of the season, it's definitely grown on me. The recent episodes were actually quite heart-wrenching.

Dusk Maiden of Amnesia's opening theme, "Choir Jail," has been remarkably popular among YouTube cover artists this season, so as always, I decided to tackle something different. And honestly, I'm a bigger fan of the ending theme to begin with -- "Karandorie" by artist Aki Ouki. The little instrumental interludes really struck the right chords with me, and the harmony in the song has been some of the most interesting I've heard in anime themes. It didn't take me long to settle on covering this piece. Here it is!

Karandorie (Dusk Maiden of Amnesia): Piano Cover



Artist: Aki Okui
Date Completed: 2012-06-16
Software: Audacity, Movie Maker
Number of Takes: V____V
Instrumentation: Piano

I admit that I really struggled with this arrangement. I know I say something to that extent every time, but Karandorie was especially challenging for me. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the key of this piece (gah, it would have been so much easier to take it down a half-step), so it took me a long time just to get the notes under my fingertips. Even after I did, the harmonic instability of the piece -- while one of my favorite things about the song -- made things even more difficult. And as far as making mistakes goes...yeah, there was a lot of that. Maybe I was being a bit of a perfectionist, but it took so many takes to get something I was satisfied with. >_< I finally obtained a presentable result after three days of playing and recording. Hopefully all of that work resulted in something enjoyable to listen to, at least. :)

See ya!

xds