Nodame Cantabile: Coda

I think the above about sums up most of my ramblings concerning the series to date. Props to Froth-Bite for their efforts!

The last episode was a lot of flashback with some inspirational splashed in, but didn't carry the same finality as the episode before it. This is really not the end for these characters, so jumping up and screaming There! It's done! would be inappropriate. I'm not even wistful at all about it. What partings there were, were devoid of tear-inducing moments, as most partings are or ought to be.

Visually, the series does come off as cheap, although there's nothing terribly exciting about watching people playing instruments in general. The CG, despite all the work that probably went into it, never captured the flare that virtuosos possess in their movements. If you can get beyond that and listen to the music, the dialog, and interactions, I think you'll find a consistently decent series that really delivers towards its conclusion.

Being a former student of music probably disposes me towards something like Nodame Cantabile, and your mileage may vary otherwise.

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Megumi Noda: A for Amateurism

As Chinese parents, it seemed only natural to attempt to force music upon their child. Not the seemingly logical Chinese music that is their heritage, mind you, but Western-European music. This is not a general truth, and I don't mean any offense. But for me and those around me, it's true enough, and we all find it slightly amusing.

I was an odd case, in that I more or less said I wanted to try piano, without quite knowing what I was getting myself and my parents - who had to buy a piano, pay for lessons, and chauffeur me once a week year round - into. Early on, I wound up not liking the instrument very much, and it wasn't because I wanted to play whatever I wanted however I pleased, like one Megumi Noda from Nodame Cantabile. It was precisely because I wanted to play things right, and my parents wouldn't let me.

And so I suffered from a kind of reverse-Nodame complex - a Chiaki complex, then? - which wouldn't actually be a problem if my parents saw things the way most people saw so-called "Classical" music. An example situation is at the very bottom, for those interested. I'm not trying (too hard) to blame anyone. Things got better later on. And then university happened so they never had to hear me again.

:D ?


Strictly speaking about music performance, I, like most others, take (or took) a fairly professional approach. In preparation for a performance, you rehearse, and if everything goes the way it's supposed to on performance day, things will sound exactly as they did in rehearsal. Each section, however one chooses to define it, must be played in a certain way. How fine grained (block, phrase, chord, notes) and the style (staccato, semi-detached, legato, cantabile style), is up to the performer or performers or the conductor, but once decided, any deviation is a step away from perfection, a scratch in the otherwise flawless orb.

That's what classical performance boils down to: a shiny object. It is music objectified. Music professionals deliver a product, and they are expected to be pretty consistent about it over the course of a tour or concert run. People pay money to hear what the audience heard the night before, the night before that, and the night before that. That's not to say that performers don't love what they do. It's just that everyone, everyone has their off days, but they are still expected to deliver the same results regardless of their personal situation.


This is why Nodame is different, and refreshing to watch while she necessarily infuriates the bookish and/or stuck up characters around her. Despite her sudden change in her work ethic and performance style, she is still very much on the amateur end of the performance spectrum. If she's burnt out, it shows. If she doesn't feel like performing, she will do so only begrudgingly. On the other hand, she can be brilliant when in the right mood. Through it all, her odd and very unprofessional facial expressions indicate exactly what she is feeling.

Professionals leave their personal lives (or maybe just the bad bits) in the car, in the dressing room, or at the door. Nodame takes her baggage wherever she goes, and it both helps and hinders her.

Notice, too, that no one really cares about her per se. She is viewed only in the context of her performance and talent. The real question is not, "Did she sleep well?" or "Did she burn herself out?", it's "Was the performance any good?" There are no mitigating circumstances. The human element is abstracted away, and just as the performance is objectified, so is the performer. Performers are really cogs that produce the finished product.

Nodame doesn't agree with that sentiment, refusing to let conformity be beaten into her. Her amateurism, however, goes beyond her inconsistent performance. Not only is she not necessarily note perfect, she also insists on adding her own embellishments, going so far as to improvise out the rest of her Petrushka performance in the final round of the Maradona competition.

Improvisation is the exception, not the rule. The bulk of Western-European music does not contain soloing sections like jazz. In the subset that does, usually concerto pieces with cadenza sections for the soloist, there is usually little actual improvisation as the cadenza is written down, many times by the composer (as opposed to the performer), and performed as if improvised. Everything is scripted, even the parts that aren't.

What all this comes down to is that Nodame's choice to leave music and go be a teacher is not nearly as crazy or comedic as it first seems. For her, music is not Serious Business, but something she does out of love. She is thus an amateur in the true spirit of the word, i.e. someone who does something out of love, and is not necessarily a n00b. When she falls out of love with music, she stops. If she thinks that a piece is somewhat lacking, she'll add her own details to spruce it up. Music was never a profession, hence her decision to look elsewhere for a real job.

To go to Europe and continue her studies would mean experiencing the inflexible world that she is so at odds with. It would be a titanic struggle, the kind of conflict that sells, no doubt.

* * *

The example: Richter playing Appassionata, third movement [YouTube]. Even at 58 kbps, it's still pretty awesome. If you like Beethoven, that is. If I were to even attempt to play like this (I don't even have the sheet music), I'd be called out for a) playing too damn fast, and b) playing too loud and "angry-like" (I was hitting the piano and damaging it, apparently).

Were it Bach or some Romantic piece, add option c) playing too many incorrect notes in passages with really chromatic harmonies and "strange" intervals. That they sound wrong to uninformed ears doesn't make them so. It would take me a number of years before being able to articulate and define the issue, and yet more to argue why it wasn't an issue in the first place. It's hard to convince people that "it's written that way" when they can't read music in the first place.

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Nodame Cantabile: Raw notes

Waiting on Froth-Bite to complete the series. I'm in no particular hurry, otherwise I'd have finished the last episode using speed subs. I've already read a bit about the last episode so I have a vague idea of how it's going to end, even if I don't know the minute details.

While not as consistent in production as, say, Honey and Clover, Nodame Cantabile was a much more enjoyable watch for me because it speaks to something I relate to. It's a self-serving reason, but if people are told to write about what they know, then I'm going to watch what I know. Rest assured, though! I do have a frustration/boredom threshold, and the only series I have dropped happens to be La Corda d'Oro, another music type series.

One of the elements I have the most mixed feelings about, which goes beyond the frequent still shots and CG, is the large blocks of time devoted to concert performances. On one hand, I want to listen to the music, but on the other, it exposes the disadvantage of trying to package a music setting into 22 minute episodes.

I have no doubt that anyone who has no interest in classical music will be bored out of their minds watching several minutes of still shots and CG instrument playing, all without dialog. I also understand that quite a bit of the source story was cut, probably as a result of the episode length and series run time. What remained, though, was still a serviceable story with what looks to be a solid finish, although at several points it felt rushed, such as the bit with Chiaki's family and various confrontations between characters.

As per the title, the rest of this entry doesn't have much in the way of discussion about What It Means To Me. When I'm done the series proper, I may be able to attempt to write about something to that effect. The notes are compiled in more or less chronological order.


I really like Ayako Kawasumi's evil/dark/angry mode. There was a teaser in one of the earlier episodes where she expresses jealousy, but a dry spell quickly hit and I've been disappointed until episode 15.

LIES!

Hardcore woodwind players will make their own reeds out of blanks, not unlike carving sculptures out of blocks of wood. And for noobs like me, we can buy Rico Royal 4's. Woodwinds, by definition, is a superset that includes clarinets, saxophones, bassoons, and oboes.

In the immediate aftermath of the introduction of the second OP, it came off as a poor choice. We've only reached the halfway point. It's a little early to say goodbye, isn't it? And that is exactly what Sagittarius feels like. It was only with the conclusion of the RS Orchestra arc that it began to fit the context of the series.

I was kind of weirded out by how Chiaki's consistent abuse didn't break Nodame, but one infraction by Eto made her murderously grim. I suppose there was some give and take when it came to Chiaki. Plus, Chiaki isn't strictly her teacher, and as hinted in episode 21, she might have a fear of piano instructors. Just noting this in case I find myself wondering all of a sudden in the future.

The only person unable to give a standing ovation

Episode 19 was really powerful. The Rising Stars Orchestra arc that it concluded had some good momentum through its goal orientation, or maybe it was because I had begun my Froth-Bite catchup marathon around that point. We see a shift in thinking from Nodame which was very selfless.


Nodame has not deviated from her attempts to keep Chiaki close to her, but before, she endeavoured to fit their relationship within the context of her own ambitions, which were landlocked. In episode 19, she decides to lay her future on the line, just as Chiaki did conducting the RS Orchestra, so that she might fit in with Chiaki's dreams.

Nodame's competition failure was inevitable, having been a miracle that she even made it past the round that occurred on her off day. But consider the message being sent were she to have won, or even placed in the competition. It's the dream of every talented student no matter what the subject of study: to cruise through school/work/life based on innate gifts.

Talent can only take you so far. If the commitment to practice and memorize isn't there, a performer can never be the complete package. It's a lesson that isn't restricted to only the performing world. Nodame lacks discipline, and her passion for music is only an indirect consequence of her love for Chiaki. In her current mindset, she could never succeed as a performer on her own.

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