2018 Yamaha Electone Arrangement 1: 萬水千山總是情 | May 8, 2018

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Electone Stagea arrangement of the Cantopop hit, 萬水千山總是情 (Love and Passion)! This is a request, by the most influential woman in my life.

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The most influential woman in me life, i.e., my mother. Yeah, who else could it be, given I’m single? (Straight face, under your supercilious glare) You see, as I predicted a couple of months ago, mom’s thrilled that I’m finally playing Cantopop on the Electone again, after like, 20 ++ years. As for why 萬水千山總是情 (Wanshui Qianshan Zongshi Qing in Mandarin; or Man Soi Chin San Zong See Cheng in Cantonese), she surprised me a fortnight ago by saying she didn’t want any Mother’s Day present this year. She’d be happy with just a YouTube upload of me playing this song. Accordingly to her, she would like to show such a video to some friends. I … feel there’s more story to it. But I’m not complaining or declining, given I intended to arrange this song anyway. And I’m kinda low on gift funds at the moment, so … (Maintaining straight face)

Free Yamaha Electone Score & Stagea Registration Data for 萬水千山總是情

Warning! The registration and Finale PrintMusic files are zip files! You might need to disable your virus/malware protection before downloading. As I have disabled the function, do not right-click to save as. On PCs, simply click on the links and the file should auto download in a separate window.

Electone Score Electone Stagea ELS-02C Registration Data Finale PrintMusic 2010 file

Arrangement Notes

This is a terrifically catchy but simple song. I mean, I finish notating the entire melody line within an hour. After much thought, I decided to keep the arrangement equally simple. Not that I was rushing to complete or anything, but this has always been a song to relax to. Not to impress.

1. Lisa Wang’s original recording was in D Flat Major. Most lead sheets I found online did it in C. I’m doing it a half-step up, instead of down, in D Major.
2. The very first note comes with “pb”. Pitch bend, in other words. Sorry, but I can’t notate it the way it’s done in pro Electone scores without everything getting messy.
3. Please excuse the overlaying notes in the bars with counter melody. I can only do this using the layers function in PrintMusic, and I simply couldn’t get the bl**dy rests to position themselves sensibly.
4. On the few bars with counter, the main purpose of this is to bring in the accompaniment. If you listen to the original recording, there’s actually a lot of backing guitar action going on throughout the stanzas. What I’m saying is, if you prefer such constant accompaniment throughout the stanzas, you could “counter” all the way. But you’d have to first amend Registration Memory 3 by activating Chord 1.
5. I didn’t include arc-arcs for this one. I think it’s pretty obvious how phrasing should be, given the simplicity of the composition.
6. To be quite honest, this is the first time in my life I’m notating portato notes. I’m neither sure whether I correctly understood the articulation after all these years, nor whether I should even be using it. I leave it to you to decide …
7. The rhythm. I’m being really “simple” here by mainly using the build-in Simple Shuffle 1 preset. Hey, it sounds perfect for the job! If you really want to, I suppose you could add in some ride cymbals, hi-hats, etc.
8. Last but not least, this arrangement is shorter than the original recording; I removed one-and-a-half stanzas. If you want to stretch it to the original length, you just need to amend Rhythm Sequence 3.

Full List of Downloadable Electone Sheet Music and Stagea ELS-02C Registration Data. ( English / 中文 / 日本語 )

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