Electone sheet music free download for 明日話今天, the Cantonese version of the Japanese Enka hit, Kokoro Nokori (心のこり).
What happened was this. While writing the introduction for my previous Electone arrangement i.e. Chun Yu Wan Dou, I googled for Jenny Tseng’s performance history. Wasn’t that long before I was “reminded” of her 1978 hit, Meng Yat Wah Kam Tin (明日話今天).
Reminded, as in I’m well-familiar with this song but in a, erm, karaoke kinda way? This being one of those retro Cantopop hits every that other older Chinese (uncle) seems to love to croon at karaoke. (I’ll be one of these uncles soon too)
Further research then informed me that like many other Cantopop songs from the late 70s and early 80s, 明日話今天 was actually a cover of a Japanese song. The Japanese Enka original being Takashi Hosokawa’s Kokoro Nokori.
And at that point, I finally remembered. YouTube even had a hand in this by spookily pushing up an old comment for one of my videos, probably because I was searching for the Japanese name.
A friend requested an arrangement of this song back in 2019. I didn’t reply to his comment but I’m sure I made a mental note to do it, then “surprise” my friend with the upload.
Yikes, I clean forgot! Clean forgot!
And so it’s a fortnight of intense work for me. With embarrassment, here are the files, finally …
Yamaha Electone Sheet Music and ELS-02C Registration Data for 明日話今天 (Kokoro Nokori)
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 Sheet Music Free Download
Electone Registration Data for Stagea ELS-02C
(Ad by Google)
Arrangement Notes
- My arrangement mostly follows Jenny Tseng’s 1978 recording. Mostly, as in I snipped away one repeat.
- As I notated using Jenny Tseng’s version, there are minor differences when compared to Takashi Hosokawa’s original. The most prominent part being the O-baka-san yo NE!!!! phrase i.e. bar 11 in my free score.
- Sounds-wise, I retained the signature jazzy saxophone, with a compressor-processed octave piano for the main lead. In other words, I opted for Chinese “karaoke music” sounds.
- The rest of my sounds, and drum patterns, are based on the 6/8 Enka *A preset from the Electone ELS-02C registration menu. On this, let me just say, oh gosh! The preset was perfect for this song; I’m of half a mind the preset was created with Kokoro Nokori in mind. It even has the exact tempo I wanted!
- The drums pattern for the 6/8 Enka *A preset i.e. 6/8 Slow Rock 1 was also perfect. It has the tuplet kick bass patterns that I needed. (bom-bom-bom, BOM-BOM-BOM) I merely had to add/minimise some hi-hats, cymbals, and everything was done.
- Coming to performance notes, both the saxophone and strings sounds require suitable applications of Aftertouch to bring them to life. Vice versa, the octave piano lead needs to be played with varying amounts of Initial Touch, especially for opening and concluding notes.
- Lastly, this song was so popular, there was even a Taiwanese Mandarin version, known as Tianya Fangcao (天涯芳草). If you want to play that version, you just need to reduce the tempo and adjust the melody a little.
Electone ELS-02C Technical Notes
(Starting from this post, I’ll be sharing experiences regarding the creation of the score and registrations. The notes will pertain to both the Electone ELS-02C and the notation programme I use i.e. Finale PrintMusic.)
Tuplets in Finale PrintMusic
This drove me crazy, no other way to put it. I thought I had it figured out but that was obviously not the case.
Tough for me too to put into writing what frustrated me because the whole Finale PrintMusic tuplet system is so convoluted. If you’re also using this software and facing difficulties, my only tips are:
- In Simple Entry mode, you can create a tuplet by selecting a note and the tuplet icon; both are on the vertical menu. After notating the tuplet within the bar, though, you should deactivate the tuplet icon. To be clear, not doing so doesn’t always create errors. But if you want to use a mixture of eighth and quarter notes, errors could appear. This is especially so when you have other notes in that bar.
- By default, tuplets are created by the above method. If you need to create a quintuplet i.e. 5 notes in place of 4, DO NOT use the above method. DO NOT create the tuplet by selecting the tuplet icon on the horizontal menu and clicking placed notes to bring up a pop-up menu too; doing this will create a tuplet within a tuplet. Instead, place the first note you need per normal without anything else selected, then press ALT-9/Opt-9 to bring up the tuplet pop-up menu, and change the settings as required.
Do I even make sense with the above mouthfuls? That’s how convoluted it gets. You have to … experiment with it to know what I mean.
Electone Sound Effect: Delay
I made the same old mistake with this arrangement, the result of which I had to re-record the audio. I added too much delay to my tenor saxophone lead.
This is a mistake I keep making too; it’s especially obvious in my oldest videos. In essence, having a delay effect gives leads like saxophones an atmospheric, ambient feel. But too much of it could also result in the lead sounding “late.” No matter how accurately you’re playing.
Worse, you need to listen with good, neutral-profile earphones to really hear the error. If you’re listening via speakers, it’s not too prominent. In some environments, the error might even be masked.
In the worst scenarios, excessive delay could even result in muddling; there’s so much echoing going on after all. In short, this is an Electone sound programming area to pay a lot of attention to. It is horrifically easy to go completely wrong with.
Full List of Downloadable Electone Sheet Music and Stagea ELS-02C Registration Data. ( English / 中文 / 日本語 )
Check out my other Electone posts here!
.){kind=link}