Hi all,

A Happy New Year!

I made a song once for the poem titled "Hatsu Koi" ("First Love" in English) by Toson Shimazaki, a well-known poet and novelist in Japan around 100 years ago.

I personally like this song very much. I was afraid, however, it may not suitable for the forum members because its lyrics are in old Japanese, so I decided to introduce its instrumental version here.

I have made up this song as classical-style music performed by strings only. I hope you can enjoy the song as a completely independent one from the original vocal version.

https://soundcloud.com/hirokata1121/first-love-instrumental-version

Song summary

Title: First Love (Instrumental Version)
Genre: Classical
Key:C Tempo: 85
Style: STR_QT44.STY (Simple String Quartet 4/4 Style) for the first half, and CHAMBER1.STY (Chamber 1 Orch.) for the second half.
Sonar X3 is used for instrument re-assignment to MIDI tracks and some final tuning.

If you have any interest in the original vocal version, you can find it at:

https://soundcloud.com/hirokata1121/first-love-vocal-version

It is much simpler than the instrumental version. Style is KLADRMAN.STY (Kladerman Piano Style) and that's all except a synth voice (Yamaha Vocaloid 'Mew') is used for the vocal track.

Oh, feel free to sing in Japanese, I would like to hear that. I also understand that the Japanese don't rhyme as much as their western counterparts -- is that true?

Nice composition and a mighty fine listen this morning.

Edited: Just listened to the vocaloid version (was that there this morning? If so, I missed it!). The vocal sounds pretty natural. I like that.

Beautiful song and I can see why it is one of your favorites. First loves are rarely if ever forgotten and your music lets me sit back and think of that time when I first fell in love. I enjoyed both versions and I was very eager to hear your vocaloid to which you did a great job of producing. I find vocaloids very interesting and I even looked into it at one time.
Sonny

Very pretty music!! Really like the arrangement and mix. Enjoyed much!! Take care. Greg

Hi Kemmrich,

Thank you for your feedback.



I am glad to hear it.

Yes, that is true. Another uniqueness of Japanese when used in songs is that usually each note accommodates only one mono tone as you can hear in the vocal version.



Thank you again. In the last part of my original post included the link to the vocal version but I forgot to mention Vocaloid thing, so added it later.

I am happy to know you like the vocal version as well as Mew's voice. My only effort in using her voice in my song was just to make it as natural as possible. Actually it was not big effort at all.

Hiroshi

Hi Sonny,

Thank you for your feedback. I fully agree with what you mentioned about first loves. I am happy to know you enjoyed the vocaloid version as well. I like Mew's voice very much. It is very natural and soothing.

Hiroshi

Hi Greg,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my song.

Hiroshi

Very relaxing listening.
the music is very well played and the strings sound is great

Sergio

Beautiful song. Very peaceful

Thank you. I am glad you like my music. Hiroshi

Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed my song. Hiroshi

Hi, Hiroshi !

This is a very beautiful tune
and referring to the title, I
do agree with those who say
that you´ll never forget your first love !!!

I was even lucky to get to marry my
first love and to go beside her
for 42 years till her death !

Cheers
Dani

PS

I have a cat like the one in
your avatar ! Her name is Naomi

Hi Dani,

Thank you for your comment.

Yes, I believe first loves have very special meaning to men and are forgettable even when they are old age.

You are a lucky man indeed

I have two cats; Mari and Sara. My avatar is made from Sara's silhouette.
They are so cute. "Homage to Cats" were originally made for them.

Say hello to Naomi It sounds like a Japanese name.

Hiroshi

Hi Hiroshi,

I enjoyed it. As others have said, it's a nicely relaxing and peaceful track.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you enjoyed my music.

Hiroshi

I enjoyed listening to the Vocaloid version. Don't worry about posting Japanese songs - a little variety is nice!

Hi David,

Thank you for your comment and encouragement. I am more than happy to know you enjoyed the Vocaloid version. I will also continue posting Japanese songs from now on. Thank you again.

Hiroshi

Hiroshi,
This is simply beautiful! I prefer the vocal version.
I'm quite excite about having you be a traditional Japanese style and culture to the forum. We all learn from each other and your postings will be very interesting and entertaining.
I'm looking forward to hearing your next song.
SpaceDog

Nice.... I listened to the vocal version.

The vocaloid works extremely well in certain styles of music and THIS is one of them. The lack of English I think is what makes this work. I suspect they would also work well in Celtic music.

Nice pleasing song

Hi SpaceDog,

Thank you for your comment. I am happy to have your message. I am not sure if I could represent Japanese traditional music or style, but I should be able to send you something different or Japanese-like. As a matter of fact, every time my wife finishes listening to my new song, she always say it is of Japanese style though I do not think so. Maybe I am wrong

Needless to say but the vocal version of the song is absolutely of Japanese style

Hiroshi

Hi Guitarhacker,

Thank you for your comment. Yes, I think there is not a little commonality between Japanese and Celtic traditional music so I agree with you.

Hiroshi

Just beautiful!

Kenny

Hi Kenny,

Thank you. Hiroshi

Very gentle music. Enjoyable

Thank you. Hiroshi

Hi Hiroshi,

I prefer the vocal version. The vocaloid
sounds quite natural.
Enjoyed this a lot.

Guenter

The orchestral version is beautiful, absolutely beautiful.

And then the vocaloid version WOW that too was beautiful but sounding so different. Thanks for linking both, both are excellent.

Alyn

I liked both versions a lot! Very beautiful. Please submit all the vocals in Japanese you would like. They are beautiful. We have enough vocals in English to last us a million years. More French and Japanese German and Spanish please--every language for that matter.

Hi Hiroshi,

We like both versions, but the instrumental one appeals to us more, probably due to the strings.
The music is beautiful, very suitable for a poem.

Rob and Anne-Marie

Hi Guenter,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you enjoyed the vocaloid version.



Hi Alyn,

Thank you for your comment. I am happy you like my songs.



Hi David,

Thank you for your comment and encouragement. I am glad you like both versions. I will post more Japanese vocal songs.



Hi Rob and Anne-Marie,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my songs. I am especially happy to know that you like strings ensemble.

*******************************************

Because your comments somehow refer to comparison between two versions, I will explain some background now.

Some time ago, I wanted to make a song with lyrics and vocal. I took my favorite poem to use as its lyrics and decided to use Vocaloid singer "Mew" as its vocalist. Mew is my favorite because her voice is very natural and attractive. To emphasize the vocal, I made its accompaniment as simple as possible. I think Mew's voice well suited Japanese traditional song style.

I also made its instrumental version as a kind of independent song from the vocal version. To emphasize the melody line, I made it as a strings ensemble music.

When I posted them, I did not expect Japanese vocal song well accepted by the forum members. Now I am encouraged to post more Japanese songs to the forum.

I hope this is appropriate for the supplemental reply to your comments. Thank you again for your listening and feedback.

Hiroshi

Hiroshi,

The instrumental is very well done. A nice listen.

I like the vocal version. The vocal is beautiful and sounds more organic (human, real) than any vocaloid I've ever heard. Nice.

floyd

floyd,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad to know you enjoyed both versions, especially you like the vocaloid version.

I used "Mew" as a vocaloid singer. I think her voice is very natural compared with others and also attractive to me though I have tested just a few of them. Probably many of them are made a little bit different from natural human voices intentionally, e.g. like animation characters, to emphasize their own personalities.

Hiroshi

Very beautiful and pleasant listen... What string VSTi did u use? (Sorry, I did not read all the comment, so if it's mentioned already, sorry)

Thank you for your comment. I am glad that you like the strings version.

The VST instruments I used are as follows. All of them are Dimension Pro (or Rapture Pro) instruments.

First Half
1st and 2nd Violins Espressivo p
Cellos Espressivo p
Basses Legato mf

Second Half
Full Strings (small)
Full Strings Short Bows
Full Strings Long Bows
Basses Legato mf

I hope this information will be of any help to you.

Hiroshi

Like Noel said "relaxing and peaceful" in an ethereal way.

Beautiful.

J&B

Hi J&B,

Thank you for your comment. I appreciate your listening to both versions and I am happy to hear your very positive impression.

Hiroshi

Hi Hiroshi,

Very very nice song and arrangement. I like the vocal version better than the orchestrated version. The Mew Vocaloid sounds amazingly real!

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my songs. The vocal version was just made for the poem "First Love", so its melody should best fit to the song , and I myself also like it very much.
I like Mew' voice so much as well. I am happy you like the vocal version better, then.

Hiroshi