Kalafina 5th album "far on the water"

obbligato is still my favorite Kalafina song. It is amazing live, at least it was at ACen. I was so glad I got to hear it live. I play my songs in different order, but usually I will play ttb and manten right after one another, since that's how it was at ACen. Musunde and monochrome are getting up there on the list, and they are after obbligato on my playlist. iTunes erased all my music from it so I had to reload everything, so the plays are not right. And I had about 99 plays of lirica before I got a new hard drive and had to add everything again. Usu is one I listen to a lot in the car.
 
I join the club of loving Gogatsu, Sorairo and Usumurasaki! And, despite I hated it at first, now I'm very VERY fond of One Light. The others songs are ok to me, even Believe, although it is, in my opinion, the weakest.
 
@Westkana : it's in hiragana and katakana :D for Kajiuran, it's in Roman text ; if you have any song you want to look at the score for, lemme know! I can take pics and post

Ah, I didn't see this post until now! Thank you for sharing this. I was wondering how the lyrics are written in the score. I was worried I might not be able to read it if there was kanji, which I'm not very good at.
 
I join the club of loving Gogatsu, Sorairo and Usumurasaki! And, despite I hated it at first, now I'm very VERY fond of One Light. The others songs are ok to me, even Believe, although it is, in my opinion, the weakest.

One Light has definitely grown on me over time and, as with RYB, it has the benefit of being even better in live performances. It's possible that the bunch of live OL performances have made me warm up to it and that's a good thing. Talking of songs I'm warming up to, Identify is finally starting to click for me. There was always something that bugged me about it ever since it came out and I still don't know what it is, but whatever it is/was, it's not hampering my enjoyment of it any more. It's just a really fun song.

Gogatsu, Sorairo and Usumurasaki are love, though. FotW and Monochrome have both grown on me since initial listen as well. Still their weakest album but I'm less disappointed by it than I was at first.
 
I also have the issue of Wakana and Hikaru don't sound like they used to be. I can almost fully accept Wakana's new voice (I'm still sad whenever I listen to seventh heaven and Red Moon songs) but why does Hikaru have to follow Wakana and get her singing technique changed. She doesn't sound as good as she used to be on hitting those middle notes, resulting in Kajiura giving her part that is actually on Keiko's range but since Keiko can go lower, she has Keiko do all the lower harmony. Their songs aren't as good as they used to be. Save for Keiko, their voices don't sound as good as they used to be. Their voices aren't the same with the one I fell in love 7 years ago. More than enough reason for me to quit Kalafina. I still want to see if this fotw tour will get a DVD/BD release, though. Can't wait to see Wakana straining her voice, even though most likely they'll edit her voice lol. Even in Mezamashi 2015 live with 4 songs setlist with 2 MCs in the middle, her vocal control got worse as the song went (ryb's final chorus is bad) and she went completely flat on fotw final lines.

Hi all, I'm just new here and try to read all the past posts to catch everybody' step XD.

Although I do not completely agree with @ritardando and he/she seems always too pessimistic, I exactly have the same feeling about Hikaru's problem mentioned. If Hikaru cannot deal with her issue of not hitting high/middle-high notes well, it will badly affect Kajiura creating songs. Now we have Wakana-high note, Hikaru-middle/low note, Keiko-middle/low note. It is obviously that there is a huge gap between high note and middle note, along with an overlap of middle-low note.

I think the reason Hikaru changes her singing technique is very understandable. After Kajiura gave her so many dark/strong/fast/low note songs, she has to change from her natural nasal sound to back sound to fit into them. And after she is accustomed to the new singing technique, all the problem about middle-high note rises.

Before Hikaru overcomes her issue, the only solution I can think of is let Keiko take over middle note and Hikaru do low harmony, something a bit like Alleluia structure. However, yes, as @ritardando said, Kajiura now is "very lazy to venture out of her comfort zone", especially in the case that she is never used to writing melody around Keiko range. So finally we may still get another believe-ryb-ol song in the future over and over again.

Plus, Wakana is very OK from past few months’ performance.
 
Hi all, I'm just new here and try to read all the past posts to catch everybody' step XD.
Before Hikaru overcomes her issue, the only solution I can think of is let Keiko take over middle note and Hikaru do low harmony, something a bit like Alleluia structure.
KEIKO's voice doesn't resonate as well as HIKARU's metal-pipe voice as the middle harmony. Similarly, HIKARU's lower voice doesn't resonate as well as KEIKO's broad deep voice as the lower harmony.

If you're implying that HIKARU's role as having to jump around between various vocal ranges throughout different songs is impacting her vocal capabilities, I think she needs to take that up with a vocal coach or Kajiura directly.

If your solution is to give all of HIKARU the lower notes and KEIKO all of the middle-harmony notes, then why not just give ALL of the lower notes to KEIKO, ALL of the middle notes to HIKARU, and ALL of the high notes to WAKANA to match their respective vocal ranges? But of course, this would just be fuel for more repetitive structuring of songs, would it not? In other words - problem not solved.
 
KEIKO's voice doesn't resonate as well as HIKARU's metal-pipe voice as the middle harmony. Similarly, HIKARU's lower voice doesn't resonate as well as KEIKO's broad deep voice as the lower harmony.
If you're implying that HIKARU's role as having to jump around between various vocal ranges throughout different songs is impacting her vocal capabilities, I think she needs to take that up with a vocal coach or Kajiura directly.
If your solution is to give all of HIKARU the lower notes and KEIKO all of the middle-harmony notes, then why not just give ALL of the lower notes to KEIKO, ALL of the middle notes to HIKARU, and ALL of the high notes to WAKANA to match their respective vocal ranges? But of course, this would just be fuel for more repetitive structuring of songs, would it not? In other words - problem not solved.

I don't mean let Keiko and Hikaru replace each other completely. I just don't want to hear another single release like believe-ryb-ol and some formulaic songs in fotw album any more. We need some changes, right? One of the reasons why Kajiura's past songs are better and more variable is the versatility of Hikaru. But now Hikaru has issue with her singing technique and voice (temporarily). So next possible change point is from Keiko.

And yes, Hikaru does need a vocal coach ASAP.
 
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And it's not just that, Kajiura needs to change up the singer sequence. Keiko usually opens the song, and that's it. Maybe a solo line here and there, and perhaps a lead in the bridge. It's never Wakana who opens the song and then Keiko's on the refrain. Seriously, the only time Keiko sings the refrain is if she herself opens the song (the notable exception being Hikari Furu, but that song's structure is non-standard, so...)
 
Well, historically speaking, she's only sung the refrain in three Kalasongs:
1- Ongaku
2- tetotetometome
3-Alleluia

Arguably, she has one line at the END of the refrains of these Kalasongs:
1- mata kazega tsuyokunatta
2-mune no yukue

Her prominence during verses has greatly depreciated since "seventh heaven". Red moon was practically the most exposure she's received as "main melody". She's barely main melody in FOTW, with only the verses and bridge of "identify", an AWESOME bridge in "usumurasaki", brief intro lines to the verses of "musundehiraku", and opening to "far on the water". And two lines in "sorairo no isu". Sounds like a handful; but what's sad is when you compare that to how much exposure the other two get.

This reminds me of the TV show from USA, "Charmed", about three sisters who are witches, and how fans complained that one of the sisters, Phoebe, doesn't have cool powers like the other two sisters; so what the producers ended up doing was writing into the script that her powers be stripped for the final two seasons. Why does it always have to go down like this :(
 
It's really sad that Keiko has only few solo verses, refrains... I hope that Kajiura will create great A-side with Keiko-main vocal. Unluckily Keiko has a bronchitis now. So we must to wait until Keiko recover and Kajiura finally make an A-side with her.
 
Keiko will likely be recovered before we even get any more Kalafina songs, honestly, regardless of who's leading them.

I would like another Keiko lead, though, and preferably one that isn't a ballad this time.
 
Yes, I hope that it won't be a ballad but a full of energy song (rock or disco). Kajiura-san please write a great Keiko-lead song:wai:!
 
I LOVE lirica, it was played over a hundred times on my old iTunes account, before it deleted all my songs. And that's not including listening to it elsewhere. And now it's still being played a lot. I love how dark it is. It's upbeat but not too upbeat, so something like that for Keiko would be awesome! Usu seemed kind of chaotic at first and then I really heard that it was her singing that bridge. I think it's dark as well, but doesn't have the same atmosphere that lirica gives, if that makes sense. We know that Keiko can do a lot more, even go higher, though some people don't like it when she does. Yes, she's in the background most of the time, and we hear that, but I am hoping for more balanced songs, which I think obbligato does quite well. Each girl has their own harmony part, as well as their own lines. It's great and still my favorite song. Anyways... yeah sometimes it's just Wakana singing, which is okay I guess but can be annoying for some.
 
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