(CR) Hibike! Euphonium Season 3

[scififan]

Originally Posted by Julio C

I'm re-watching the entire series, and I'm barely in season 1. Guess what episode is next? The auditions between Reina and Kaori.

Kanade feels bitter, but she does not cry. The anime makes her crying twice. Instead Reina crying after losing contest with Liz and Blue Bird, Kanade cried and said she cannot accept the result.

Thus! The Japanese brass band alliance has its contest evaluation criteria written down. Perhaps, the decision is affected by this anime.
https://www.ajba.or.jp/competition.html#shinsa_kanten

[arkhangelsk]

I was able to discern between the two performances. The first one really connected with more synergy with hitting the notes a lot better, and the second one felt a bit off and lacked that connection and impact. I voted for the first one not knowing at all who was it, and I was really really surprised that it was Mayu. I almost lost it there Mayu step forward. Kanade losing it like that right after reminded me of Yuuko when Reina got picked instead of Kaori back in season 1.

Everyone who has sufficient discernment (that is to say not me unfortunately) seems to agree on the basic facts between the two performances. Where the difference comes is in giving value to the differences. I've seen Kumiko's performance also described as having "rubato" and more expressive (a.k.a less precise in pitch and time) - same facts, different valuation.

I'm impressed KyoAni managed to find two players able to represent the difference so well (even if it is lost on me). It may be part of the reason they avoided showing us any comparisons between the two until now. They'd be using the same players to maintain consistency, and in a singular context, the same "more rubato, less precise and louder" variant will probably simply sound better to most people, and people will start really wondering if Taki is out of his mind. When you can't be sure the scatter from Show will all fall into an acceptable area, you can only Tell.

I'm actually a little surprised at the format of the solil, really. Not an expert on classical music formats, but their description made me expect something more along with lines of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2QL...Kx44K544OI44Op
Where the two parts alternate, but it's more the typical "vertical stack".

I won't be surprised at Mayu being able to match up more precisely with Reina, really. She's good, her specialty is in conformity and the past two months or so she'd been the one drilling with Reina every day.

[DolFunDolphinVtuber]

What an emotional ending that was.
I originally thought that Reina was upset for losing a 50/50 choice, but the fact she knew which performance was Kumiko's and decided to choose the best part over her best friend was truly a heart breaking decision.
Mad props to Reina though for doing the right thing no matter how much it hurt.

[scififan]

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Everyone who has sufficient discernment (that is to say not me unfortunately) seems to agree on the basic facts between the two performances. Where the difference comes is in giving value to the differences. I've seen Kumiko's performance also described as having "rubato" and more expressive (a.k.a less precise in pitch and time) - same facts, different valuation.

I won't be surprised at Mayu being able to match up more precisely with Reina, really. She's good, her specialty is in conformity and the past two months or so she'd been the one drilling with Reina every day.

I don't know music at all. So, it is the first time I heard about rubato. Your description of rubato sounds like groove in Jazz. As far as I know, only one Japanese music school has Jazz program. Kumiko seems to be a very precise and mechanical player. In the first season, she was annoyed when she heard the band playing at her first day of school. Taki told the band sucked by putting a metronome before them. His instruction would leave the lasting impression to Kumiko, too. So, Kumko is out of sync with Reina. It is unexpected.

[arkhangelsk]

Well, the basic problem is that classical music is a little self-contradictory. You start off learning to be precise - the designated pitch, tempo, rhythm, and dynamics - of course all music demands some of that but classical is much more exacting.
Then about when the player is getting the hang of those, all of a sudden they start wanting "rubato", "phrasing", "vibrato", "interpretation" ... and how can one get these, in the end, if not by at least slightly deviating from the "correct" tempo, rhythm and dynamics.

In any case, however, if the playing sounds bad or clearly off to an average person, without special training or even particular interest in music, then it's definitely not rubato. It's just bad playing and a poor grasp of basics. Rubato is a deviation that a classical player can categorize as a positive, which means a small deviation an average person probably won't even notice beyond perhaps "That sounds kind of nice."

To be blunt, it's not clear how much of what happened is due to conscious choices by Kumiko, but supposing she had some volition, the realistic thought is that she's not going to beat Mayu by being precise, for the simple reason for the past two months Mayu had been drilling with Reina, while her opportunities to do the same has been greatly reduced since the soli went to Mayu for the Regionals. This is a fundamental problem with Duet Auditions (which may be why Taki usually sticks to auditions one student at a time) - the incumbent pairing has a significant advantage due to having the most recent practice time. So deliberately going the more expressive and varied route is possibly a strategy to win - at least it has more chance than just bumping into where the enemy is strong.

[Jaden]

I was surprised by the ending, I liked #2 personally. It depends on the piece being performed, but in general it's nice to hear musicians jazzing it up a bit in their solos. But I can appreciate that #1 is better for what the band is going for, especially when it's not really a solo but more of a support for Reina.

Anyway, seeing Kumiko and Mayu go all out on their contest was satisfying. Having had that was probably more precious to them than any award their school might win.

[Archon_Wing]

So this all came down to Kumiko not going to music school causing that slight blip in the music that would be in Reina's mind.

See this is why you don't ask people questions!