Memories of the Chorus Competition

This morning, I turned on the TV and happened to see a conversation between Koharu Sugawara, whom I love, Mirai Moriyama, and Mandy Sekiguchi.
When they were talking about what kind of children they were, Mr. Moriyama said, 'I was the kind of kid who would say, "I want to do this! Everyone come along!"' and that brought back memories of the past.

This is a story from when I was in junior high school.

Junior high schools in that era were quite rough everywhere, and the area where I lived was no exception; it felt like there were tons of unruly, bad kids.

Until I was in my first year of junior high, I was a very serious and good child, and my homeroom teacher even told me, 'Thanks to you, this class stayed together.' I was good at both studying and sports, and I spent many days being praised.

However, from my second year of junior high, I stopped studying—or rather, I couldn't understand it anymore. I drifted toward the easy path, I liked standing out, and I started to go off the rails in a slightly bad direction.

I still clearly remember being told at the three-way parent-teacher conference in my second year of junior high, 'I have never seen a student whose grades have dropped this much!'
I'm sorry, Mom.

That was the kind of irresponsible person I had become.

But I loved music, I had been playing the Electone since kindergarten, and I had a dream of becoming a teacher. To achieve that, I was told it would be good to play the piano too, so by this time, I was learning both the Electone and the piano.

I had a crush on someone, you see.
When I was in my third year of junior high, we were in the same class.

At the time, Ayumi Nakamura's 'Tsubasa no Oreta Angel' (Broken-Winged Angel) was popular, and both he and I loved it. We loved Ayumi-sama.

When we were deciding on a song for the chorus competition,
he said he wanted 'Tsubasa no Oreta Angel.' I don't remember if anyone else suggested other songs, but the song was decided as 'Tsubasa no Oreta Angel.'

He volunteered to be the conductor.
I think I volunteered to be the piano accompanist.

In kindergarten and elementary school, I always played the Electone at school performances. I even remember playing something on the Electone placed next to the podium at sports day. The Electone was always at the far right under the stage. When I played, I was in the spotlight and the center of attention. I gradually started to hate that, and I don't remember which grade in upper elementary school it was, but I once said,
'I'm tired of always just playing! I want to get on stage too!'
And so, I was given lines and allowed to go up on stage like everyone else.

After entering junior high, I stopped playing the piano in front of everyone.
In the first place, my playing was poor compared to kids who had been learning piano the whole time.

To think that I, a slightly delinquent third-year junior high student, would raise my hand to be the accompanist. I think my homeroom teacher must have been very surprised. Wasn't the first thought, 'Can she even play it?'

But I think I was so excited, thinking it was too good to be true to be the accompanist for the person I liked, who was the conductor.

I think the homeroom teacher probably looked for a choral score. There's no way one existed.
I said, 'I will write it.'

That was the era of cassette tapes.

I listened to the song over and over, and wrote out the score so it would be a... three-part mixed chorus? Is that right?
I thought of all the harmonies too.
Since I had an Electone and a piano at home, I used the Electone's rhythm box (ah, nostalgic) to keep the beat, and recorded myself playing the lines for each part on top of that. I made this into a practice tape for each part. Since it was three parts, I made three cassette tapes.

Then, I also thought of a piano accompaniment for the chorus, wrote the sheet music, and recorded that performance as well.
I recorded that onto three tapes too, since everyone would be practicing in their separate parts.

Back then, I had a double cassette deck (oh, how nostalgic), so I guess I dubbed them?

I submitted that to my homeroom teacher.
I don't think the teacher knew much about music. I think they had the music teacher look at it.
I remember they were very surprised.

And then, everyone in the class practiced using those tapes and sheet music.
There must have been classmates who thought, 'Why do we have to do Ayumi Nakamura's "Tsubasa no Oreta Angel" for the chorus competition!'

I just searched for it on Spotify and listened to it while looking at the lyrics, and I think, I can't believe they allowed us to sing this at a chorus competition.
'16, first kiss, 17, first morning'
They're singing things like that!
Was it really okay for the whole class to harmonize to that?
Teacher!

We didn't win first place, but I think the class was united. I remembered that, and hearing Mr. Moriyama's words this morning,
'I want to do this! Everyone come along!'
it suddenly came back to me, so I wanted to write about it and wrote it down while remembering.

When I listened to 'Tsubasa no Oreta Angel' for the first time in a while, there were parts where I remembered my own arrangement for the accompaniment.

So nostalgic...
It was released in April 1985...
Those were my memories from my third year of junior high.