only my railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun OP)-fripSide

Only my Railgun was actually the first arrangement I have ever created, in November 2009 to be exact. I was running an Anime blog, writing anime reviews and sharing my anime piano arrangements, before I decided to create my own YouTube channel 2 months later in January 2010.

Back then my arrangements lacked extensive "test playing": There were many passages in the sheet, which sounded good as an exported midi file, but they were very uncomfortable to play in real life. I tried too hard to imitate the original song as close as possible, and I was simply lacking experience, how to "efficiently" arrange multiple instruments on only two hands. There were so many times I wished I had a third hand, so I can play all instrument voices on the piano at the same time.

My very first version of Only my Railgun (2009) was almost unplayable and it was essentially a failure of an arrangement. Three years later in 2012, I revisited the sheet again and I simplified some passages to make it more realistic to play. The result was the TV-size "Only my Railgun" arrangement I have uploaded in 2012 (link at the bottom of description)

And as of today, I have finally uploaded a full size arrangement of "Only my Railgun". I took the 2012 TV size and extended it to the full size, adding variations for each repeating sections as well. A surprisingly difficult part of this song is actually the bridge part in 2:30: You have to maintain the left hand (bass) rhythm while the right hand is playing a completely independent melody line.

After 6 years of arranging, I also learned how to properly arrange those "three hand techniques", where 3 voices are being played by only two hands. The best example would be the bridge part in 3:24, where the left hand is playing the main melody and the right hand is playing the rhythmical ornaments. I guess I made some progress compared to 2009, where I wished I have a third additional hand (笑)

In a way, Only my Railgun was the beginning point of my activity as an Anime piano arranger. Everyone was talking about this OP song in the Anime community in 2009 and I felt like I MUST arrange this piece on the piano, no matter what. I think at this point, I basically graduated from being a pure classical pianist into a more open minded pianist, who enjoys playing pop music as well.

Well then, thank you for reading so far! I hope you enjoyed this small description of my arrangement history in the past. Contrary to popular belief, my first arrangement is not "Hikari no Senritsu" (the very first video I have uploaded on my YouTube channel), but it was "Only my Railgun".

Animenz

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🎹Piano arrangement by Animenz

Original Song: only my railgun

Anime: Toaru Kagaku no Railgun / A Certain Scientific Railgun

Published by: Geneon Universal Entertainment

Composed by: Satoshi Yaginuma

Performed by: fripSide