BASARA'S HANDWRITTEN SHEET MUSIC
WHY IS IT SO BAD?It's both shown and mentioned that Basara’s sheet music handwriting is godawful and completely unreadable to Mylene, however Ray (and maybe Veffidas?) has no problem understanding it.
It's possible that Basara just has a terrible handwriting in general and the reason for that is very likely the fact that he grew up an orphan. There is a chance that he didn’t even know how to write until Ray took him in when Basara was already a young teenager. It's also possible that he finds the idea of improving his handwriting a complete waste of time. It's pretty evident that Basara doesn't really give a damn about what others think of him, so being judged for a poor handwriting is a nonexistent issue to him. The second theory is more likely, but I like to imagine it's a mixture of both. Since there is no record of Basara in the village he grew up in, it's very clear that he didn't go to school or hang out with anyone, so the likelihood of him learning how to write is very small. |
BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE!Alright, so this is an interesting find from the Macross 7 Animation Materials book: An actual reference of Basara’s scribbles from episode 2, titled “Basara’s handwritten sheet music #2”
When I watched the show I assumed that the ‘sheet music’ he was writing is just gibberish and only served the purpose of making a joke about Basara's odd writing, and, more importantly, letting us know that Basara is currently working on a song, which served to further his subtle character development in episode 3. I didn't think that there was much more to it, however seeing that it got featured in the actual concept art book makes me wonder if it’s actually accurate to the song he’s writing (My Soul For You). I posted it to the sheet music subreddit to ask if anyone is able to make it out, and I got a response that it looks like personalized short-hand for chords, and that people who can’t read sheet music can sometimes make up symbols to help them remember. My brother also suggested that Basara might be writing down ‘tabs’ for chords, such as hand positions or holds, I quote, “Especially since open chords are always held in similar positions so he doesn’t have to write down tabs” Now taking into account Basara’s past I could definitely see him making up his own way to write music, because it’s highly unlikely that he’d ever got a chance to learn how to read actual sheet music. Furthermore, I got someone to translate the note that was added at the bottom of this picture; “Parts of the sheet music, which at the first glance looks like some kind of a code that makes you go 'what sort of piece is this?'”
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I assume that since they specifically say 'at the first glance’, there actually is supposed to be some kind of rhyme or reason to the way the sheet music is written, seeing as it implies that on the second glance it might make more sense.
Sadly even after all this, I still don’t know for absolute certain if the sheet music that we see actually has any meaning, or if it’s absolute gibberish. However, there are things to imply that there definitely is more to it that just simple scribbles, since it’s clear that at least some thought went into actually designing this sheet, because the one that appears in the episode is the exact same one as appears in the art book. The fact that the sheet is numbered as #2 also implies that there was at least one previous attempt (and possibly further attempts, since the final product doesn’t always necessarily use the last attempt). If this was just simple gibberish that had no meaning, I don’t think that so much detail would be necessary for it.
The most likely conclusion, to me at least, seems that there is probably some way to get the chords of My Soul For You out of Basara’s bizarre way of writing sheet music. Not giving a damn about the ‘right’ way of doing it and instead developing his own system fits in perfectly with the kind of character he is.
Sadly even after all this, I still don’t know for absolute certain if the sheet music that we see actually has any meaning, or if it’s absolute gibberish. However, there are things to imply that there definitely is more to it that just simple scribbles, since it’s clear that at least some thought went into actually designing this sheet, because the one that appears in the episode is the exact same one as appears in the art book. The fact that the sheet is numbered as #2 also implies that there was at least one previous attempt (and possibly further attempts, since the final product doesn’t always necessarily use the last attempt). If this was just simple gibberish that had no meaning, I don’t think that so much detail would be necessary for it.
The most likely conclusion, to me at least, seems that there is probably some way to get the chords of My Soul For You out of Basara’s bizarre way of writing sheet music. Not giving a damn about the ‘right’ way of doing it and instead developing his own system fits in perfectly with the kind of character he is.