Always with Me

Always with Me (Itsumo Nando Demo) is the closing-credits song of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2001) — written by Wakako Kaku (lyrics) and composed and originally sung by Youmi Kimura. It is one of the most-loved songs in Japanese cinema and has crossed into international piano-grade syllabuses through its lyrical, diatonic, instantly memorable melody.

The Grade 3 arrangement tests cantabile right-hand playing over a flowing left-hand quaver accompaniment — close in idiom to the Bonis above, but with a more pop-tonal harmonic vocabulary (the chord changes lean on iv–I and vi–IV–V shapes). The melody crosses hand positions; the student needs to manage one or two small thumb-tucks while keeping the line smooth. There is one moment where the left-hand pattern rises into the right-hand range.

Two pitfalls. First, players who know the song imitate the vocal recording with rubato at line-ends; the exam mark prefers a more metronomic reading that lets the melody stand. Second, the dynamic plan is often flattened — the score asks for a clear arch from a p opening to a warmer middle and back, and a Grade 3 candidate playing the whole piece mp loses the song's most distinctive feature.

Listening: the film recording is in copyright, but the harmonic vocabulary aligns with broader Japanese-pop ballad writing of the 2000s. For PD reference, listening to Satie's Gymnopédies (Musopen) calibrates the kind of stillness the Kimura melody asks for.