A Retrospective on Reaching Kaiden¶
Starting from SP 9th dan, I put in about 15 months of practice and finally earned SP Kaiden (皆伝) on August 30. In this post I'll go through the songs of the SparkleShower Kaiden course one by one and briefly note how I approached each of them.
0. When Should You Attempt It?¶
Personally, I think you're ready to give it a shot if at least two of the following apply:
- You have hard-cleared all five of the songs known in the Korean community as "배멘퀠천해" (an acronym of their first syllables). Random layouts count — it doesn't have to be on the normal arrangement. The five songs are:
- Bad Maniacs
- MENDES
- quell -the seventh slave-
- 天空の夜明け
- HAERETICUS
- You have cleared a jiriki (地力) S song on the hard-gauge difficulty table.
- In my case: Almagest, Ignis†Iræ, and 共鳴遊戯の華.
- You have cleared 10 or more jiriki A+ songs on the hard-gauge table.
- I had cleared about 18, including the five songs above.
You can check jiriki here
1. Somnidiscotheque¶
The main culprit behind the Kaiden course jumping up a whole level in difficulty. Inscrutable scratches and note placements show up constantly, and the instantaneous density of the killer sections scattered throughout is terrifying.
Up until the final killer section there are still spots here and there where you can recover gauge. I'd say you need at least around 90% gauge before measure 50 to survive the last burst.
I still don't know how the final killer section is actually supposed to be played. I just hit whatever I could see, and tried to recover as much gauge as possible in the last measure where the burst dies down.
I believe you need at least 20–30% gauge left when the song ends to have a realistic chance of passing Kaiden. If you can't even get past the first song, go practice hard-gauge jiriki A–A+ songs and build up more raw processing power.
2. 灼熱Beach Side Bunny¶
Beach Side Bunny, the poster child of scratch songs. Around 10th dan I switched my play style from the 1048 style to wrist scratching. For this song I tried both wrist and 1048, and wrist scratching simply worked better for me.
For the scratches, I find it better to memorize the rhythm and spin to that memorized rhythm rather than trying to sight-read them. I went in with the mindset of spinning the turntable from memory and making absolutely sure to land the keyboard parts as PGREATs.
I used guide videos like the following to learn the rhythm:
As long as you don't die here, you can recover gauge in the next song, Himiko — so hang on as best you can.
3. 卑弥呼¶
Personally, this was the most comfortable song of the four. If anything, I think it's the one pattern in the course that tests your raw skill honestly.
There are a few spots that will drain your gauge fast if you're not prepared. I practiced the following parts with some mental preparation:
- The 1-5 trill in measure 7. It's in 24ths, so you have to mash it fast.
- The rhythm of the 5-7 trill in measures 24–27 is sneakily hard, so I memorized it.
- The repeated chords in measure 31 and measures 33–36.
- The 5-7 trill in measures 71–72 — also 24ths.
- The layered stairs in the latter half.
There are three BPM changes in total (185 → 83 → 185 → 83); in my case I used floating hi-speed skill. Rather than reading the slow parts at low speed, I think it's better to just float and use them to recover as much gauge as possible.
Try to fill up your gauge in the low-speed section that continues from measure 88 onward. My goal was to get above 40%.
4. 冥¶
This is where it really begins. I myself died about five times on 冥 alone, haha.
Build up as much gauge as you can before the low-speed section starts. This part isn't easy either (and on top of that, your arms and fingers are already worn out by now), but personally I'd say you need to be at about 70% gauge here to be safe.
From measure 51, where the low-speed section begins, to measure 55, where the 2-3 repeated notes start in earnest, a little practice is enough to stop dropping notes. Try practicing 冥 in the Kaiden practice course in STEP UP mode. I thought of it as a chord section and timed my left hand off my right hand.
In measures 55–60 I likewise learned the rhythm off my right hand and played the left-hand repeats to match. I handled the left hand with the feel of "whenever key 5 is pressed, key 3 is pressed too."
In the section at measure 61, where the killer part starts for real, I actually put more weight on the right-hand keys. The strategy: on the left side, spin the scratch on the beat and mash through with a 1-3 trill, while trying to hit everything on keys 4567.
For the staircase burst at measure 65, I mashed through it as shown below. I recommend practicing this part in STEP UP mode as well.
Make it past this section and it's a victory lap. There are some quick two-note flicks and the like, but playing them loosely is fine.
As I mentioned above, before attempting Kaiden I recommend practicing 冥 about 5–10 times in the dan course practice mode in STEP UP. Pressing VEFX + EFFECT lets you set the starting gauge as well. I set the starting gauge to 30%, cleared it about five times to get a feel for it, and then went for the Kaiden course.
With that — good luck on your own Kaiden attempt!