[N64] Star Fox 64 - "Start Demos 2 - 6 (Stage Introductions)" by Fernman

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Star Fox
Game: Star Fox 64
Console: Nintendo 64
Title: Start Demos 2 - 6 (Stage Introductions)
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Fernman

[Fernman]

I think the difference between the stage introduction and demo is that during the demo tune the characters are talking, introductions have no talking.
The stage openings are not on vgmdb.net,

So I'm open to renaming these as NSM sees fit. Youtube namings are inconsistent.
Start Demo 2

Start Demo 2 I picked the melody and the bass notes over the flute since I thought that would be preferred by NSM. If NSM prefers the flute or both bass and flute I can do that. just tell me how you want that setup since you can only play one or the other at a time. I think choosing the flute would make it different than the other tracks.

Start Demo 3

Start Demo 4

Start Demo 5

Start Demo 6

[Kricketune54]

Title of the submission and sheet should be "Start Demo 2", not just "Demo". I think the titles of the Stage Intros are fine - though I personally think the order should go "short" to "long" and not long to short. Any thoughts on that?

Looks like this one's going to need a bit of formatting work... we do have a standardized appearances for compilation tracks in the formatting guidelines.

I think this might be a close example of what yours could look like at acceptance.
https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/download/pdf/5068

[Fernman]

though I personally think the order should go "short" to "long" and not long to short. Any thoughts on that?

I swapped it as you suggested my guess is because you wanted the short ones to fill the first page?
I would appreciate if you would give a reason instead of what is essentially "because you feel like it"

I added the box as I know how to do in Musescore but the format didn't work at all upon converting to Finale so... yeah. That's what I can do.

[Kricketune54]

Hi Fernman,

Had a bit of back and forth with the updating team, we concluded that this sheet and the individual tracks would be more consistently named Start Demos 2-5 (Stage Intros). As seen the videos you've linked refer to these tracks by name as "Start Demos", so given Start Demo 1 is already on site it would just be a bit more consistent.

"Start Demo 2"
"Start Demo 3"
"Start Demo 4"
"Start Demo 5"

[Fernman]

Files are updated.
formatting is as good as I know how to do in musescore.

[Kricketune54]

Looks like you added another track between edits - that's fine in this case because this track makes sense to have here as well but please acknowledge a change like that because it was initially confusing to see the title changed from 2-5 to 2-6.

To clarify from my previous reply, was suggesting the title should literally be "Start Demos 2-6 (Stage Intros)", not just "Start Demo 2-6". I think this title would be the most obvious and easiest way to differentiate this piece, which probably is not obvious to many because there's not a true demo stage outside of the training stage for this game.

Also, I think beyond Start Demo 2, it would be good to have the individual titles written in this format (note I'm just making this a list here for ease of reading on this post):

• Start Demo 3 (Stage Introduction Short)
• Start Demo 4 (Stage Introduction Medium)
• Start Demo 5 (Stage Introduction Long)
• Start Demo 6 (Venom Demo)

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this to the contrary.

But let's do some actual feedback now as well. Note I'm holding off on Demo 2 as I'm doing a bit of parsing of what the accidentals should be for this one, it is the most difficult accidental wise, but I wanted to make sure we're also moving this sheet along in the mean time:

Start Demo 3 (Stage Introduction Short)
• m1 and m3 RH and LH, I would suggest writing beats 1-3 as staccatoed or marcato notes, similar to how BespinBen did it for Start Demo 1: https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/download/pdf/1272. Please also beam in a similar fashion between beat 1.0 and 2.0 (though I would note your tempo is correct compared to his).
• m1 RH hearing an An alongside the current Dn and Bn.
• The LH notes for beat 4 for m1-3 sounds like the pattern should be an 8th note followed by two 16th notes. I would also suggest writing the LH part as two octaves, ex. two Gn octaves for m1, two Ab octaves for m2, and so forth.
• m4 the G#'s in the RH should be Ab's.

Start Demo 4 (Stage Introduction Medium)
• All of the G#'s should be Ab's.

Start Demo 5 (Stage Introduction Long)
• This should be written the same way as Start Demo 3 rhythmically (ex. if 8th notes for RH beats 1-3, should be same between both).

Start Demo 6 (Venom Demo)
• bpm should be q = 172
• I would relisten to this one overall - the time signature is in 4/4, the bassline rhythm should line up on beat 1 with the RH

[Fernman]

Titles are fixed.

All suggestions implemented.

[Kricketune54]

Start Demo 2
• Counted this at q = 134 bpm
• Overall I think the LH you could do a little more as there are audible notes on the "and" beat of each full quarter beat.- please see attached screenshot of an idea I had for m1 and follow for m2-3 LH.  Not a complicated pattern and would capture piece more than currently.
• You could either add restruck Fn's to the chords for RH m4 beat 2.5-end of measure, or add the Fn to the end chord for m5. Or add to both?
• Some accidental changes in the RH: please see the following screenshot

Spoiler

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(ignore LH). Basically, will do a bit more chromatic stuff, Eb in m1 becomes D#, Bb to A#. In m2-3, the bottom RH Gb becomes an F#, and the Db a C# on beat 4.66

Start Demo 3
• RH m6 and elsewhere (also in Demo 4 and 5 ) beat 4.0 (8th note) should not beam to 3.0 in this case. 4.0-4.75 should be beamed together alone (when you have 16th notes at end of a beat, you do not beam to the previous beat in 4/4 time).
• m6 LH Dn is going to sound a bit better than Bn in my opinion - when doing octaves with low notes, generally you will want to have any "middle notes" be the 5th of whatever note makes up the octave in the middle as opposed to the 3rd
• m7 LH similarly, would suggest Dn again here instead of Bn.
• m7 RH 1.0 there's a Cn under this as well. I would suggest making m6 4.5 and 4.75 just the top notes to make this a bit easier to play.
• m8 LH I hear En instead of Dn
• m9 LH Fn is going to make this sound a bit more balanced than Dn.

Start Demo 4
• m12-m16 - this part you could lower each note by an octave. Currently I don't think these LH measures sound as full - maybe you could do something like this for these measures on beat 4 as well? I hear four 16th notes for the percussion. Alternatively, I would write this percussion the same as how I've suggested for m6-9 for Demo 3.
• m14-15 RH should look identical to m6-7 RH

Spoiler

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Start Demo 5
• m19 LH the G# should be Ab
• m20-m31. As mentioned for Start Demo 4- I think you could write the LH in the same style as Start Demo 3: Octaves, with a middle note (the fifth of the root octave note).
• m23 RH 2.75 should not beam to 3.0 - remember that beams should not be done across the middle of a measure. https://www.musicnotes.com/blog/note-beaming-and-grouping-in-music-theory/
• m30-m32 LH the G#'s should be Ab's.

Start Demo 6 (Venom Demo)
• This one still is a bit off in the LH. In m32/m1 the Dn should be on beat 2.5. in m33/m2 the Ab should be on 1.5. I also don't hear the Ab on 4.0 as longer than the other notes so this could also be written as an 8th.
• m32 RH I'm not hearing the Dn, and in m33 RH I'm not hearing the Eb.
• For the ending notes, I think the C# makes more sense as a Db in the RH. For the LH, that grouping of low notes sounds quite muddy- general guidance is to avoid grouping more than 2 pitches together below half staff or so - usually you won't multiple notes other than octaves written low. However, this works as an alternative:

[Fernman]

Start Demo 2 adjusted.

• RH m6 and elsewhere (also in Demo 4 and 5 ) beat 4.0 (8th note) should not beam to 3.0 in this case. 4.0-4.75 should be beamed together alone (when you have 16th notes at end of a beat, you do not beam to the previous beat in 4/4 time).

Start Demo 3
Good to know, though the manual adjusting of the beaming in Musescore is wonky. In some cases the beaming actually crossed to the previous measure and I can't fix it without undoing the desired beaming completely. but it fixed itself in Notepad, so yeah that's a formatting thing as much as I try to fix it.

Everything else is in place.

Start Demo 4
I'm not a fan of the octaves, but I included them. Do you think playing the LH top G gets muddy with the cluster of notes in the RH in m14 in particular?

Start Demo 5
Octaves adjusted. manual beaming doesn't work that well in Musescore. It beams where I don't want it to beam. but can't get it to do what I want otherwise.

Demo 6
notes adjusted.

• For the ending notes, I think the C# makes more sense as a Db in the RH. For the LH, that grouping of low notes sounds quite muddy- general guidance is to avoid grouping more than 2 pitches together below half staff or so - usually you won't multiple notes other than octaves written low. However, this works as an alternative:

That is a 9th. Octaves I rather not when unnecessary, but no 9ths for me. How about a different inversion?

[Kricketune54]

Hey Fernman, sorry for a bit of a wait there.

Start Demo 2
• m1-3 LH I think beat 4.5 sounds/would work better as the same pitch as beat 2.5 of the same measure.
• for these same measures, beats 1-3 you could add staccatos, I think that would indicate just a little more that there's some spacing between each note for this part.
• I think the system distribution is slightly better as m1-2 as a system, and then m3-5 as the second system.
• My last comment for Start Demo 2 is that I think the triplets for m1 beat 4 for example are about the same in note length as m2 beat 4 and m4 beat 4. So could add staccatos to both m2 and m4, or remove them on m1 and m3 beat 4.

Start Demo 3
• Notewise this one is good to go to me. The formatting is quite out of whack as you identified haha, I will have to do some corrections with the way the title shows up.

Start Demo 4

I'm not a fan of the octaves, but I included them. Do you think playing the LH top G gets muddy with the cluster of notes in the RH in m14 in particular?

I tried it - personally I don't think it's that muddy, but I would be okay if you want to take the top Gn of the LH off
• m10 LH beat 3 I don't hear the An on bottom, which I think makes this a bit muddy. I do hear an Fn, but down an octave
• Similar m11 beat 3 not hearing the bottom Cn, and hearing the Ab down an octave.
• m13 RH hearing Bn's above these Dn's
• m16 RH remove beam between beat 3.0 and beat 4.0. If I understand your comment for Start Demo 5 though, perhaps this is something that will just have to get fixed in Finale after my approval for the next updater.
• m17 LH the Dn should be a Fn. Can put Dn (up an octave) on bottom of the RH cluster
•  Overall for this and for Start Demo 5, I think the staccatos should be consistent with how they are on Start Demo 3. For both the LH and RH notes.

Start Demo 5

Octaves adjusted. manual beaming doesn't work that well in Musescore. It beams where I don't want it to beam. but can't get it to do what I want otherwise.

Can fix this after approval.
• Same comments I made for m10-11 LH apply for m18-19 LH
• m21 RH same comment as m13.
• m22 RH should be same as m14
• m23 RH same notes as m15 beat 1-2, though beat 3 in m23 should be quarter note length.
• m23 RH beat's 4.0 I hear from top to bottom: Fn-Dn-Cn. 4.5 I hear Gn-En-Dn
• m24 RH 2.5 hearing top to bottom Cn-An-Gn, and 3.0 Bn-Gn-Fn.
• m25 RH 1.0 hearing Dn under
• You could split m25 RH into two layers - perhaps something like this:

Spoiler

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• m26-28 RH see comments for m22-m24
• m29 RH can do a two layer split with similar thinking as m25
• m30-31 LH I don't hear the Cn, and I hear a Eb on top. But I thinking having that Fn is good to represent, and think it goes well with the LH being Fn-Eb-Ab. Thoughts?

Start Demo 6

notes adjusted.That is a 9th. Octaves I rather not when unnecessary, but no 9ths for me. How about a different inversion?

• I like this! I did relisten to the LH and I do think I hear a Db instead of Bn, sorry to kind of flip flop on that but let me know your thoughts
• m32 LH beat's 1.5 and 2.0 should not be combined to a quarter rest (should be two separate 8th rests), and m33 2.0 and 2.5 8th rests should be a quarter rest. Let me know if that makes sense