Submission Information:
Series: Super Mario
Game: Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions
Console: Nintendo 3DS
Title: Everyone, Attack!
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: WobbliestGem (https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=6930)
[attachment deleted by admin]
In the future, remember to post an audio source of some kind. It just helps us check things faster.
Some general things to start out with:
- m4 sounds way off... Try re-transcribing it, but if need help let me know. It should be just 8th note rhythms with some tremolos thrown in.
- Almost any time you have a Gb, it should be an F# (borrowing from the parallel G Major scale). Similarly, if you have an Eb surrounded by E naturals (like in m6), those should be spelled as D# (chromatic neighbor tones).
- Those upper notes in the RH (the Gs in m5, 6, 9, 10, etc.) are extremely demanding as written (unless you want the performer to play some of the lower RH notes with the LH). I think it would be best just to remove them for simplicity.
I encourage you to go over the entire arrangement more thoroughly like you did with the Partners in Time one. I think you'll find a lot of things can be rewritten or simplified (I might even suggest not writing the melody in octaves for the entire piece - that gets tiring real quick).
If you have a keyboard or piano available, try playing your arrangement. It doesn't have to be at tempo, it's just to try and get a feel for how the piece lays under the fingers. I find it immensely helpful for arranging.
As always, if you want some extra help, let me know and I can go over specific things.
I looked through the sheet music and simplified and changed a few things. I do have one question though, how do I get a .musx file?
Quote from: WobbliestGem on April 12, 2021, 07:36:25 AMI do have one question though, how do I get a .musx file?
Those are the default files for Finale 2014 and beyond. Since there is no NotePad version beyond 2012, you can't create .musx files for free, so that's why they're not required.
Anyway, this looks much better than before, but there's still a lot I have to say. This time, I'm going to ask you to make all the changes and then I'll fix up the formatting for you once you're done.
- m1-2 LH: I am hearing something completely different here... It sounds like it should just be a pedal D, but the octaves alternate in a certain way. This is what I hear:
(https://i.imgur.com/Q2RcnfY.png) - m3: I only hear the lower 2 octaves present (the RH should just be rest). In addition, this note sounds like a D as well to me, not G.
- m4: The marimba part should be harmonized in 4ths for the first two 8th notes, and the rest 3rds. I also hear it starting on D (going up the D major scale). I know I said that there's a tremolo in that measure (which there is), but because the tempo is blazing fast, it would be best to write that as a slurred note. On marimba and other mallet percussion, tremolos are the usual way to create sustained pitches because those instruments just don't produce very sustained tones. Piano doesn't have that issue as much, so you don't have to write it that way if it's too awkward to play.
- m7-8 and similar all sound like D7 chords to me, rather than D7b5, so the Abs in the LH of those measures should be A naturals.
- Since putting an 8va under the top staff or above the bottom staff is sometimes ambiguous, and because that's not really common practice, I would suggest writing m13-16 in bass clef instead.
- The bass for the accompaniment figures in m5-6, 9-10, 13-22, etc. is all just the root repeated over and over (i.e. C-C-C-C for m5). The chords starting at m13 start to sound a little off because of the inverted bass, which often starts on the third or fifth of the chord in your sheet.
- Not sure what the whole notes in m13-16 are supposed to be in the original track. If you want to include those beefy low brass notes, those might be better to put under the RH instead of above (also you might want to check your notes on some of them). Because that would get in the way of the LH part I would personally not include that extra layer at all, but it's up to you.
- m20 RH should just be octaves like the stuff before it, not sure what's going on there... It's also impossible to play as you have written (well maybe Maelstrom can play it)
- You could really fill in m29-36 with extra chord tones in the RH to give it that lush sound... in particular the suspension from G to F# in m35-36. But watch the LH - the bass is still G in m31-32.
- You could also put some extra rhythm in the LH to mimic the drums. You don't have to do this, maybe that's not the sound you're looking for, but I thought I'd suggest it anyway. Combined with the above points, here's how it could look:
(https://i.imgur.com/GH9ZVhR.png) - In places like m38, consider removing the lower octave for just the 2nd and 3rd 8th note (F#-G or B-C). This elimates the G-D fifth leap from beats 2-3, which is pretty demanding at this tempo with the octaves there. Not to say you can't write super difficult sheets, but I think making a sheet reasonably comfortable to play is pretty important. You don't want your performer to be too tired after a pretty short piece like this. You can keep the octaves if you desire, however.
- m45-52: This was the toughest part to arrange, no? Certainly sounds like it to me. When you have all those layers going on in totally separate ranges it can be hard to make sense of it all, so let's break it down. What you have written currently is impossible to play due to the huge RH intervals.
- For the bass, it actually should be a pedal D all the way to m49 - then, it goes down the scale at m50 so leave it as-is there. Since the range is already comfortably within the bass clef, you also don't need the 8vb line here.
- For the middle voice (the half notes in the RH), I would suggest either leaving the LH as-is and keeping only the upper octave - or, alternatively - removing the lowest octave from the LH and keeping the low octave in the middle voice. Here's these two ideas side-by-side for a quick comparison:
(https://i.imgur.com/7N5RzOV.png)(https://i.imgur.com/njT6NKc.png)
These are both acceptable, but it just depends on your preference. Do you want the bass or the middle voice to be most prominent? You can also think about shifting this balance starting at m49 - maybe the bass should definitely be in octaves here. That's probably how I would personally write it. - For the top voice, I hear m45 as a whole note like in m47. Otherwise, this looks pretty good.
- You're right that the track repeats at m52... but there's no coda or anything beyond that. You can cut the sheet off there and delete all the following measures since we only require one full loop of the track.
I reworked the bassline for a lot of the measures, and simplified m45-52.
Awesome. I made a few formatting adjustments for the .mus file as well as these other changes:
- All text changed to TNR to match the formatting guidelines.
- NinSheetMusic url added under the copyright info, and space added between © and 2017. Copyright info also removed from page 2.
- Measure numbers added.
- Page numbers and running titles added.
- Staff/system spacing and page margins adjusted for a cleaner look. I think this looks much nicer when spaced apart on 3 pages than trying to fit it onto just 2.
- This is nitpicky, but the tempo appears to be around 180 instead of 182.
- m4 RH still sounds a bit off to me. I hear the top voice as D-E-F#-G-F#-G-A and the bottom as A-B-D-E-D-E-F#.
- G on beat 4.5 of m6 and similar removed because it overlaps with the RH.
- Looking at m13-16 RH... I think I changed my mind and would rather see it in treble clef. But, there should still be no 8va/vb line; it should be played as written.
- m13-20 LH: Sorry if I was unclear here, but the chords should also all be in root position - G on the bass for the Gm chords and D on the bass for the Dmaj chords.
- I beefed up m29-36 a bit more, and also moved 35-36 RH down an octave. I don't hear it that high up in the original.
- Lower notes in m45-48 RH moved to another layer in the LH for easier reading.
- Some basic dynamics were added. Feel free to add more or change any.
The files have been uploaded accordingly. (edit: almost forgot to mention my
approval)
Looks pretty good! Some more feedback:
- I'm hearing G major chords instead of C major chords for m. 5-6, 9-10, 21-22, 25-26
- Is there any reason the last section's RH (m. 37+) is up an octave from where it is in the original? I think the left hand of m. 45-48 might be better down an octave too.
- I'd recommend more intense dynamics for the last page (perhaps f at 37 and ff at 52) - as this is the climax of the piece with a more heightened sound than the previous sections.
- Footer text is a little too large and URL is missing the trailing slash
I fixed the sheet according to your specifications and reuploaded it.
It looks like you made changes to an older version of the file without Static's changes (or by reimporting the file into Finale), as a bunch of the fixes mentioned in Static's last post are no longer present in the .mus file in the submission right now. As a reminder, the .mus file must be used as the master file, and the .midi and .pdf should be exports from it. So make sure the edits are done on top of the .mus file that Static provided last time - let me know if you need help with that. Happy to help you make the changes but we have to make sure we're going off of the correct file.
(edit: if you need the file it's here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uixr7yes8wbirpj/Everyone_Attack.mus?dl=1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/uixr7yes8wbirpj/Everyone_Attack.mus?dl=1))
Aside from that, think about playability for measures 45-48. It's not playable if you only move the bottom layer down an octave but keep the top layer where it is - it would work fine with both layers lowered. Also, all the beams in the RH of the m. 37+ are frozen downwards. They should stick to the default (which is up most of the time for these notes here).
I downloaded the file and made all the necessary changes and resubmitted all the files.
Quote from: Latios212 on May 02, 2021, 04:13:15 PMAs a reminder, the .mus file must be used as the master file, and the .midi and .pdf should be exports from it.
I don't mean to sound repetitive, but please keep this in mind - the PDF was still generated independently from a separate MuseScore file. Using one file to generate all the others makes it possible to keep the generated files consistent.
With that in mind, I see the .mus file has the edits although the spacing of stuff on the page has been changed, leaving things looking more lopsided than before. What version of Finale did you use and did you do anything other than modify the notes?
As I mentioned above, I'm happy to help you make your changes in Finale but we need to make sure we're going off of the right file.
I used the .mus file that you left in your previous message.
I am using Finale 2012.
I didn't do anything except modify the notes.
I used the .mus file as a master file to make the midi and .pdf by converting the .mus to a .xml and putting into Musescore to get the midi and .pdf files.
Quote from: WobbliestGem on May 03, 2021, 05:47:16 PMI used the .mus file as a master file to make the midi and .pdf by converting the .mus to a .xml and putting into Musescore to get the midi and .pdf files.
If you're using Finale 2012, you should be able to export your .mus as both midi and pdf directly from the program without converting it to xml (File > Export).
If you're using Finale
Notepad 2012 (the free one), you can only directly export to .mus, so you'll need to use a print-to-PDF program or ask us to do it for you. The midi can come from an xml conversion and it should sound fine.
Hopefully that clears things up a bit.
I'll get the finishing touches for you this time. But please keep in mind what Static mentioned above for generating the PDF next time :P
This submission has been accepted by Latios212 (https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=4344).
~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot