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Good questions!

-Are there any differences between Finale's and Musescore's respective formatting that appear to be unsurmountable? If I remember correctly from seeing some MuseScore sheets back in the day, the notation never appeared as sharp and crisp as sheets that were written natively in Finale, for example.

Not anymore! By default, MuseScore sheets do look pretty different from sheets made from the Finale template we've been using. But we (@XiaoMigros in particular) have been doing a bunch of investigation around matching the same fonts/styles in MuseScore to meet visual parity. You can get a sneak peek of that with @Static's sheet here, where the PDFs generated from the Finale and MuseScore versions look remarkably similar. We'll have more guidance around this to come soon (tm).

-Down the road, when Finale versions are more or less unusable because of lack of developer support, will the option to submit .mus files be removed entirely? Or is that a bridge to cross when we get there?

No plan at the moment. We'll think more about that as time goes on and we have fewer members around who have the program readily available to use. Even without any further developer support, we can still manage to get by with the state Finale is in today.

-What can the shock troops in the community (me) do to be helpful for the transition process here?

Thank you (and others who I've been talking to as well) for offering to help I'd say these few things for now:
- If you are able to help check any current submissions at all, that would really help as some of our staff (mostly Xiao and myself) are focusing more of our attention on this transition than reviewing existing submissions. You don't have to be an updater or review everything about a sheet to leave helpful comments!
- If you're not familiar with MuseScore already, you can try and mess around with it to build some familiarity and expertise. We will likely eventually rely partially on community support for help engraving with MuseScore so the more members around who are familiar with it, the better. As for actual sheets to submit, after we finish drafting up guidelines for how to format submissions in MuseScore, we'll need people to run through it and see if the process is smooth so we can refine it. That will need to wait a little bit (a few weeks?) until we finish writing that up though!

[All of the files we offer you today aren't going anywhere]

Hi everyone!

A couple of weeks ago, the company MakeMusic announced that the music notation program Finale is discontinued effective immediately. Any Finale users are being encouraged to migrate to other music notation programs. As you might know, all of the 5000+ sheets we host on our site are engraved using Finale. So what does this mean for NinSheetMusic?

Well, let's first start with what's not changing. All of the files we offer you today aren't going anywhere. Nothing is happening to the PDF and MIDI file formats. So for any users using the site to download sheet music or MIDI files, this has no impact at all. And for those interested in notation files or those who have arrangements on the site, discontinuation of the program doesn't affect the mountain of Finale files we've accumulated over the years. The Finale files will stay and still be usable by those who still have Finale running on their computers. We also will continue to accept submissions made using Finale for the foreseeable future.

What will change, then? As Finale slowly fades into obscurity, we are planning to do what some of our users have been requesting for a long time - start accepting sheet music made using MuseScore. It would be great to allow users to submit sheets made by any notation program of their choice, but that is not practical at the moment. As a first step, we will focus on adding support for sheets made using MuseScore. This is a natural direction to go since MuseScore is free, making it easier for newer arrangers to get started contributing, and open source, putting the fate of the program more in the hands of users. We are lucky to have many community members already intimately familiar with MuseScore to assist. We also plan on adding support for the MusicXML file type on the main site for users to be able to more easily use their program of choice. If this all goes well, we will continue to investigate adding support for more programs like Dorico, which MakeMusic is recommending as Finale's replacement.

All that said, it will take some time to put these changes in effect, so nothing is changing about the submissions process right now. There is a considerable amount of work to be done, including adding support for additional file types on the website and developing guidelines and tools to ensure that sheets created using MuseScore are visually consistent with the rest of our library. So for now, any arrangers submitting to the site should continue with Finale, following the submission process that has been in place for many years. But it may be helpful to start becoming familiar with writing sheets in MuseScore as it's become clear that using Finale is unsustainable long-term. For those MuseScore users who have been discouraged by the submissions process in the past, keep an eye out for when we will start allowing MuseScore submissions! We will keep you posted about developments as they come.

I think that's all for now; thanks for making it this far! Feel free to ask any questions you may have!

Thanks. A couple of things about the formatting:

You can follow the last few steps in this guide around:
- Editing measure attributes and adding a final barline at the end of the first track
- Editing measure number regions so the numbering is reset on the second track.

If following the style of the sheet that Kricketune mentioned:

Example of Multi-track submission

you'll need to add other headers in the middle of the page. Otherwise, put the track name as part of the tempo markings.

Also, the second track should stay in G major too.

Archiving this in favor of https://www.ninsheetmusic.org/forum/index.php?topic=13069.0 - see discussion there

who put corridors of time in my mario

Nice to see you submitting again! A few pointers:
- The arpeggios aren't quite right. For instance, beat 2 of measure 1 should be A instead of G. Try out a tool like AudioStretch to make sure you really have all the right notes.
- Do another check for playability.  Places like m. 12 and 20 are not playable by the right hand.
- Feel free to fill out the measures by extending note lengths instead of using rests.
- Use layers to represent different voices in the original if they occupy the same rhythmic space, and prioritize the main melody over the background voices that appear above it.

[accept]

Awesome! Looks good to me, with the small caveat that things don't look right as usual on my version of Finale (2014). I'll accept; feel free to convert files in the Accepted folder or one of us will handle it for you.



Also moving this to the archive since both are accepted! Woo!

[Koopa Troopa Beach]

Koopa Troopa Beach

This is looking much nicer than when I initially looked at it. Nice work you and Kricketune for getting this into real good shape! Here's my feedback:
- Double barline at the end of m. 4
- Melody in m. 12 should be a half note
- For m. 12/28, you could remove the E in the offbeat triads to keep it consistent dyads like in the other measures.
- For m. 18/34, how about writing the LH similar to how you have it in m. 12 with the descending bass?
- Beat 2 is flipped down incorrectly in m. 39 RH
- Beat 4.5 RH of m. 44 should also be a third (B underneath instead of A)
- m. 44 is a G chord, and similar comment as above with the triads, so I'd suggest something like this:
You cannot view this attachment.
- Is there a reason you drop the offbeat dyads in the last section?
- In m. 52 I'd suggest restriking the whole chord for a fuller sound, the C up top sounds kind of empty all by itself
- I think the lowest note in the chord in m. 53 should be F instead of E

m48 both hands this section is in the key of Gn. As such, it looks a tad bit cleaner to have sharp accidentals (Db -> C#, Gb -> F#). Let me know if you need a further explanation here

I disagree with this, the descending chromatic movement in the bass would be easier written with flats. The right hand does have a C# that resolves to a Cn in the next bar; writing this as a Db would be weird with the En but this is a case where I'd personally be okay not spelling them the same way in the LH/RH. I think what you have now though is fine if you prefer. Whatever you end up doing though, make sure it's consistent between m. 40-41 and 48-49 since it's the same progression in both places.

Wait, Masayoshi Soken is a composer for this? That's not a name I expected to see for this game lol

[The Wide, Wide Ocean]

The Wide, Wide Ocean

Time to actually check this one! Thank you for your patience, just a couple of small things before acceptance.
- The melody in m. 5 is a bit obscured beneath the repeated G's on beats 2-3. How about taking them out?
- The mordent in m. 6 should be flatted.

I keep hearing "Take me out to the ball game".

[Mainland Port/Aquarium/Theater]

Mainland Port/Aquarium/Theater

Nice work! Apologies for the wait. Just a couple of small things:
- Make sure the F's in the melody in m. 1/2/5/6 are flipped upwards and horizontally aligned (probably just delete and re-enter them)
- There's an E in the harmony of m. 9 beat 1 (similar to m. 8 beat 1 that you already have written in)

Also quick question, is "GBC" part of the title of the game? We list the consoles of the games on site now, so is it necessary to include as part of the title?

[approval]

Alrighty!

If it sounds good to you, I can do the .mus conversion and some visual cleanup after your next revision, before I approve!

I've made a few visual tweaks including spacing and dynamic placement. I've finished the Finale conversion and also exported a PDF so you can check that everything looks good. Let me know if anything needs a bit of tweaking!

For the next updater, please make edits directly to the .musx file in the folder and re-export a PDF so Metamyrrh can confirm any discussed changes are implemented as intended. I will leave my approval now! Thank you once again for your patience

Thank you very much for the feedback! Everything is updated, except for the last point, did you mean the note in m15 LH beat 4.5? I still hear a D there, not a B. I also added some more dynamic markings.

Whoops, my bad, I think I meant a G - the same one that plays on beat 3.

- I'd suggest going over m. 12 again and putting some of the harmonies on beat 3-4 into the right hand; the left hand is missing some bass there.

Looks better, though how about removing the E from the LH beat 4 chord? It sounds a bit muddy down there.

- Any particular reason for writing the RH harmony in m. 10 but not 14?

How about the B on beat 1.5?

Other things as I peek at this one a second time:
- I think the E isn't present on top of the second chord in m. 8? The melody sounds like it resolves to C here.

If it sounds good to you, I can do the .mus conversion and some visual cleanup after your next revision, before I approve!

This game is finally going to be released in English in September. I used the localized game title in the sheet. However, the localized song title is not currently known.

I checked with mastersuperfan and we agreed it makes sense to update the game title to the English version now, so I've updated that on the site and on this submission. As for the other sheets on site, I think we can wait to update the game title and track titles at the same time once they are known.

Sorry for the wait! It's great to see more SMT representation!

- How about a "con pedale" marking?
- The descending melody at the end of m. 3 resolve on an A at the beginning of m. 4 which is missing in the right hand part.
- I think the second layer notes in m. 5 and 6 could just be simplified to half notes (instead of quarter+rest). The rests should also be lowered a bit so they're not confused with the top layer
- Thoughts about putting the F-D quarter notes in m. 8 in the left hand instead? It'd be easier to read (and probably play, too).
- In the second half o m. 10 I hear the LH go A-E-G-E
- I'd suggest going over m. 12 again and putting some of the harmonies on beat 3-4 into the right hand; the left hand is missing some bass there.
- Any particular reason for writing the RH harmony in m. 10 but not 14?
- Pretty sure I hear an A in the chord in the RH of m. 15 beat 3
- Last eighth note in m. 15 should be B

[Frothy Waters]

Frothy Waters

Whoops, forgot to reply in here earlier! Changes look good, this crazy sheet is approved ^^