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[RollerCoaster Tycooon - Title Theme]

RollerCoaster Tycooon - Title Theme
[MUSX] [MUS] [PDF] [MIDI]

This sheet marks an important milestone for me: it's the first arrangement I've created from scratch in Finale instead of importing from a MuseScore XML! I had already partially transcribed this song for an orchestral arrangement I was doing a while back and I figured it was the perfect one to try from scratch since I had a lot of the notes already. Well, when I went to do it I found out that not only had I missed a lot of parts the first time, but some of the notes I had were flat-out wrong! So it ended up being a fair bit of work but it's good to see that my ear has improved since the last time I attempted this song.

RollerCoaster Tycoon was a staple of my childhood, not the least because my siblings and I spent an entire summer playing it when we had chicken pox and weren't allowed to play with the other kids on our street. This title theme is probably the most recognizable piece from the game, and it remains one of my favourite pieces of video game music to this day. There was a point where I nearly gave up including the French horn line in the third section, which would have been a shame as it's a great melody, but with a few compromises I was able to fit it in. I've tried to write out the articulations and dynamics from the original as meticulously as possible, and because of that I think this may be my most polished sheet yet. All the same, let me know if you see anything I missed!

I should mention that the note about skipping to m. 52 is because there is an extra section that is added to the theme if you have the expansion packs for the game. Skipping to m. 52 preserves the original loop while continuing on follows the extended version.

My main concerns are with bars 14-15 and the equivalent place in the repeat (bars 30-32).  Your right hand is far emptier than what's going on in the original and I'm not sure if it's just been missed or if it's been consciously excluded (but I can't think of a good reason for doing so).  Namely there are more high piano notes than the ones you've written in but there's also that falling wind line in bar 32 which would be nice to get in if possible.  Also I think that the note on beat 1 of bar 32 is restruck in the original.

Other than that, there's also that I'm hearing the Ds in the left hand of bar 15 as Cs (not the low one though).

Those things aside, this looks decent.

I must have missed those when I first did this sheet as it's an older one. I added the woodwind part in those two spots and modified the piano part slightly to make it easier to play/read, which I think filled it out nicely. I couldn't pick out any more piano notes than what I originally had though, so let me know if there's any in particular that could be added. This track in general is a little echoey so I find it hard to hear everything that's going on at times.

As for your other concerns:
-switched the Ds in m. 15 to Cs
-restruck the G in m. 32

Other misc. changes:
-added a diminuendo in the last 2 bars
-redid the system spacing
-changed the repeat at the end to a D.C. because it was kind of long for a repeat

As always, thanks for the feedback!

What about songs themed around travel? Flying, riding, train stations, fast travel themes, that sort of thing.

I think an update based around food/cooking would be pretty neat.

I like this idea quite a bit too.

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Everything checks out, just fix the left margin for the last 4 systems and I call it good!

Done!

It sure is lot of composers, isn't it? Unsurprisingly, I couldn't find specific credits for each track so I went with what I had.

Thanks for the suggestions, I've implemented all of them plus some general formatting fixes I didn't catch before as this was an older sheet. I had trouble with the notes at m. 10-12 and 26-28 so I appreciate the corrections; did I put the D and B in the right place?

Thanks again!

I'm afraid that option 1 is out of the question for me, seeing on how I compose on my school chromebook. But I checked, and Noteflight does support export to MusicXML files.  I don't know a good way to test the quality of it, seeing as most programs are blocked, but it can't be as bad as importing XML, seeing as that doesn't even work.  Now all that's left is to figure out what to arrange...  Thank you so much!

Sorry yes, MusicXML is what I meant, it's a certain type of XML file. If there is an option to export an uncompressed MusicXML I think that works slightly better, but either will work. If you check out the official NSM formatting guidelines and follow them as closely as possible with Noteflight (you might not be able to get all the fonts and stuff but do what you can), it will make the conversion to Finale easier. Good luck with your arrangements!

I'm an amateur composer, and I'd like to arrange for this site, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money on Finale to do it.  Am I allowed to submit an arrangement through .MID? I mainly compose through Noteflight, so odd notation shouldn't be an issue.
 Thanks!

In order to submit a sheet you will need at least a .mus, a PDF, and a .mid file. However, there are a few ways to get a .mus without the full version of Finale if you don't want to spend that much.

Option 1: Finale NotePad is a free version of Finale that allows you to create .mus files (though it's now Windows-only). It's functionalities are limited, however, so either you can ask someone with the full version of Finale to make more complicated formatting edits (we have an entire thread dedicated to this), or another notation program which leads me to...

Option 2: You can use another notation program to create an .XML file (the universal music notation format) and ask someone else to input it into Finale to do the final edits (or do those yourself in NotePad). I'm not sure if Noteflight lets you export .XML files, but MuseScore is a free fully featured notation program that will let you get pretty close to the required formatting before exporting the .XML file. (If you're an amateur composer I would highly recommend MuseScore anyways, it's quite user-friendly and has a lot of community support, all while doing a significant amount of what professional notation programs like Finale can do.)

There are quite a few people around who manage to create arrangements without Finale, so you should be able to get around that through some combination of the options above. There are lots of people here who would be willing to help so feel free to ask if you need it.

This is a really cool idea for a project! I'm not very familiar with Ace Attorney music but I like your songs so far. Interesting idea to use the DS soundfonts as well, working in limitations can be very rewarding. Keep up the good work!

I wouldn't mind seeing a tutorial myself, I always like learning about stuff like this.

[Sheet]

This was my first year here so it's the first time I've participated in this topic, but here are my favourite arrangements from the year!

5. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town - Summer

This is one of my favourite summer themes in the whole series (I usually prefer the other seasonal themes over summer), and it was a blast to do despite the arrangement ending up a little difficult to play. It was also the first Friends of Mineral Town sheet on-site which was a cool milestone to reach as it's one of the more popular entries in the series.

Sheet

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4. Harvest Moon 2 GBC - Spring

This one adapted to piano perfectly since it emulates a ragtime style, and it's a really fun one to play (very catchy too). I found the chords easier to figure out in this one than in past arrangements so it was nice to feel a sense of progress. It also involved a lot of research to untangle a mislabeled OST and an uncredited composer, which considering it's a relatively obscure title in the series was not easy, but that was fun in its own way.

Sheet

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 3. Stardew Valley - Spirit's Eve Festival

The instrumentation of this song is quite unique and it was a bit of a challenge to adapt to the piano, but I think it turned out really well all things considered. It was also my first submission to an arrangement project (the 2019 Hallowe'en update) so that was a fun experience as well.

Sheet

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2. Harvest Moon 64 - Spring

This one was the first arrangement I posted and it's the song that drove me to start arranging in the first place. It's still one of the songs I gravitate to whenever I sit down at a piano.

Sheet

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1. Bravely Default - Beneath The Hollow Moon

I fell in love with this song when I heard it in Bravely Default, which has one of my favourite OSTs of all time, and I just had to arrange it. It was quite a challenge for me at the time and I'm very grateful for all the help I got from everyone here.

Sheet

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I do have one honourable mention as well:

BONUS: Persona 3 - Aria of Soul (Collaboration with Samusthedude)

This one needs a bit of work still so I didn't include it in the top 5, but as my first collaborative arrangement it was one of the most fun arrangements to put together. I would not have been able to do this one alone so thanks to my friend, Samusthedude, for making it possible. You can probably expect to see more from this arranging duo in the future...

Submission topic

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Thanks to the awesome updaters for helping me with my first year of arranging on NSM, I've learned so much already! Hope everyone has a great 2020!

These were my top 10 games this decade, arranged by year of release. There's a lack of games from the past few years because I only just got a Switch and I have a backlog of newer games to play, plus I tend to spend a lot of time playing older games as well.

Dragon Quest IX (2010)
Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns (2011)
Bravely Default (2014)
Tomodachi Life (2014)
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (2014)
Pokémon Omega Ruby (2014)
Fire Emblem Conquest (2016)
Stardew Valley (2016)
Persona 5 (2017)
Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns (2017)

[Persona 3 - Aria of the Soul]

Persona 3 - Aria of the Soul
[MUSX] [MUS] [PDF] [MIDI]
(Collaboration with Samusthedude)

This is a very special arrangement because it's my first collaborative arrangement! It was quite an experience getting this put together and neither of us could have done it alone, so a huge thanks to my good friend (and fellow Persona fan) Samusthedude, who has had as much of a hand in this project as I have. There are probably some issues because it was a challenging venture for both of us, but any feedback can be left in the submission topic. Hope you enjoy this arrangement of a classic Persona song!

A handful of small things:
- Move the pedal markings a bit to the left so they're centered under the note.
- m. 1 beat 3 should have a B an octave below the one currently written.
- m. 8 half notes should be B-E not G#-B.
- F# octaves in m. 9 should have a D# between them.
- You may want to put roll markings (one to span both staves) in m. 5 beat 1, m. 9 beat 3, and m. 10. (If you do, be sure to add a bit of space at the beginning of m. 5/10)
- Fermata over the left hand part of the last measure as well.
- Watch the indentation of the second system.
- You have lots of room at the bottom of the page so you can move everything down a bit to give the composer/arranger info more room.

Other than that, looks great!

Fixed. Great suggestions, thanks!

(Let me know if the roll markings need adjusting since it's the first time I've done those manually.)

This one should be pretty straightforward. (I am aware that the title is spelled Elliot in the linked video, but in the game as well as the official soundtrack album it is spelled Elliott.)

Notes-wise, I'm not positive on the pitches in some of the rolled chords or the bassline in measures 29-32. The change in accompaniment in the second half is to incorporate the pizzicato strings, but if there's any way to improve on the way I did it I'd be glad to hear it.

EDIT: The video I had previously got taken down so here's a new one; it's from the "Cute" version of the game but the soundtracks were identical so it's all good.

Aw man I was also working on an arrangement for Once Upon A Time, but it's far from being done and yours is really nice so I'm happy to hear it too! Great job on both of these!