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

Started by Zeta, March 18, 2024, 06:52:51 PM

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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

Quote from: Kricketune54 on March 19, 2024, 09:03:32 PMthough 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

#6
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


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
[close]
(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
[close]

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.

Quote from: Kricketune54 on April 02, 2024, 08:30:17 PM• 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.
Quote from: Kricketune54 on April 02, 2024, 08:30:17 PM• 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

#10
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
QuoteI'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
QuoteOctaves 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
Quotenotes 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

Fernman

Start Demo 2
Comments incorporated
Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM• 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.

All have been stacatto'd except the last triplet set. I hear that last triplet set held a bit longer since it is ending the notes are held slightly longer.

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM• m1-3 LH I think beat 4.5 sounds/would work better as the same pitch as beat 2.5 of the same measure.
If they are going to be that similar, I might as well make them 8th notes. otherwise they are just repeated notes and you can hardly tell the difference.

Other change I made is shifted the LH Bbs down to a reachable range.

Start Demo 4
Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM• 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.
I moved the inversions around so it sounds like it was ascending, but what I uploaded this time works too

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM•  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.
It doesn't sound as short as Demo 3 until m16. Since I elected not to use the marcato markings, I rather use the stacatos in m16 on both hands, and only on the LH elsewhere

Start Demo 5
Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM• You could split m25 RH into two layers - perhaps something like this:
the suggested image with three held notes and 3 moving notes does not seem possible without 6 fingers. I dropped off the bottom note (An)

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 09, 2024, 08:57:01 PM• 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?
I don't hear the Eb, I think how its written sounds closer to what it is.

All else incorporated

Demo 6 incorporated.

Kricketune54

Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMStart Demo 2
All have been stacatto'd except the last triplet set. I hear that last triplet set held a bit longer since it is ending the notes are held slightly longer.
Relistening I agree that it is a bit longer than staccato. You could add marcato markings as sounds like a little space, but if you don't want to that's fine.

Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMIf they are going to be that similar, I might as well make them 8th notes. otherwise they are just repeated notes and you can hardly tell the difference.

Other change I made is shifted the LH Bbs down to a reachable range.
That works!


Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMStart Demo 4I moved the inversions around so it sounds like it was ascending, but what I uploaded this time works too
I think it makes sense to have the LH and RH going in opposite directions, as they are in the original (melody ascending, bass part descending).

Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMIt doesn't sound as short as Demo 3 until m16. Since I elected not to use the marcato markings, I rather use the stacatos in m16 on both hands, and only on the LH elsewhere
I am still hearing the m15 and on exactly the same between Demo 3 and 4, as well as Demo 5/long intro, but at this point we can leave it to the next updater.

Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMStart Demo 5the suggested image with three held notes and 3 moving notes does not seem possible without 6 fingers. I dropped off the bottom note (An)
You should be able to hold the An and the Bn with the thumb laid parallel across both keys (this is not an unheard of practice).


Quote from: Fernman on May 17, 2024, 08:20:47 PMI don't hear the Eb, I think how its written sounds closer to what it is.
I am hearing the Eb quite clearly at m31 at least. But m29-30 I agree is a little harder to tell, though I don't hear the Cn per say.


Just respond to my comments, make changes you feel good about, but otherwise I think this is close

Fernman

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 20, 2024, 08:43:03 AMI am still hearing the m15 and on exactly the same between Demo 3 and 4, as well as Demo 5/long intro, but at this point we can leave it to the next updater.
for 3 and 4 I hear what you are saying. Demo 3 I just went along with it since it sounded all short. However I misunderstood marcato with stacatissimo. (articulations I don't use often). I would say it sounds more like stacatissimo than marcato, I was reluctant to use stacatissimo because I prefer not to use those kinds of strikes especially if it is an octave on the left. But if here at NSM it is more of what is heard than preferable, I'll go along with it this time so we can put this discourse to rest.

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 20, 2024, 08:43:03 AMas well as Demo 5/long intro,
I don't hear any of demo 5 as short as a stacatisso, all stacato

And as a side note, I have never played a marcatto, and youtube doesn't have anything great, stacattos make more sense to me right now.


Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 20, 2024, 08:43:03 AMYou should be able to hold the An and the Bn with the thumb laid parallel across both keys (this is not an unheard of practice).
i won't disagree, but I want my arrangement to not use those gymnastics.

Quote from: Kricketune54 on May 20, 2024, 08:43:03 AMI am hearing the Eb quite clearly at m31 at least. But m29-30 I agree is a little harder to tell, though I don't hear the Cn per say.
I'm not sure how the Eb sounds good in that chord, unless you are hearing something similar to what Bespinben has for Demo 1. Though I don't want a 5 note chord.
I'd say that m30 -31 should all be the same notes, just like Demo 2's m4-5

Kricketune54

Quote from: Fernman on May 26, 2024, 08:54:02 PMfor 3 and 4 I hear what you are saying. Demo 3 I just went along with it since it sounded all short. However I misunderstood marcato with stacatissimo. (articulations I don't use often). I would say it sounds more like stacatissimo than marcato, I was reluctant to use stacatissimo because I prefer not to use those kinds of strikes especially if it is an octave on the left. But if here at NSM it is more of what is heard than preferable, I'll go along with it this time so we can put this discourse to rest.
Gah, my apologies. When I described a marcato, I meant a portato. Need to brush up on my Italian music terms apparently. Portato is that staccato + tenuto marking, and is longer sounding than staccato but shorter than an actual tenuto. Let me know if that changes your thinking.

Quote from: Fernman on May 26, 2024, 08:54:02 PMI don't hear any of demo 5 as short as a stacatisso, all stacato
Yes but my point here was there were not any articulation markings of any kind previously.

Quote from: Fernman on May 26, 2024, 08:54:02 PMi won't disagree, but I want my arrangement to not use those gymnastics.
😂 okay, it's really not that crazy (see end of m44 going into m45), will leave for the next updater to make a determination if they desire but I guess I'm fine.

Quote from: Fernman on May 26, 2024, 08:54:02 PMI'm not sure how the Eb sounds good in that chord, unless you are hearing something similar to what Bespinben has for Demo 1. Though I don't want a 5 note chord.
Oh no I wasn't saying you had to emulate that. The Eb would be in the LH, and I would say that the Eb is more audible than an Fn for the LH part to me. So you honestly could go with Eb and Ab in the LH, if you so hear.

Quote from: Fernman on May 26, 2024, 08:54:02 PMI'd say that m30 -31 should all be the same notes, just like Demo 2's m4-5
No, these chords are not the same between both tracks. m30-31 is an Ab7 chord, and Demo 2 m4-5 is a Bb Flat 7. So Eb is a third of that m30-31 chord, and is not of the earlier one. Lmk if more explanation needed to parse this out.