Nine Lives' Replacements

[NineLives]

All right, so I updated both sheets. You'll have to tell me how you feel about how I worked with the bass on "Walrus Cove." Other than that:

Dino Domain
- m. 4 is missing a melody A in the RH on beat 1.5.

I don't quite hear what you're hearing in this measure. Is it quieter than the other notes and I'm just not picking it up?

[Latios212]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Dino Domain
Listening again, might have just been another layer throwing me off. Approving this one!

Walrus Cove

- Any reason why the melody from the end of 16 through end of 22 isn't an octave down like in the original? It would be good to contrast this with the other melodic line in 24 which should be at the height you have it now, and with staccatos. Same applies for the rest of this section.

The same applies for the last note in m. 24 through the end of m. 30 - also an octave down.

Walrus Cove
- For the LH pattern at the beginning and places like it (up to m. 15), it sounds a bit empty with nothing playing on beat 1. I'd recommend trying out copying over the swung root notes you have on beat 1 into beat 3 to keep the drive going and seeing how you like that.

I meant writing in the same two swung notes on beat 3 as you did on beat 1, sorry if that wasn't clear!

- Beat 1 LH of m. 2 is flipped. Same goes for a bunch of other measures.

These still needed to be flipped.

- You can make this 3 pages by putting 6 systems on page 2.

The spacing's a bit inconsistent - systems are squished at the bottom and too close to the header, with too much space between the first few systems that could be utilized better.

In the interest of time I made the above few edits for you as well as doing the usual articulation reset. Let me know if you see anything off before I approve.

[Maelstrom]

Dino Domain
Something felt off about this song and it took me a while to figure it out. First of all, there's no dotted 16th-32nd rhythm. It's all swung 8ths. In addition, the places you have written as normal 8ths (e.g. end of m4) are also swung 8ths.

Why not make m1 a pickup measure? There's percussion in the original, but you didn't notate it.

Fix these two things and you're good to go.

[NineLives]

Walrus Cove
In the interest of time I made the above few edits for you as well as doing the usual articulation reset. Let me know if you see anything off before I approve.

Looks okay to me.

Dino Domain
Something felt off about this song and it took me a while to figure it out. First of all, there's no dotted 16th-32nd rhythm. It's all swung 8ths. In addition, the places you have written as normal 8ths (e.g. end of m4) are also swung 8ths.

Are you sure? 'Cause I don't hear the 8ths as swung, especially in measures like 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

[Latios212]

Walrus Cove
Approved!

[Maelstrom]

Are you sure? 'Cause I don't hear the 8ths as swung, especially in measures like 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i meant swing 16ths
why are words hard

[NineLives]

All right. "Dino Domain" has been updated!

[Maelstrom]

Short on time so 2 quick things about dino domain
1) swing should be set to 50, not 75. Had the same issue with my recent arrangement that had swing 16ths
2) The bassline needs to be double checked in the context of the swing 16ths since that changes the rhythm of it now.

[NineLives]

1) swing should be set to 50, not 75. Had the same issue with my recent arrangement that had swing 16ths
2) The bassline needs to be double checked in the context of the swing 16ths since that changes the rhythm of it now.

Swing's been set, and I couldn't pick up anything different in the rhythm of the bass/chords in the source opposed to the sheet after listening for a while except for a few staccatos and similar.

[mastersuperfan]

Darkmoon Caverns
- For m1-16, all the LH chords should have an additional note at the bottom, a third below the lowest note you currently have. They're all 7th chords. Same for m34-41.
- The whole note chord in m8/12/16/20/24 really breaks the rhythmic momentum of the piece. I would try to add or change something to add more rhythm to the left hand, probably by repeating either the bottom note of the chord or the whole chord with either the same rhythm as the previous measures or a different rhythm (like maybe quarter notes). (m29-31 is totally fine; I really like the momentum break there.)
- I personally don't feel like you need the courtesy E naturals in m9/11/13/15 since m9 is at the beginning of a new system, and m11/13/15 are similar enough to m9 that the repeated courtesy naturals feel redundant.
- I would suggest adding the arpeggio in m16.
- In beats 3-4 of m17-19/m21-23 LH, I believe the bottom note of the LH chord should be an A instead of a Bb (A-D-F).
- Lower the quarter rest on beat 1 of m20 LH Layer 2 so it's not touching the Layer 1.
- For m25, instead of using a tenuto, I would write the RH with a slur—either using a single slur from the grace note to beat 2, or using one slur from grace note to beat 1 and another slur from beat 1 to beat 2.
- For m26 and m30, I would remove the tenutos on beat 1; they're redundant when you already have the slur.
- I also prefer not to have nested slurs like in m27, but I think it's still fine as is.
- Beats 3 and 3.75 of m27 RH should be beamed... not sure why they're not. It automatically rebeams for me when I click on it.
- I would prefer not to include the courtesy natural on beat 1 of m28.
- Beat 3.5 of m28 RH should be written as a quarter note instead of two tied eighths.
- In m25 and m30 RH, I would suggest unbeaming beats 3.5 and 4.5 since the rest of the sheet is beamed in single beats.
- On beat 3 of m31, I hear the LH chord invert down—I would move the Bb down an octave to the bottom.

[mastersuperfan]

Walrus Cove
- mf in m1 is a little bit low and could be moved slightly up to be centered between the two staves.
- For m1/3/5/7, m41/43/45/47, and m59/61/63/65, I hear LH beat 4 as low D - B# - C# instead of A - B - C#. (Not completely sure about whether it should be written as B# or Cn, I will get back to you on that)
- LH beat 4 of m13 is low D - C# - D. Same for m38.
- The second-to-last note in m18/20/22/etc. LH should be B# instead of B.
- For m11/15/35/39, RH beat 1.5 sounds like it should only be an eighth instead of a quarter.
- The eighth note on RH beat 2 of m18/20/26/28/etc. doesn't sound staccato to me.
- The last eighth note in m49 RH sounds like it's tied over to beat 1 of m50.
- In m56-57, I hear RH Layer 2 as having a quarter note rhythm instead of a half note rhythm (i.e. E-E-E#-E#-F#-F#-G-G).

Will get back to you on enharmonic spellings for this one.

[Libera]

Spaceport Alpha

Sorry that this one's been waiting a while.  This a pretty cool piece.

Left hand notes:
-Every time you have the pattern on beat 4 of bar 1 (i.e. lots of places) I think that should be two semiquavers at the end.  It'd certainly be more consistent with all of the other times that rhythm comes up for different pitches.
-Bar 10 beat 4.5 should be another C.
-Bar 11/13 beat 4.5 I hear F# -> B rather than E E.
-Bar 15/17 beat 2.5 should be an F#.  Nice descending tritone there.

Right hand notes:
-Bar 7/11/others, the little interjection on beat 2.5 should be D B not B G.
-Bar 10 missing harmony:

Spoiler

You cannot view this attachment.

[close]

-Bar 18 beat 2 should be two semiquavers rather than a quaver.
-Bar 35/37 the Ebs should be D#s.

General arrangement points:
-I'd recommend trying to get some of the harmony into bars 11-14.  The harmony that is outlined there is B -> Em -> B -> Em -> G (by the harp thing).
-Generally speaking, I think the left hand should be lower.  Currently it really lacks the power and the drive of the original.  Honestly I think you could just put the whole thing down the octave, you wouldn't even really need an 8va anywhere.
-I know I suggested adding in harmony for bar 10, but I think bar 34 has too much.  Those chords are by far the most awkward thing to play in this arrangement and I don't think the difficulty spike really benefits the sheet.
-21-28 might be a good place for an 8va.
-Make sure the slurs in 35-38 end on the ends of the ties (i.e. a note later than currently).  Also, I think the slurs could made a little more consistent by slurring it like this:

Spoiler

You cannot view this attachment.

[close]

-I'm not sure about the staccatos in 21-28, they don't sound particularly needed there.
-On the other hand, the RH dyads in bars 3-6/19-20 feel like they could really do with some staccatos.
-I'd suggest slurring the first and third quaver in beats 3-4 of bar 8.
-A general comment: there's a bunch of places where the RH swaps to and fro between two different voices.  It might be helpful to break the beams in these situations to make it clear that the voice is changing, or alternatively use phrase marks to help distinguish them better (although both of these options have their downsides...  See what you think.)

[NineLives]

All right, so "Darkmoon Caverns" and "Walrus Cove" have been updated. I'll get to "Spaceport Alpha in just a moment.

[mastersuperfan]

Darkmoon Caverns
Just one thing: In the last system, I would keep all the chords in root inversion to keep the sound consistent.

Walrus Cove
Getting back to you on the enharmonic spelling: spell the B#'s as Cn's instead.

[NineLives]

Mkay, so "Spaceport Alpha" has been updated but I got a couple things I want to explain my thinking on:

Spaceport Alpha
-I'd recommend trying to get some of the harmony into bars 11-14.  The harmony that is outlined there is B -> Em -> B -> Em -> G (by the harp thing).
-I'm not sure about the staccatos in 21-28, they don't sound particularly needed there.

While it would be nice to add in the harp part, I feel it might overcomplicate what I have in measures 11 to 14, since the rest of the piece doesn't have any additions similar to that in other measures. Personally, I find it out of place here, regardless of how it fits in the original source.
For the staccatos in 21 through 28, while not particularly needed, I did hear them from the original source, and I thought it fit well with the rhythm of the bass to have them there or at least have the ones on beat 2.5.
Other than those two things, everything else should be in order unless I missed something by accident.