[ARCADE] Donkey Kong 3 - "Music from Donkey Kong 3" by Nine Lives

Started by Zeta, July 14, 2021, 05:43:30 PM

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NineLives

All right. I think I got all of the above sorted out. How's it look?

mastersuperfan

- I forgot to ask this last time, but is there any particular reason you've ordered these the way you have? It would make more sense to me to have BGM A and BGM B after Game Start, and then Clear A and Clear B together closer to the end (right before Miss and Game Over). If possible, it would also be nice if they could be ordered such that some of them didn't have to wrap from one page to the next...
- Do you have a source for the Bee Hive theme?
- How come you chose to call them BGM A and BGM B instead of Stage 1 and Stage 2?

Game Start
- There are some extra notes in m1 beat 1—you can choose whether or not to include these, although if you do, don't include the G on both beat 1.5 and 1.75 because restriking it would be really hard. You could also just not include any of these to keep it more playable.
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- m1 RH beat 3.25 should be Db instead of D.
- Static said there was an Eb on m1 LH beat 4 but I don't hear it...
- Right at the end of m1, there's a pickup to m2 that you could add.
- m2 LH beat 2.5 sounds like E instead of F#.
- m2 beat 4 sounds like it has a quiet staccato B an octave above the B you already had (i.e. would be written in the right hand). Also, the bottom note of the chord is Gb—however, this may be hard for the LH to play after coming down that 16th note arpeggio, so if you want, you could add the Gb and transpose it an octave up into the RH.

Clear A
- TBH, I think this might sound better if you had the melody in the original octave in the RH, and the bassline in the LH. The dyads you currently have in the RH are pretty quiet in the original but sound more overpowering on piano, so I'm not sure if I like it the way it's written now. that said, if you keep it the way it is, then the following feedback applies:
- m8 RH beat 4.75 and LH beat 3 should be C# instead of Db.
- I would recommend removing the A from m8 RH beats 2.0 and 4.0 so that the player doesn't have to re-articulate them immediately afterward for beats 2.25 and 4.25. Same with the corresponding Bb's in m9.
- Lower note on m9 RH beat 1 is F, not E.
- m9 RH beat 3.5 is an F-A dyad, not A-D. Although I would only write in the A, not the F, for playability's sake (big jump down).
- Lower note on m9 RH beat 4.75 is Bb, not A.
- I would remove one of the C#'s in that 16th-note pair in m10—it's very difficult to articulate it twice in a row that quickly. Also, those 16th notes fall on beats 2.75 and 3, not 3 and 3.25.

BGM B
- How come the courtesy key signature at the end of m16 is hidden?
- m11/12 LH beat 1 should be Db instead of Ab. Same for m13-18—LH beat 1 is the tonic each time.
- m13-14 should have a key signature of two sharps (D major).
- Do you want to shorten the last system so that it doesn't take up the full page? Just wondering because you did so for BGM A.

Clear B
- In m23 RH, the A's should be Ab's.
- In m24, the upper G would be more easily played by the RH than the LH.
- Just wondering why you chose to put harmonies on the LH on the offbeats—in the original, the harmonies are on the beat, and the way they are in the sheet right now is much harder to play. I would either try to put them on the beat, or omit them entirely and just have the LH play octaves.
- On m26 beat 4 (where the RH plays Ab and the LH plays Db), there's also an Eb under the Ab that could be written into the RH.
- On m26 beat 6/m27, there's also a D in the chord that you don't have. To include it, you could have the RH tremolo between D and G, like so:
Image

(fix the tremolo line on beat 4.5 if it looks like the one above, that one is too short)
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- I'm getting the impression that BGM A, Clear A, BGM B, Clear B, and Game Over are all sequenced at the exact same time. You might consider setting Clear B and Game Over to also be 152 BPM like the others, which is also convenient because analog metronomes have a marking at 152.

Super Spray
- Sounds like D major rather than G major. Although if you don't want to write out the C naturals, I guess this is all right? Just seems weird to me.
- m29 RH beat 2.5 should have Fn instead of F.

Potted Plant Pitch
- Any particular reason you chose to use Cb over Bn?
- I think the BPM is more like 112 than 110.

Danger!
- m33/34 LH beat 2.5 is E instead of F, beat 3 is D instead of Eb, and beat 3.5 is E instead of F.
- For m35/36 RH, I hear Ab-Gb-E-D-C-D-E-Gb.
- For m37/38 LH, I hear Gb-E-D-C-Bb-C-D-E.

Miss
- I don't hear where the C-D tremolo in the LH comes from, but it sounds fine on playback, so I'm okay with it.
- It's hard to tell for sure since it's so short, but I'm getting a tempo of around q=90, instead of q=96.

Game Over
- On m41 RH beat 4, the G is more prominent in the chord to me than the C. If you don't plan on filling out the whole chord, I would just swap the C for a G.
- There's also a G under m41 RH beat 6.
- You could add an A to the chord on m42 RH beat 1. Same for the chord on beat 4.
- For m43 RH, you honestly might consider just making it single notes because parallel sixths are really hard to play at this speed. If you do keep it like it is now, though, I would suggesting removing notes from the triads so that there are only parallel sixths, nothing harder.
- m42 LH beat 3 should be G# instead of G.
- m43 LH beat 5 should be F instead of G.
- Since the bass plays a low C in m44, it would probably be better to make the LH a C instead of an E.
Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

NineLives

Quote from: mastersuperfan on July 30, 2021, 01:12:47 AM- I forgot to ask this last time, but is there any particular reason you've ordered these the way you have? It would make more sense to me to have BGM A and BGM B after Game Start, and then Clear A and Clear B together closer to the end (right before Miss and Game Over). If possible, it would also be nice if they could be ordered such that some of them didn't have to wrap from one page to the next...
- Do you have a source for the Bee Hive theme?
- How come you chose to call them BGM A and BGM B instead of Stage 1 and Stage 2?
The reason I ordered the themes the way I did was because I wanted one section to be the levels as they progressed with the stage and the stage clear theme to come afterward. Then there'd be the powerup section, which is just the one song, and then the tracks that lead to a game over, each song in that section is ordered from least to most fatal.
I got the title names from the original released soundtrack here. "BGM A" also plays for more than just the first stage. It plays for the second stage that gets added in after beating the final stage for the first time, like in the first Donkey Kong.
The "Bee Hive" sound can be heard in the "Clear B" from this album. I will say that the arcade's "Clear B" doesn't appear in the NES version, but the "Bee Hive" thing is the same.
Now, I should have all the above changes done unless I missed one of the necessary ones. Any optional changes I was to decide on have been put into the sheet. I wanted to type that out just so it was known that I didn't gloss over them.
"Clear B" has been changed up a bit, though I do confirm that the harmony in measure 20 is in fact on beat 3 instead of 4.

mastersuperfan

Should be last round of feedback!
- For m1 LH beat 4.75, the bottom note is an A, not a D. That said, for playability's sake, I would probably just leave it as a single note instead of making it a D on the bottom.
- It might be better to move the dynamic at the end of m1 to the start of m2 instead. The pickup at the end of m1 isn't very loud anyway.
- The Bb's in m6-7 might be easier to read as A#'s instead, but either way is okay.
- m8 LH beat 3 still needs to be changed from Db to C#.
- m9 RH beat 1 lower note should still be F instead of E.
- m8-10 LH would be more readable in treble clef instead.
- m15-16 should have three flats (Eb major) and m17-18 should have four sharps (E major).
- The D's in Bee Hive sound like C#'s to me instead.
- It might be helpful to put "RH" next to the high notes on m22-23 beat 4, since those are basically impossible to play with the LH as written.
- You don't necessarily have to include the D in m26/27 if you don't want to include it in the tremolo. You can if you want, but you might also consider the fact that a major second in a low register sounds a bit muddy. Either way is fine.
- Checked with the other updaters on the key signature for m28-31—it is in D major, and while a few people prefer to select key signatures according to the mode as well as the tonic, it's conventional (and recommended by us) to write it according to the tonic major or minor. In other words, we recommend writing this with two sharps and using C naturals.
- m37/38 LH beat 1 should be Gb instead of Ab.
- m43 LH beat 5 should be F, not A.
Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

NineLives


mastersuperfan

Made a couple last edits over Discord, and accepting now!
Quote from: NocturneOfShadow on February 11, 2016, 03:00:36 PMthere's also a huge difference in quality between 2000 songs and 2010 songs
Quote from: Latios212 on February 11, 2016, 03:29:24 PMThe difference between 2000 songs and 2010 songs is 10 songs.

Zeta

This submission has been accepted by mastersuperfan.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot