[Wii] Xenoblade Chronicles - "Prison Island" by JZ

[MomoQca]

Made a few more minor edits, all included below:
-eliminated accented staccato in LH chords beginning in m.17 (now only staccato). They felt a little too strong in contrast to the melody.
-fixed the position of the staccatos in the LH chords in m. 30, so ignore my last point in the previous post.
-hid the rests in the third layer in m. 28, also added a line to connect the first layer of the LH to the 2nd layer in the RH.

[Libera]

-eliminated the driving piano notes from m.17 to 25 in favor of the percussion section

I actually preferred this how it was.  I think the ostinato works much better on piano than the improvised percussion stand-in.

-reworked the sections you pointed out.

13-17:
The rhythms match up a lot better now, cool.  I will say though that when putting percussion onto piano, normally it makes sense to have the actual pitches of the notes reflect something about the original percussion.  I'm not sure exactly what was your rationale behind whether you pick the Bb (either octave, or both), the F, or both sometimes.  It seems pretty arbitrary at the moment.  For example, consider bar 13:
-The notes on beats 1 and 1.5 are coming from the bass drum.
-Beat 2 is the snare.
-Beats 3.5 and 4 are the timpani(?).
-All other beats are hi-hats.
In your bar 13, sometimes the low Bb is the bass, or the hi-hat.  The high Bb is used for the bass, the snare and the hi-hat and the timpani.  The F is used for the timpani.  I hope that you can see that this isn't very consistent, and so the feel of the percussion (while the rhythm is correct) doesn't really get captured by the accompaniment part you have written in.  My suggestion would be to actually entirely forego the hi-hats (the ostinato in the RH is keeping things moving anyway) which makes it easier for the stronger percussion hits to stand out.  You can then use the lower Bb for the bass, and the upper one for the snare/timpani.  You could also get the F in there if you want and use dyads for the timpani or the snare to differentiate them, or something like that...  I'd suggest playing around with it, but try to make it consistent.  If you have any other questions about that, feel free to ask.

17-24:
-You can add a Db underneath the F in bar 20.
-If you're going to put Bb/F below the melody in bars 19/21, then you should probably do the same in bars 17-18 for consistency.
-I don't really hear this Bb -> C -> Db -> F line in bar 22, at least it isn't very prominent.  I feel like for consistency (again) it would be better to stick to something more like the other bars.  Although I do hear the movement to F on beat 4 so I guess that one can stay in if you want.

25-28:
In general this looks much more accurate, although I think there is a little strangeness going on with the voicings and presentation that I'll point out.
-There is still the Bb bass in bar 26, so you should either write it in a second time or tie it over from 25.
-In the left hand of bar 27, the second layer Ab octaves are an octave too high (compare to bar 25) and the C on beat 1 in layer 1 is an octave too low.  The C is easily playable by the right hand, which should solve the issue.
-Bar 28 is kind of messy at the moment for a bunch of reasons.  The voicing on beat 1, the voice leading line that doesn't lead any actually voice that I can hear in the original, the use of three layers in the right hand, and extra movement on beat 2 in parts that I cannot hear.  Here is my suggestion for how that bar could look, with all of the above cleaned up:

Spoiler

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29-32:
The main thing is that these low left hand triads sound very muddy and don't really reflect the original feel all that well, in my opinion.
-I'd suggest removing these triads and replacing them with octaves from the bass notes, and move the additional harmony into the right hand.  I feel you will get a much more balanced sound this way.  I should say that what I mean by 'move the additional harmony into the right hand' is really just adding at most one note to the dyads in the right hand currently to flesh out the chord fully if necessary.  I should also add that I don't hear the F chord in bar 30 and so I don't think you should add Ans to the RH there.
-I'd recommend removing the first layer in the left hand.  I don't really think it adds anything, clutters the stave up visually, and I can't even really hear it in the original anyway.
-You can also just remove the second layer in bars 30-31.  You can move the Db down an octave and put it in layer 1 in bar 30 (I think it's below the melody in the original regardless).
-I'd add in the Abs on beat 2 and 4 in bar 31.

There are some other miscellaneous things I noticed but I'll leave those until we're closer with the actual arrangement itself.


I hope that helps.  Again, let me know if you have any questions.

[MomoQca]

Hi! Just wanted to say that I'm unable to make any adjustments until the very end of this month. I hope that's alright with you.

[MomoQca]

I think I got everything. I've commented on a couple of your points below.

-I don't really hear this Bb -> C -> Db -> F line in bar 22, at least it isn't very prominent.  I feel like for consistency (again) it would be better to stick to something more like the other bars.  Although I do hear the movement to F on beat 4 so I guess that one can stay in if you want.

I didn't remove this part (yet?). The Bb -> C -> Db -> F line is played by the cello. To point out why I had written that line in there, I had to tweak the cello part for playability purposes (I raised beats 1 & 2 an octave higher). Let me know what you think.

29-32:
The main thing is that these low left hand triads sound very muddy and don't really reflect the original feel all that well, in my opinion.
-I'd suggest removing these triads and replacing them with octaves from the bass notes, and move the additional harmony into the right hand.  I feel you will get a much more balanced sound this way.  I should say that what I mean by 'move the additional harmony into the right hand' is really just adding at most one note to the dyads in the right hand currently to flesh out the chord fully if necessary.  I should also add that I don't hear the F chord in bar 30 and so I don't think you should add Ans to the RH there.

I'm not sure I understand the bolded part. Can you please clarify?
[/quote]

[Libera]

Sorry for the wait.

-The rhythm for the percussion in bar 16 isn't correct.  It should be two sixteenths followed by an eighth on beat 1.
-The left hand octaves are misaligned in bar 27.  Just re-enter them and it should be fine.
-Maybe hide the extra rests in bar 27 and put a voice leading line in to show the C -> Ab.  The other option would be to write the C in the bottom staff but with a little bracket saying 'LH' on it, or something like that.  At the moment it isn't clear that they're the same voice.
-When I said put the Db below the F in bar 20, I think I was imagining it being in layer 1 still and just having two whole notes there, since it isn't part of the line that plays Bb -> C -> F.

I didn't remove this part (yet?). The Bb -> C -> Db -> F line is played by the cello. To point out why I had written that line in there, I had to tweak the cello part for playability purposes (I raised beats 1 & 2 an octave higher). Let me know what you think.

I still don't hear this at all.  I can hear the F on beat 4 but none of the other notes.

I'm not sure I understand the bolded part. Can you please clarify?

What you've done looks good!  The only thing I would suggest on top of this is an Ab in the bar 30 beat 1 in the RH.  Otherwise you did what I was envisioning.

[MomoQca]

Updated the files to reflect the latest feedback.

[Libera]

This looks great.  I don't have anything else to add so I would accept but since it has changed a lot since Latios approved it I'll give him another chance to have a look if he wants to.

[Latios212]

This looks great.  I don't have anything else to add so I would accept but since it has changed a lot since Latios approved it I'll give him another chance to have a look if he wants to.

Thanks for going over it! I just have one last part to comment on before we finish up with this

In m. 29-32 (at 2 minutes in), the low bass drum rhythm comes back, and I think this could be reflected in the arrangement a bit better:

You cannot view this attachment.

This is an octave lower than you have right now, as it currently sounds rather light compared to the original. It also keeps the driving pulse from the low bass drum.

[MomoQca]

I like your suggestion--thanks! Files are updated.

[Latios212]

Splendid! Let's get this on site at last

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Latios212.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot