[N64] Star Fox 64 - "Star Wolf" (Replacement) by Fantastic Ike

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Submission Information:
Series: Star Fox
Game: Star Fox 64
Console: Nintendo 64
Title: Star Wolf
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Fantastic Ike


Replacement Information:
Links to Existing Sheet: MUS | MIDI | PDF
Replacement Type: Challenge (new arranger)

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[Fantastic Ike]

This was in sore need of a replacement, I felt. Also I believe the official title is "Star Wolf;" two words instead of one. I didn't know how to change that.

[Kricketune54]

This was in sore need of a replacement, I felt. Also I believe the official title is "Star Wolf;" two words instead of one. I didn't know how to change that.

Believe it or not this is listed as "Starwolf" or "STARWOLF" in the official soundtrack album, so this title should stay the same

-Swap the Common time (C) with 4/4 at the beginning, don't want to use abbreviated time sig for 4/4
-Beginning RH: m1 beat 1 I hear a G in between the C's in the RH, and beat 2 a Bb between the Eb's.  In m2 beat 3 I hear a Bb and a C between the Fs in m3 beat 1

-When you have an eighth on beat 3,

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write it as a dotted quarter note instead of an eighth, this applies for a lot of the LH from m3 on for most of the first page, but I this might've just blended in

-m10 LH- this is how I hear the rhythm, if you were to pull down the top notes an octave from the original.

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Note that it's preferable to not have staccato dotted notes as a matter of note length ambiguity, so using an eighth and sixteenth rest on beat 1 makes more sense
-m23-26 this measure stretch sounds like it's in the key of B natural, with 24 being in C major.  Don't need to change the key of song, but restructure the accidentals.  For m23, that would be changing the Cb's to B naturals, m24 the Gb's to F#'s... and so on for m25 and 26. 
-m32 RH sounds like this

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-m35 RH the beats fall a bit differently from what is currently present.  The F# actually is only held for like an eighth note length, and it's less a gliss because I really only hear an An in between the F# and Bn.  Try this instead

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Same thinking also applies for m40 LH, so apply the same rhythm but different notes, and m43 LH.
-m46 RH beat 1 flip this note upwards

Great to see Star Fox getting some attention right out of the gate in 2022!  I don't think anyone submitted any Star Fox arrangements in 2021 haha, and the 64 section on site needs some replacements

[Latios212]

Yay replacement!

Believe it or not this is listed as "Starwolf" or "STARWOLF" in the official soundtrack album, so this title should stay the same

Is this purely stylistic? I'm not sure it really makes sense if "Star Wolf" is used everywhere else, like for our other sheet on site... I know next to nothing about the series though

Also, I see you have this submitted as a challenge replacement but you still have the original arranger listed on the sheet itself. Having looked at the state of the current sheet on site, I would presume you've done practically all the arranging yourself and would simply list yourself as the arranger, as the submission implies.

[Fantastic Ike]

Is this purely stylistic? I'm not sure it really makes sense if "Star Wolf" is used everywhere else, like for our other sheet on site... I know next to nothing about the series though

Personally I have no idea myself. I'll leave it up to the moderators haha

Also, I see you have this submitted as a challenge replacement but you still have the original arranger listed on the sheet itself. Having looked at the state of the current sheet on site, I would presume you've done practically all the arranging yourself and would simply list yourself as the arranger, as the submission implies.

And yeah, I realized I forgot to "uncredit" the original arranger since this is basically all my stuff. Fixed that.

But everything else should be fixed.

[Kricketune54]

Yay replacement!
Is this purely stylistic? I'm not sure it really makes sense if "Star Wolf" is used everywhere else, like for our other sheet on site... I know next to nothing about the series though

Yeah bad call on my part- booted up Smash for giggles and it's listed as Star Wolf there. Moral of the story don't always go off of 24 year old albums lol

[Dekkadeci]

I agree with this from Kricketune54:

-When you have an eighth on beat 3,

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write it as a dotted quarter note instead of an eighth, this applies for a lot of the LH from m3 on for most of the first page, but I this might've just blended in

Some other adjustments I think should be made:

• The countermelody in Bars 15-18 is quite prominent in the original, and I hear it much louder than your harmonization of those measures (to the point that those harmonizations in Bars 17-18 sound wrong). Here's what I hear for that countermelody, assuming we stick to using C flat major instead of B major (Bar 15 might actually be a good time to switch to B major (and possibly fail to change the key signature likewise), as the piece tonicizes G sharp minor/A flat minor and then keys with sharps in their key signature straight afterward):
  
  • Bar 15: G flat half note, A flat quarter note, B flat 8th note, C flat 8th note, all ascending
  • Bar 16: D flat half note, E flat quarter note, F flat quarter note, all ascending
  • Bar 17: G flat dotted quarter note, D flat 8th note, E flat dotted 8th note, F flat 16th note tied to 8th note, G flat 8th note
  • Bar 18: A double flat(!!) half note, G flat quarter note, F flat 8th note, D flat 8th note, all descending
• We'd likewise avoid that awkwardness with accidentals (e.g. A natural-A flat-A natural in the same line) in Bar 21 if we switch to using sharps instead of flats there (and either ignoring the 4-flat key signature there or changing it).
• I hear the highest note at Beat 1 of Bar 23 as D in the original instead of your B.
• I'd say it's safer to make the F sharp in the inner line of Bar 24 a half note instead of a dotted quarter note (thus removing the tied G 8th note there); even at 0.5 and 0.25 speed, I hear the note straight after the cymbal crash at the start of Bar 24 of the original as F sharp instead of G, and the cymbal crash seems to take up less than an 8th note to me.
• I hear the highest notes of the starting 16th note-16th note-8th note pattern of Bar 26 of the original as F sharp-G-F sharp instead of your B-C-B.
• I hear the melody of Bar 33 as being two half notes in the original instead of your syncopated pattern in Beats 3-4.
• Especially if we actually end up using double flats in Bar 18, I'd recommend using C double sharp instead of D natural in Bar 39 and F double sharp instead of G natural in Bar 40 (mainly to dodge twice-in-a-row-on-the-same-note-label accidental usage).
• I hear the topmost notes of Beats 2.5-3.5 of Bar 41 as D sharp-F sharp-E in the original instead of your F sharp-G sharp-F sharp.

[Fantastic Ike]

-When you have an eighth on beat 3, write it as a dotted quarter note instead of an eighth, this applies for a lot of the LH from m3 on for most of the first page, but I this might've just blended in

I'm a bit confused. Did you mean a regular quarter note? Because if it's a dotted quarter note then it bleeds over into the next eighth note, which doesn't sound rhythmically right to me.

I hear the melody of Bar 33 as being two half notes in the original instead of your syncopated pattern in Beats 3-4

I originally had it like that, but unless I misunderstood I was advised to change it to the tresillo rhythm. I personally hear it as half note too, so I'll change it back

Otherwise it should all be fixed I think.

[Dekkadeci]

I'm a bit confused. Did you mean a regular quarter note? Because if it's a dotted quarter note then it bleeds over into the next eighth note, which doesn't sound rhythmically right to me.

Ah right, I agree with Kricketune54's sentiment that the note cannot be a quarter note like it is now, but I must have overlooked the precise note length mentioned. Yeah, change them to dotted 8th notes.

Also, dropping the difficulty of Bar 26 might be a good idea - just keep the top 3 notes of each 4-note chord there.

(Weird, now I hear the highest note at Beat 1 of Bar 23 as B in the original, too.)

[Fantastic Ike]

Okay, fixed

[Bloop]

Damn what a fast piece, nice work!

-m1 beat 1 and m4 beat 4: The 8th note of these 16th-8th-16th figures could use a staccato as well.
-m3-14: I actually don't agree with Kricketune and Dekkadeci for why a dotted 8th was recommended for the note on beat 3: every third note has an exact length of a 16th, which would be better written as a staccato 8th note:
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Also, this is a very fast speed at which the player has to restrike the notes. m3-6 might be doable with using multiple fingers (i'm personally a bit bad at them), but the octaves  in m7-14 are definitely close to impossible. For these measures I'd recommend something like this:
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-m7, 9, 11 and 13: All upwards-pointing stems here should be pointing downwards.
-m10: The L.H. note on beat 4 is long, maybe you could change the staccato to a tenuto or just delete the staccato.
-m14: The F# in the L.H. is probably better written as Gb (Gb major chord (without the 5th) going to Cb major as V-I progression)
-m15: The Bb on beat 4 should start a 16th earlier (the second layer has the same rhythm as the first in beat 3-4)
-m18: The chord here seems to be Eb over a G bass, as a V-i progression to Abm in the next bar. That means the Abb would probably be better written as a Gn. For clarity, it may also be a good idea to add a courtesy accidental to this Gn and the one in the bass, so it doesn't get confused for the Gb that has appeared a few times before. Lastly about this bar, I don't hear the Db on beat 4.5, I just hear a quarter note Fb.
-m21: The Cn's in the R.H. on beat 2.5 should be B#'s (to keep the same motion as the other notes)
-m23: Using a glissando here is a bit weird together with the whole note before, maybe it's better to add 16th grace notes (G-A or F#-G-A).
-m25: Maybe you could add a D# on top in the R.H., so there's at least an ascending motion on the top notes in m23-25?
-m26: I don't hear D#'s anymore in this part, and the full chords mordent is quite hard to play. I also hear the Bn-Cn-Bn motion clearer in the bass, so summarized, maybe something like this works better?
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-m27-34 beat 1: Low chords like these in the L.H. sound very muddy on piano, maybe it's better to move everything up an octave? It also helps with getting this part back in a lower dynamic.
-m35-48: I think this whole part makes more sense staying in Em. It doesn't get to C#m until m41, but immediately starts modulating back to Em again until it arrives there at m45. The chord in m47 still feels kinda Em-ish, while m48 is the pivoting chord to modulate back to Fm on the repeat. You can change the key for m49 to Fm though, so there's also an cautionary key signature change before the repeat. I'll recheck the enharmonic spelling after the key change has been done ^^ Another thing about this part: don't forget to slur the grace notes, we love our grace notes slurred :p. All rhythms with grace notes should also be the same as the other melodies here (so the note with the grace note a 16th later)
-m35-40: For this part, it may be worth thinking about if putting all three melody voices in the R.H. (some of them moving up an octave from the original). The one in the L.H. currently is missing some notes (like B and A on beat 1 and 2.5 of m37 and A# an An on beat 1 and 3 of m39), and is sometimes interfering with the bass too much.
-m41: I hear this in the R.H.:
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-m45: You could add the E and D in the R.H. on beats 1 and 3 here too, like in m37. Also, I'd delete the lower notes of the extra trumpet line in the second layer: they're pretty much impossible to play, even without the E and D I just suggested.
-m47 and m48 beat 1: Maybe you could add the octave below here too, as there's a lower melody voice playing it too.

[Fantastic Ike]

Okay, tried to get everything. Not sure I understood 100% of everything you suggested, but I gave it my best shot.

[Bloop]

I can see some of the feedback implemented, but I'll try to make some of my other feedback a bit clearer, as well as some new stuff. Some of these are stem direction issues, which should usually be fixed automatically by Finale, but maybe Finale 2012 for Mac doesn't do that correctly? Either way, the most important rules for stem directions are these:
-Every note above the middle line has its stem pointing downwards.
-Every note below the middle line has its stem pointing upwards.
-For chords, the note furthest away from the middle line defines the stem direction.
-Notes on the middle line or chords that are an equal distance away from the middle line (e.g. G-D in the R.H.), you can choose whichever way, but usually the stems point downwards.
-When there's two layers, the top layer stems point upwards, the lower layer stems point downwards (even when the lower layer goes above the top layer for a bit).
I'll specify all places where the stem directions should be fixed.

-m1 and 2: Add staccato's to m1 beat 1.25 and m2 beat 4.25, in both R.H. and L.H.:

m1-2

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-m3-6: The L.H. here should look like this:

m3-6

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-m7, 9, 11 and 13 R.H. should look like this:

m7 and m11

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m9

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m13

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-m15 and 17: The lower voice should still be in the second layer, it looks a bit weird to have it jump from the second layer to the first layer. Make sure to lower the crescendo hairpin a bit so it doesn't touch any note flags.

m15 and 17

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-m18: The G's on beat 1 could use a cautionary accidental:

m18

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-m21: The stem of the R.H. note on beat 3 should be pointing upwards:

m21

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-m29, 30 and 33: The natural of the Fn's are touching the note before, use the measure tool to move the note a little bit to the right:

m29, 30 and 33

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-m34: I actually meant to stop the octave-up transposition in the L.H. at beat 1 here, so beats 2-4 can still be like you had first (nice walk up to the A in m35). The stem of beat 1 should be downwards, all other stems upwards:

m34

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-m35: The first two stems in the R.H. should be facing upwards. Also, the rhythm is slightly different:

m35

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-m37: You're missing a few notes in the second layer of the R.H., and the L.H. should just be single notes:

m37

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-m39: L.H. bottom layer should be single notes, as well as stems pointed downwards. R.H. should have a second layer with A# and An (the An as a quarter note, because the player can't hold it for 2 beats). Dn in R.H. on beat 2.5 should be Cx (chromatic neighbouring tone from D#)

m39

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-m40: Cn in R.H. should be B# (third in a G# major chord), Gn in the L.H. should be Fx (chromatic neighbouring tone from G#), rhythm in L.H. is slightly different:

m40

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-m41-42: I remember you had a crescendo to fortissimo here, you can still keep that if you want ^^
-m43: Rhythm in the L.H. is a bit different:

m43

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-m45: You probably misunderstood what I meant here, the R.H. should look like this:

m45

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-m46: There's a missing rest on beat 1 in the second layer of the R.H.
-m47: First two notes in the R.H. should have stems pointing upwards, L.H. second layer note should be a bit more to the left (just delete and re-enter):

m47

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-m48: All sharps should be flats (Gm chord, as well as modulation to Fm which is in flats).

m48

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-m49: I was expecting the key signature change to place itself before the barline, but apparently it goes after.. There is a way to manually change this, but it requires some work (hiding the key signature and manually adding the naturals and flats of the key change). If you want help with that, you're probably better off asking on discord ^^

[Fantastic Ike]

Hope that should be everything fixed

[Bloop]

The pdf is still outdated, but the .mus looks a lot better! There were just a few things left, but I fixed those with consent from Ike, so I updated the files. These were the changes:

-m18 L.H. also needs a courtesy accidental on the Gn, also moved the crescendo hairpin down a bit in this system.
-m26: The key change to Em needed a double barline.
-m33: Natural sign was still touching the note before in the L.H.
-m39: L.H. E on beat 4 needs its stem pointing upwards.
-m48: The accidentals of the key change should be closer together, and the L.H. is missing the key change too

With that, I give this an approval!
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