[SW] The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom - "Cece and Reede" by gu

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: The Legend of Zelda
Game: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Console: Nintendo Switch
Title: Cece and Reede
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: gu

[gu]

Hi NSM! Hope y'all are well and good
This little tune really cought me off guard and inspired me to make this arrangement. Enjoy!

The title of the video doesn't match the one in the sheet since most videos on youtube are a compilation of ripped files straight from the game. I've looked the OST album on vgmdb (https://vgmdb.net/album/139332), and the track "Cece and Reede" (29th on Disc 6) seems to be the one the video replicates, but that's really just an educated guess, I don't know for sure.

Let me know if you find any mistakes!

[Whoppybones]

Thoughts on adding a fermata at m2b2, m4b2, and m6b2? I think they hold for the same extra length of time as the one in m8, so it might work to include them
m9-12 LH - It might be nice to include the cello(?) notes that play through these measures just at the first beat of each measure. m13-16 also have more of those, but they are quieter there so it might not be as helpful, but you could try it and see how it looks/sounds
m18, 20 LH - b2 should be a D#, and might drop down to another B on b2.5? If so, it's really faint and might be okay as is, so see if you hear it too or if my brain is making things up
m23-24 arpeggios (1-3): According to my hearing, 1) It's an F# on the top of the left hand, not a G#. There is also a C# in the RH. 2) It's a D# and an F#, not an E and G#. There is also a B and C# in the RH. 3) Seems accurate.

This is indeed a beautiful piece! Thanks for arranging it! Maybe someday I'll get to this part of the game...

[gu]

Updated! Thank you for the feedback Whoppybones, and pleasure to meet you!

While correcting, I tried to keep the original piano transcription intact, while implementing the strings harmony as well embed as I could. I'll admit though, it does requires some really careful dynamics to make it sound right.
I couldn't quite hear the drop to B on b2.5 of m18 and m20, so I let those out

Other than that, things went smoothly. I do recommend you pass by Hateno Village (if you have the time and energy), it was probably my favourite piece in Tears of the Kingdom :)

[Latios212]

Awesome work! Just a few things to mention.

- m. 5 beat 1: LH should have Eb on top instead of Gb, and RH should have an additional Ab on bottom
- m. 5 beat 3: LH should be F-C-Eb
- m. 12 beat 2.5: I think I hear an Eb along with the F in the LH?
- You don't need the p dynamic in m. 9 since it's already at p. Additionally, the crescendo should stop before the barline at the end of m. 11, not touching or crossing it.
- https in URL
- I'd consider getting rid of the lower F# in the RH of m. 22 (and 18); it's a large stretch for harmony that's already covered
- I think the last chord actually falls on beat 1 of the last measure instead of anticipating it by an                 eighth note?

Also, later someone will need to edit the position of the whole notes in m. 14 so they don't overlap the eighth note stem, and remove extra accidentals in separate layers in m. 15 LH. Also changing the size of the tempo marking.

[gu]

Updated! Thanks Latios :)

I've dug around a bit trying to find a way to fix the whole note spacing in m14 and the extra accidentals in m15 on Notepad, but couldn't figure it out. I'll need the help from mates with the real Finale

One thing: the size of the tempo marking seems to be right (BPM marking 12pt, regular and a musical direction 14pt, bold) on MuseScore 4, but I can't confirm if this was passed on correctly to Notepad :p

[Latios212]

No worries, I gotcha; files are updated! For the tempo marking I think I just needed to turn off the "fixed size" option on the Finale side.

With that, this sheet is approved! Nice work~

[gu]

Thank you, king!

[TheZeldaPianist275]

Big fan of this arrangement, Gu. I don't have any quibbles with individual note picks, but I want to talk about the overall structure of the piece. This is one of many pieces in Tears of the Kingdom written dynamically--that is, assembled from a number of smaller snatches of music into a cohesive whole that changes based on what is happening in moment-to-moment gameplay. For example, the game's soundtrack assembles these parts differently than the YouTube video you linked above:

Couldn't find the official soundtrack version of the track isolated (sorry), but Cece and Reede starts at 7:14:13. You'll hear some differences, starting I believe at measure 19 of your piece.

KHInsider has the receipts with this gamerip: while the soundtrack boils the in-game music down to ~300 pieces, there are actually over 1000 in the game's files. "Cece and Reede" consists of 12 individual tracks; you'll find them at the above link, tracks 310-321.

I think a way to write this piece in a way that's truer to the original would be to make clear what phrases go where, and how they flow into each other. For instance, in the above gamerip, tracks 315 and 317 are versions of tracks 316 and 318, respectively, with backing strings added to the piano piece. From my memory of this section of the game, I think these strings are added in as the cutscene reaches a more emotional pitch. Showing the progression would really make this arrangement a winner.

I'll wrap up by saying that I recognize that this is a lot of work to restructure, and if you'd like, I'd be happy to help--I have a file on the game that's fairly close to this section of the Hateno sidequest, and I could play the game and tell you exactly what sections of this piece develop and when. Irrespective of what you decide, thanks for reading. I think this arrangement is really lovely.

[gu]

Hi TheZeldaPianist275, thanks for the info, the adaptative work on both BotW and TotK really is insane.

I think I recall how the music changes through the cutscene, though it's been a while. I used this video as a reference (spoiler alert I guess lol) and the music seems to change based on the dialog box you're in . It cycles between the first 8 measures, then play linearly from m9 to m16 on a specific moment, serving as a transition

This next section changes a bit. First, it plays it with strings (the equivalent to play m17 and 18, and then m21-26), and afterwards repeats this section without them.
I belive this happens so players aren't left on mute while reading the dialog, and repeating the climax of the piece wouldn't feel quite right. When the cutscene finishes, it plays the last two measures (m27, 28) and completes the track.

I would like to refer to the track as in the official soundtrack album, but I also couldn't find it. Therefore, I would be willing to change and match the cutscene's progression, cutting the current m19-20, and repeating this section without strings after the current m26.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant as to "restructure" the piece, but I don't think it's necessary to split the sheet into little phrases (as say: BotW's "Field (Day)", up in the main site) since the cutscene plays linearly, and all the 12 individual tracks serve mostly as to tell the game where to cut to the next section of the piece

It truly it's some work, but I'm glad you're so willing to help. If you want to confirm how the music adapts for yourself, feel free to do so, but I don't think it will be necessary.
I really appreciate how this community always strive to do the best work possible, and I'd like to do the same :)
I'll update the files as soon as I can!

[TheZeldaPianist275]

I'm not sure if that's what you meant as to "restructure" the piece, but I don't think it's necessary to split the sheet into little phrases (as say: BotW's "Field (Day)", up in the main site) since the cutscene plays linearly, and all the 12 individual tracks serve mostly as to tell the game where to cut to the next section of the piece

Totally agree haha--that would not be an accurate representation either, and I see why what I said made you think that. All I meant was to show which sections repeat in which order, and arranging them in order to represent how the piece comes across in game. For example, in the video you linked above, the first eight measures of the piece repeat, until Cece starts talking about her trends being built on tradition, at which point it proceeds to measure 9. I think adding a repeat bar after measure 8 would be an appropriate way to indicate that.

I belive this happens so players aren't left on mute while reading the dialog, and repeating the climax of the piece wouldn't feel quite right. When the cutscene finishes, it plays the last two measures (m27, 28) and completes the track.

To use this example as well, what I think you could do is to write out the section with the strings entirely, and then the section without the strings, which is the section that repeats until the last two bars. And I agree with you that it should jump from measure 18 to 21! You could also take out the fermatas in the first section of the track, since they're not reflected in the game itself or the official soundtrack.

Since you asked about the official soundtrack, KHInsider has that too. Disc 6, track 29. But I'm pretty sure it's just going to reflect what we're already talking about with the cutscene progression. Thanks for taking the time to go over this! I think it'll make for a more accurate sheet, and it's one that I'll be printing off whenever you're done with it!

[gu]

This took longer than expected... Sorry for that, I've run into some technical problems and had to re-do the hole thing from scratch . Anyway, files updated!

The sheet has been changed, adding an extra section to better reflect the song on the Original Soundtrack Album, using KHInsider's file (track 29, disc 6) as reference, a faster tempo and small tweaks. Below this lies a big text justifying... actually quite small changes.

Taken a cue from TheZeldaPianist, I tried to find in a way to reflect a bit of the music adaptaility in game. I've still wanted to reflect the track on Official Soundtrack first and foremost, and the middle-way I found was the following:
- A fermata indicating the end of each section of the song (at m8, m16, m24 and m32), simbolizing the main shift-points in the cutsence.
Those aren't played on the official track, and so should be completely optional to play. (much like in-game)
I've found that putting repeat marks on, say: m8, didn't fit quite right since the original track doesn't repeat, but I still want to indicate and separate them, to better identify in case someone wants to repeat them or such.

Additionally, I've sought to name the sections.
My idea was to give each one a title, arbitrary names that sounded right to me and indicate the moment in the cutscene, so:
"Intro" on m1; "Apologies" on m9; "Reconciliation" on m17; "Old and New" on m25; and "Outro" on m33.
Apparently, though, the text boxes from MuseScore don't play nice with MusicXMLCleaner. I got an error from the program and I couldn't use those files anymore.

The program asks to let cacabish know about the error, so here's a transcription (and translation, the last part showed up in PT-BR, which is my computer language) of the reason on the error message:
{Reason: org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemid: file: [.musicxml location]; lineNumber: 162; columnNumber: 54; The "system" atribute must be declared to the "direction" element type.}
I've tested with MuseScore 4 and 3.6, and both got the same error

Since i've re-done the sheet on MuseScore again I'm afraid I'll have to ask again for help from mates with the real finale to fix some things for me. Especifcally:
 - m15: Remove the duplicated natural symbol on the second A;
 - m14: Move the whole-notes so they don't cross over the note line;
 - Add the section titles, as described above;
 - and maybe the tempo text, which was a problem in v1 that might reappear
Sorry to bother y'all, but I couldn't do these myself with Notepad. Thank you to anyone who helps!

I think that's it... pardon me for the long text!