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Incredible site, but why's it all piano?

Started by Link, the Hero of Time, June 30, 2014, 12:10:51 PM

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Link, the Hero of Time

This is a great site, but how come all the music is all in piano? I really like it all, but I'm just wondering why it's like that.

-Link
But yes...You'll be fine.
I see you are young and have
tremendous courage.

I'm sure you'll find it right away.

Well then, I am counting on you...

mikey

Because pianist master race

Actually I'm pretty sure there are other arrangements on here too but I'm not certain.
unmotivated

JDMEK5

If you dig around the forums you may find some arrangements for different instruments/ensembles.

As for why piano: it's the most common instrument and conveniently plays both treble and bass simultaneously.
Why only piano: Because we haven't gotten to other instruments yet. Most are just alternate transpositions but if you have a flute for example (which is in concert pitch), there's no reason you can't read off a piano sheet. With that being said, there has been some discussion about expanding into alternate transpositions.
"Today's goal strongly involves not dying. Because nobody likes to wake up dead."

My Arrangements
Finale Version(s): Finale Notepad 2012, Finale 2012, Finale v26

MaestroUGC

The site was originally founded to be a library of VG Music arranged for piano. Most of the arrangers only know how to play and write for piano, so we've never experienced a need or desire to expand to other instruments. There have been talks of expansion in the past, but they never go anywhere and very little, if anything, come from them.

Until a clear and vocal demand for expansion and people come along who can fill that demand we won't see any significant changes here.
Try to do everything; you're bound to succeed with at least one.

JDMEK5

Quote from: MaestroUGC on June 30, 2014, 02:44:08 PMMost of the arrangers only know how to play and write for piano, so we've never experienced a need or desire to expand to other instruments.
I had a desire that lasted about a week. Then it mellowed out. I'm sure I'd love it if we expanded in such a way, but for the time being, I don't care enough to make a huge spontaneous effort.
"Today's goal strongly involves not dying. Because nobody likes to wake up dead."

My Arrangements
Finale Version(s): Finale Notepad 2012, Finale 2012, Finale v26

FierceDeity

I mean, I'm almost exclusively a wind player, and know wayyyy better how to write for that sort of instrumentation than for piano. But yeah, like Maestro said, piano is the most convenient harmonic instrument, and it only takes one pianist to play a relatively full realization of a piece. We could write "full" realizations of the piece for other instrumentation, but the odds that somebody with access to that many people on that many instruments will come here looking to play the piece is...not very likely. Also, in my experience, wind players with their own groups like that are much more likely to do their own arrangements. You're always welcome to use our piano arrangements (transcriptions, really) as reference points to make your own, different arrangements.

It's also a lot harder to do quality control on that sort of arrangement (a piano transcription is pretty easy to evaluate, but once you get into questions of orchestration, things get a lot more subjective), so uploading them like we do the rest of our arrangements is a lot less feasible. And, once you accept chamber ensembles, there wouldn't be much grounds for denying big band charts, full orchestral scores, etc., but to say that those are plausible for our site's process is unrealistic.

If you have a specific request for a non-piano arrangement, you can make it in our "music" board, though our completion rate for that area is even lower than the regular request board's (I wanna say it's 0%).

But yeah, we definitely do have our fair share of wind players/arrangers (Olimar has some awesome trombone quartet/trio arrangements of video game stuff, idk if it's posted anywhere on the forums) who you could potentially ask for specific things. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have some experience in writing for different instrumentations, so if you have something specific in mind, you can feel free to message me about it. I can't guarantee that I'll do it, but I'll at least think about it, haha. (We do have others with the experience, but I can't personally speak for their willingness.)

SlowPokemon

For what it's worth, piano is my least favorite instrument to arrange for despite being the only instrument I play. It's far too easy and boring. That's not really relevant though. A good reason for having piano sheets on the site is that other parts can easily be figured out based on a piano score.
Quote from: Tobbeh99 on April 21, 2016, 02:56:11 PM
Fuck logic, that shit is boring, lame and does not always support my opinions.

Winter

#7
Quote from: Link, the Hero of Time on June 30, 2014, 12:10:51 PMThis is a great site, but how come all the music is all in piano? I really like it all, but I'm just wondering why it's like that.

-Link

There's a relatively small team of people that organize the updates, they need a standard in place so that when they go to check sheets that are submitted they aren't faced with all sorts of orchestrations with different sets of instruments that they do not have as much knowledge about. Anybody who could pull that off probably wouldn't be spending their time at NSM anyway!

Piano is a great point of entry for music to create an original 'transctiption' of video game music, as Fierce explained.

Also fun fact, we DID actually set the site up for orchestral arrangements thinking we could pull it off, one single piece made it up, I think it was route 1 from R/B/Y.

Things went downhill from there, however. Even if you imagine every song from every video game worth arranging music from, there's such a big pool of music that it's a goal we could always strive for but never quite meet (with all the new games coming out too). Accepting piano duets was controversial in it's own way. It literally doubles the amount of theoretical sheets. Orchestral arrangements would turn double into infinity very fast. Even with duets people had came into the forum asking why we have a duets of one song, but only a solo of another, or why we had a duet of a song but no solo! If we allow for any theoretical combination of instruments, this would happen every few minutes.

There's also the quality control thing. 4 updaters with knowledge of one style of submission is much more reliable than 4 arrangers with knowledge of instruments here and there constantly running into things they aren't comfortable with.

Link, the Hero of Time

As I mentioned before, I do love this site, and I'm not complaining or anything. :) I have used this site many times before, and it's been really helpful in a bunch of things I've needed sheet music for.

Anyway, you guys have made your point to me. Thanks for the info! :D
But yes...You'll be fine.
I see you are young and have
tremendous courage.

I'm sure you'll find it right away.

Well then, I am counting on you...

Winter

No problem, thanks for the compliment, too :)