[PS2] Shadow of the Colossus - "A Closed-off City" by Ryan McGaughey

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Shadow of the Colossus
Console: PlayStation 2
Title: A Closed-off City
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Ryan McGaughey

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[WaluigiTime64]

Seriously, video please.

[Tobbeh99]

Nice Arrangement!

-I think the rhythm/time signature is a bit wrong. I'm hearing that the song goes in 4/4 and that the song starts on the 1st beat.

-Measure 5: Instead of a text like that, you could write accel. and rit.

-You need to have the copyright information on your sheet. Look it up on wikipedia, and write the publisher as "company".

-The URL is wrong, what you have now is our old URL. Our current URL is http://www.ninsheetmusic.org/.

[Starfury]

I thought I would try to build off of Tobbeh99's words.

• It looks like you viewed the formatting page, however there are some errors as mentioned.
• The song is in 4/4 time, however it starts on beat 1.
• The song is in E minor, so it needs to be written in E minor, not A dorian.
• I do not believe the line in measure 5 contains enough rubato to add an accel. or rit. The line is oddly syncopated, and could be written more subjectively instead of using tempo alterations.
• Also, maybe lengthen the second system to achieve horizontal crescendos and dims. The bar looks quite strange as of now.

[iLikePiano]

Oh sorry, I will post videos in future submissions.


-Yeah I had trouble deciding if the music was in 4/4 or something else... I really feel like the music is in cut time that begins with a pickup sort of thing. The second note of the drums in the very beginning sounds to me that it is a little stressed or accented which is why I wrote it out the way I did so the second note of the drums would land on a strong beat in the first measure. But yeah writing it in 4/4 will make the score look a little cleaner so I will change it.

-That's right I forgot to change the key signature... I knew it was in E minor... oops.

-I like the idea of writing that run in measure 5 more subjectively. I will work on that.

-Will fix some of the formatting things too.


Thank you! I will fix all these tonight.

[Latios212]

If you want the main site to display your name as listed on the sheet instead of your forum username, you can change your "Arranger Name" under your forum profile :J

[iLikePiano]

Ok I did some edits. Please let me know if there is anything else that should be changed.

[Maelstrom]

FEEDBACK TIME
Excellent arrangement.
Some more suggestions:
-Why not make those 32nd note "mini trills" mordents?
-Try playing around with layers or flip a few note stems in m5 (use the L key on the keyboard) to avoid that collision in m5.
-Maybe a short clef change in mg in the LH as well to avoid all those ledger lines, if you don't want to do some cross stave notation. On second thought, csn would probably make that colliding dotted half note even worse.
-In m10, you might want to change the dotted half tied to the quarter in the RH into a whole note.
-A Diminuendo at the end wouldn't hurt anything.
-This is only a suggestion, but, as a third alternative to cleaning up m5, you could just remove the LH altogether, but I'm not sure that's what you're going for.

[Sebastian]

Along with Maelstrom's feedback, here are some more things I noticed:

- The BPM is QN = 117. Also, you probably shouldn't use parenthesis unless there is an expression text along with the parenthesized BPM marking.

- The octave Ds in M. 3 are Cs.

- M. 8, 9, 10, & 11 have the same note error as M. 3 (Ds are Cs).

- There is a wrong note in the 32nd notes in M. 9. Here is the correct version:

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- The composer/arranger name seems awfully high. Maybe move that down a bit.

- The last system looks silly being shortened in this fashion. Either shorten it halfway, or don't shorten it at all.

- This is totally nitpicking as heck, but I would recommend lining up the dynamic markings to make it fancy and even like this:

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- As for M. 5, I agree with Maelstrom with the stem flip. Go ahead and make that like this:

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In my opinion, those ledger lines don't warrant a clef change/cross-staff, but that is up to you. I would also like to suggest that you could put a whole note instead of a half note. A whole note would be more beneficial because it would take away that rest at the end (which is just in the way) and in the original, it sounds like it just dies way which would fit perfectly with the diminuendo you have there.

- The copyright info is a hair high.

-Why not make those 32nd note "mini trills" mordents?

These should probably stay the way they are for the sake of the 3 half step 32nd note jump in M. 9 that I pointed out above.


Great work on this arrangement! I hope to see more in the future.

[Maelstrom]

These should probably stay the way they are for the sake of the 3 half step 32nd note jump in M. 9 that I pointed out above.

Mordents can be sharped, you know.
Edit: Nvm, the pic finally loaded.

[iLikePiano]

Ok thanks! I updated the files with most of the changes you two suggested.

I decided to leave m. 5 the way it is (no clef changes), being a pianist I much rather read it the way it is now.

Maelstrom, thanks for your help! I kept those "mini trills" written as 32nd notes not only because of what Sebastian pointed out but also because mordents seem to be an odd sight in music after the 18th century...

Sebastian, thank you, you have a good ear! I didn't catch that those notes were wrong.


So how does the score look now?

[Maelstrom]

Maelstrom, thanks for your help! I kept those "mini trills" written as 32nd notes not only because of what Sebastian pointed out but also because mordents seem to be an odd sight in music after the 18th century...

You'd be surprised how many sheets on the site have them, mine included. It's just because it's a cleaner and simpler way of notating it.

There's one little change you missed.
-If the LH changes notes on the last measure, should it be tied?
-Little nitpick: I don't know if that molto accel will get cut off when someone tries to print it, as it's so close to the page margin.
-Even more nitpicky: 117 is not a valid analogue metronome marking. 116, however, is.

[iLikePiano]

You'd be surprised how many sheets on the site have them, mine included. It's just because it's a cleaner and simpler way of notating it.

Haha, yeah I have definitely seen them in music I have used from this site, but this site has been one of the only places that I have seen them outside of Baroque music. Mordents may make the score look cleaner but in terms of readability I much rather see something written out as notes than a mordent marking when I am sight-reading music. There is more translation steps for my brain to go through with mordents which slows down my reading...

-If the LH changes notes on the last measure, should it be tied?
-Little nitpick: I don't know if that molto accel will get cut off when someone tries to print it, as it's so close to the page margin.
-Even more nitpicky: 117 is not a valid analogue metronome marking. 116, however, is.

-Oh, good eye! That was a mistake.
-Ok I moved it over a little and did a print test and it was fine.
-Yeah that is true. I changed it to 116 but is it necessary to always stick to tempo markings that are on an analogue metronome? I just want to know for future submissions...

Thank you! I have been a fan of this website for about 11 years now and I am excited to soon have arrangements of my own on this site!!

[Maelstrom]

One last thing or two (last things) and it will be finished!
-There's two random 3s hanging out at the bottom of the PDF. I've heard of this happening with finale 2014 PDF exports. I'd recommend just getting a 3rd party pdf printer. Some people use Cutepdf or other stuff, but I prefer DoPDF.
-After listening incredibly closely, I belive that the LH octave harmony in m5 does not exist. Deleting it would also mean making the dotted half note in m4 a whole note to take up the rest of the space in that measure. In addition, the arpeggio actually goes like this:

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After these changes, that should be everything.

[iLikePiano]

-Ok thank you! I have had so many issues with Finale's built-in PDF export. I installed DoPDF. PDF looks to be clean now of any random numbers floating around.

-Thanks for taking the time to listen closely to m.5. I was never 100% sure if I had the right notes there. I also removed the left hand part here. I know that technically the left hand part was not really in the recording but I felt that by adding that lower octave it more closely matched the timbre of that instrument playing the arpeggio. The right hand alone sounds a little thin to me but I guess it works...


Alright if there is nothing else then thank you for yours and Sebastian's time and contributions to this arrangement!!!