Messages

If the beaming still is not up to how you'd like it, anyone has my permission to change it. At this point, I don't want to spend any more time with it because I feel pretty confident about all of my decisions regarding that.

It'd probably be best to just cancel the submission because I like the sheet the way it is but I don't want to put the required rebeaming off on anyone else — I'm not trying to be difficult, that's just how the situation is

I'm gonna second Maelstrom's thing, like music that's written in a specific musical genre or says a genre its name.

I'd really like a tutorial because tbh I don't know how to use reaper. How do you make the music without putting down the notes? Sorry I know literally nothing about electronic music production

This is such a fun idea. What do you use for composition??? How did you get the soundfonts and how do you use them in composition/sound playback? What software do you use?

It was my only arrangement on the site this year, but my arrangement of the Luigi's Mansion 3 theme is something I'm really proud of, I have to admit. The opening key center of C-sharp minor means that, according to traditional rules, the B section had to be notated in D-sharp minor. Though I've played in six sharps before (the Ravel Sonatine and most recently the Beethoven F-sharp sonata, which contains sections in both D-sharp major, which isn't even a real key, and D-sharp minor) it's quite a difficult key to read and even more difficult to write. I think I did as good a job as anyone could hope with that part of the arrangement, and in general I think for the half-step shifting chords I used the most elegant enharmonic spellings throughout.

Also—the sheet checkers approved my tempo marking "Moderate ghost waltz," which came to me in a stroke of genius and which I just absolutely love as expressive text.

Thanks so much! That's really nice to hear.

So glad you liked it. That was a bucket list piece for me. The fugue is just an amazing thing to hear.

I couldn't believe I had that big memory slip during the fantasy on the night of my recital, after performing that piece for months and months -_- but still I was pretty happy with it and I thought the fugue came off very well.

Hey all, I had to post my master's recital on YouTube to apply for some big guy jobs, and I figured maybe someone here might want to see it. The pieces I played and their timestamps in the video can be found in the description and on the pinned comment. Let me know what you like!

Program:
Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 / Ludwig van Beethoven
01:08     I.   Adagio cantabile - Allegro, ma non troppo
08:32     II.  Allegro vivace

Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903 / Johann Sebastian Bach
12:42     I.   Fantasy
19:51     II.  Fugue

Sonata No. 9 in C Major, Op. 103 / Sergei Prokofiev
26:54     I.   Allegretto
34:48     II.  Allegro strepitoso
38:07     III. Andante tranquillo
46:10     IV. Allegro con brio, ma non troppo presto

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major, Op. 47 / Frédéric Chopin
53:20

Favorites of Video Games 2019

As always, here's a small write-up of my favorite gaming experiences of the year. I was kind of light on games this year, playing a select few games for large amounts of time. In addition, the depressing fact is that the Nintendo 3DS, my favorite system of all time, is basically officially dead. A new survival horror game is dropping for the console today, but while I definitely plan on picking it up I feel that it might be the last thing I'll be able to purchase for the system.

Ah, well, we had a good run, and even if Nintendo seems to have stopped supporting the beautiful little handheld, at least there's a backlog of games so huge that I could feasibly be working on it for the next several years. The Switch is now officially the console to have if you're a Nintendo gamer, and we had a year that overall was more well-rounded and surprising than the comparably uneventful and remake-heavy 2018. I'm retiring the "Best amiibo" category, not because there weren't some really neat ones this year, but because I don't care too much about the Smash line, which means that the Link's Awakening Link figure is the winner by default. I did pick up Piranha Plant and Ivysaur as well, though, and I have to say I adore the figures.

Like the last few years, I spent a good chunk of time playing older games that I missed, so I'll start off with the games that I played for the first time this year and are worth talking about.

1

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap -- Wii U Virtual Console (originally released in 2005 on GBA)
The Game Boy Advance was my first-ever gaming system back in the day, and whether it's nostalgic or just my fascination with simpler video games, I've never grown tired of the look and sound of games for that system. The 32-bit graphics and clever soundfonts are manipulated to an absurd extent in The Minish Cap, making it a strong contender for the best-looking GBA game I've ever seen. And to think I somehow missed out on it back in the day! Maybe my late arrival to Zelda would have been different if I hadn't. Either way, Capcom's sprite work on this game is masterful, the dungeon design is stellar, and the overworld is full of fascinating detours and hidden areas (both miniscule and massive). The twenty hours I spent on The Minish Cap might well have been the most fun gaming I had all year, especially factoring in that specific tinge of nostalgia and delight that comes with playing a game for an older system for the first time as if it's brand new.

[close]

2

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (2016) -- Wii U
It seems hard to believe, but I only just saw the second half of Twilight Princess in January of this year. If you've talked to me about Zelda before, you know that I have a bit of a tough time with this one, having tried in vain to play the entire thing a total of three times before finally seeing the end. All of my complaints from before still hold true--namely, the overworld is not only too big, but too boring. Nearly every moment I wasn't in a dungeon, the game was sending me on tedious tasks across the barren, ugly map: to rescue a Zora prince, to learn sumo wrestling, to capture creepy lice-like insects in Twilight realms, and, in a truly horribly designed bit with bafflingly bad controls, to keep a carriage on its desired path while eliminating threats. But the dungeon design is so ridiculously good that I can't even hold the overworld sections against Twilight Princess. From the beautifully convoluted Lakebed Temple to the creepy Arbiter's Grounds, I enjoyed every single dungeon in this game. The second half of the game had some real winners, too, particularly the amusing digression in the Snowpeak Ruins--the details of which I of course won't spoil here for those of you who haven't adventured through this Zelda yet. It was worth getting to the end and seeing how the plot wrapped up, so thanks to everyone who recommended it.

[close]

3

DELTARUNE Chapter 1 -- Nintendo Switch (originally released in 2018 for PC)
This game did technically release on Switch in 2019, but since it's the exact same game that was on PC last year, it didn't feel quite right to count it in any of the categories. As a follow-up to Undertale, anything is going to fall shy of expectations, and of course we're looking only at the introduction to what promises to be a much bigger adventure, but even in these first five hours it is abundantly clear that Toby Fox has given us an even more surreal, alluring atmosphere than before. Deltarune (a mysterious anagram of "Undertale") was supposedly inspired by a dream, and the game's aesthetic reflects a dreamy and hypnotic tone. Though the adventure itself feels like a dream, of course, even the exposition on either side of this first chapter feels like a strange dream you might have about Undertale, with familiar characters appearing with new names, clothes, and personalities, Majora's Mask style. This little preview of Toby Fox's next big work has me incredibly hyped up to see what the final product will look like. Don't miss this free download!

[close]

And now, the 2019 winners!

BEST MULTIPLAYER

Spoiler

Luigi's Mansion 3

There weren't a lot of options here in the games that I played, but the multiplayer in Nintendo's newest adventure starring Luigi is honestly much more fun than it has any right to be. Even ignoring the addictive online Scarescraper mode, a friend in the room can pick up a controller and explore as Gooigi, Luigi's hilariously disgusting, oozy alter ego. Definitely play this with a friend if you can.

HONORABLE MENTION: None

[close]

BEST GRAPHICS

Spoiler

[close]

BEST SOUND DESIGN

Spoiler

Luigi's Mansion 3

Taking the second award in a row is the esteemed Luigi's Mansion 3, which is sort of ridiculously well-made. The craftsmanship here, courtesy of Canadian developers Next Level Games, is such that I can actually talk about craftsmanship in a video game. It's probably the most technically advanced game Nintendo has ever produced, with a number of physics systems ensuring that literally everything in the entire game is interactive. One of the most disappointing limitations with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon on the Nintendo 3DS is that when you'd go up to, say, a shelf and use the Poltergust, everything would simply rattle. Here, every tiny knickknack on every crowded shelf, all the individual sheets of paper in a stack of hundreds, even the lightbulbs on a desk--all of it reacts and can be improbably schlurrrped into your vacuum cleaner. The sound design is great throughout, of course, but where it really shines is the tactile sensations of the various objects you can manipulate with your Poltergust, and of course the disturbingly squelchy character of Gooigi. I'm willing to bet there's not a single person out there, whether a child or an adult, who didn't laugh in delight and disgust the first time they heard the noise of Gooigi squeezing through iron bars or a sewage pipe. Again--this is really the finest and most satisfying point-and-click-turned-arcade-beatemup I've ever played. The only honorable mention I want to talk about in detail is Untitled Goose Game, which features in addition to all sorts of goosey honks a soundtrack composed entirely of fragments of Debussy music--quirky and funny in context, but truly hilarious for classical music lovers.

HONORABLE MENTION: AI: The Somnium Files, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Untitled Goose Game

[close]

BEST MUSIC

Spoiler

Pokémon Sword & Pokémon Shield (Minako Adachi & Go Ichinose)

This was a really tough call, because both the newest Pokémon and the newest Fire Emblem have massive soundtracks with hardly any tracks that don't serve their respective games well. On the whole, though, the knockout duo of Minako Adachi (who really wowed me with a stellar lineup of tracks in Sun & Moon) and Go Ichinose (who is responsible for a huge amount of Pokémon tracks from Gold & Silver onward) edged out the Fire Emblem trio with a soundtrack inspired in equal parts by British rock music and a classic Pokémon style. The absence of Hitomi Sato is the only thing that rings disappointing about this otherwise charmingly retro score.

HONORABLE MENTION: AI: The Somnium Files (Keisuke Ito), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Takeru Kanazaki, Hiroki Morishita, & Rei Kondoh), Luigi's Mansion 3 (Chad York & Darren Radtke)

[close]

BEST REMAKE

Spoiler

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

Again, the Switch thrived on remakes and re-releases this year, and it was a tough call. Steins;Gate Elite seemed like a great choice for being (to my knowledge) the first hybrid anime and game (I'm still wondering how the hell they got the system to work that well). Then my mind went to New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which in spite of sporting the second-most-ridiculous title of the year proved engaging enough to tempt into 100%ing a game I had already 100%ed on Wii U back in 2015. The 3DS got two strong contenders right at the outset of the year in remakes of both a Nintendo DS and Wii game that are each about a decade old. And of course, my two favorite game series both have an entry in this competition. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy - Deluxe Edition, sporting the first-most-ridiculous title of the year, improved by swapping forty or so of the original version's worst puzzles for new ones, going a long way toward fixing my complaints. Longtime favorite of mine Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box even found new life on mobile devices, with HD visuals and previously unavailable puzzles. Meanwhile, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy got one final facelift as it made its way to all major platforms, adding multiple new language support options and offering HD play on television for the first time.

But you know, none of these can even hold a candle to the amazing work that Grezzo and Nintendo have done with the remaster of Link's Awakening, a game which I sampled on the 3DS virtual console but never got more than a few hours into. Though a Game Boy title is the last thing anyone expected as a Switch candidate, it makes a fantastic complement to Breath of the Wild and the toy set aesthetic has gone a long way toward making this brief, tiny game (I 100% completed it in about 20 hours) among my favorites on the system. It's filled with wonder and magic in every frame, every area, every character, every dungeon, and even every small bit of dialogue. Though the word "tiny" pops up often when discussing this game, there's nothing miniscule about its heart and charm.

Honorable mention: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey

[close]

BEST STORY

Spoiler

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Again, this was a really close call--Link's Awakening's little heartbreaking fable of a half-forgotten dream swirled around my mind far longer than I expected. It's a simple, slight plot, but a haunting one, and if not for the fact that it's really 26 years old, the decision might have been tougher. As it is, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is my top pick. The fascinating story of a country divided in three factions felt oddly timely with the current international political climate, and the fact that there are three different routes with unique characters and storylines in a game that took me ninety hours just to see the first ending just cements the award for me. I've not even reached the end of my second playthrough, but I love the twists and turns and above all the characters that I've gotten to know as I continue to explore Garreg Mach and the various battlegrounds of Fódlan.

I'd also like to call special attention to my other honorable mention, AI: The Somnium Files. This bizarre, thoroughly unique game from Kotaro Uchikoshi (the director of the Zero Escape series) kept me enraptured for about 40 hours of timeline-hopping, dream-deciphering, sexual-innuendo-laden fun. When you stop finding it strange that your assistant is an artificial intelligence who lives in your eye socket and occasionally takes the physical form of a realistic eye, protrusions and all, you know you're at least getting something different from the norm.

HONORABLE MENTION: AI: The Somnium Files, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening

[close]

BEST GAMEPLAY

Spoiler

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I touched on what makes the story and characters so great before, but the gameplay rhythms of Three Houses are shockingly addictive. I've never played a game in the series before, but the new Persona-esque choice to split your time between exploring the school to forge bonds with your students and battling in epic, colossal chess matches with human players just felt right. I couldn't put the game down, and the pacing and length meant that it was one of those games that just became part of my life for a month or so. I loved the experience of playing this game.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Luigi's Mansion 3, Pokémon Sword & Shield

[close]

BEST GAME OF 2019

Spoiler

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

It was honestly such a toss-up for me this year, but I figured any game I spend over 100 hours on in a month or two is worth game of the year for me. There were so many charming games I played this year, and Link's Awakening, Luigi's Mansion 3, or even Pokémon could easily have won the top spot if it wasn't for the attachment I felt to my troops in Three Houses. I didn't even get to talk about games like Yoshi's Crafted World, whose cardboard renders kept me smiling throughout, or the innovative Nintendo Labo VR Kit (my first foray into the Labo scene). But really, Fire Emblem is a killer app that I feel totally good about as my game of 2019, even if the more classical Link's Awakening is what I might return to more often in the future.

HONORABLE MENTION: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Luigi's Mansion 3, Pokémon Sword & Shield

[close]

BEST GAME OF 2019 THAT I DIDN'T PLAY BUT WOULD REALLY LIKE TO

Spoiler

Astral Chain

This game, curiously marketed by Nintendo and apparently dividing a huge player base, just looks endlessly interesting to me. It seems like a game I'd either love or hate, and I look forward to finding out which it is sometime in the future.

HONORABLE MENTION: I can't even remember. There are always things.

[close]

What do you think? Did you play these games? Do you have any recommendations for me? Let me know in a comment!

My roommate and colleague just performed the Grieg first movement last week! It's a great piece.

All right, everything should be fixed now.

Basically how I feel—storyline was lame fluff except for the really pretty great arcs for Hop and a Bede, and to some extent Marnie and Sonia. The story was really short, even though I took my time to explore everything and didn't rush. But I don't know if that's a huge deal.

The thing that's more infuriating was not being able to turn off the Exp. being distributed to all party members. I know that people like playing that way, and that's fine, but the only thing that made that new Exp. Share mechanic work was the option to not use it. Even doing my best not to grind or catch too many Pokémon (which I already shouldn't have to do), I was grossly overleveled by the end and 1HKO all of Leon's Pokémon, and even Hop's in the postgame final fight.

But hey, at least the new Pokémon are really cool and quirky for the most part. I'm not a big fan of the early/less memorable ones like the Rookidee, Yamper, and Nickit lines, but aside from that basically every new Pokémon was interesting, quirky, and extremely charming. I ended up swapping my team members LOADS of times just because I kept finding new ones I just HAD to put on my team.

SAME LOOOL

I'll make all of those changes (including the courtesy accidentals m, which was an oversight). Thanks! Just two questions:

1. Formatting — I thought it was only the publisher we needed for the copyright? Or is it also the developer?

2. After playing the sheet myself, I think the repeat transition is a little awkward with a B-sharp1 leading into a C-sharp3 because of the octave leap. Do you think for pianistic reasons it would be acceptable to, on the first beat of the first measure, add an octave C-sharp below the initial pitch, without changing the other downbeats? The octave sonority on the downbeat of each measure in the first part strikes me as overly heavy for the character of the piece, but maybe it would be okay if it was only on the first measure, to make that voice leading more elegant. Or should I take the final measure up an octave? What's your recommended action here?

It's lonely town here now. I check the forums every day but there's not much here besides submissions. I think most people are on Discord now, but I'm an old man and don't understand how to use Discord on my phone efficiently.