[DELETED] [SWITCH] Super Mario Odyssey - "Fossil Falls" by Rusty Justice

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Super Mario
Game: Super Mario Odyssey
Console: Nintendo Switch
Title: Fossil Falls
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Rusty Justice

[RustyJustice]

Based on this version - There's an 8-bit version I'm working on as well, but my job can often take over my entire life for huge amounts of time soooooooooooooooooooo hopefully it will be submitted soon 

There were a lot of instruments crossing voices over at a fast tempo, so I tried to pick the harmonies and countermelodies that stood out the most and were (somewhat) playable on a piano.

[Latios212]

ooooh I've been waiting for this

[Sebastian]

Ahhh, yes. More Odyssey sheets! I'll definitely check this one out later.

[Latios212]

Man, this is awesome! If Sebastian's around I'll let him take the first real stab at it though

That said, just skimming a bit now going off of memory and there are a few things that catch my eye in this sheet. The main thing I want to bring up is texture consistency - there are a couple of places where I feel the thickness and voicing of the chords could be adjusted a bit. Most notably you have a really nice buildup in m. 49-50 to the climax of the song, but then it kind of fizzles out a bit as you have only octave C's in the left hand and single notes in the right hand. Compared to everywhere else in the song that has harmonies below the melody besides the subdued section in m. 41+, it feels far emptier than it should - that part could be so much more alive! There are some other places where it changes rather abruptly too, like m. 64 where it switches from triads to octaves, making it sound suddenly slightly more sparse again. I could comment on a few other areas too if you want to hear it, but I think you get the idea

Other smaller things:
- There are a few places that aren't quite playable as written: m. 7 (maybe invert the chord down or omit the bass C?) and m. 17 (omit the top note which obscures the melody?)
- m. 37 beat 1 RH - chord is flipped the wrong way
- m. 42 beats 1-2 LH (and similar) - you could flip layer 1 down to avoid shortening the stems since there's nothing below it.
- m. 42 beat 2.5 - top layer (melody) is missing the C (overlaps with the second layer)
- m. 44 - no need for the 3 above the grace notes.
- https instead of http in the URL

[Libera]

Bump for arranger.

[Latios212]

*boomp*

[RustyJustice]

Updated:

• m. 37 - The first chord intentionally uses the upward stem to illustrate that the left hand must jump to the first staff briefly. I added lines to show this more explicitly.
• m. 44 - Removed triplet number for grace notes. It's present, but hidden in the Finale file because I don't like the way Human Playback phrases these as regular 16th grace notes.
• m. 50 - Reduced the texture and dynamics of the buildup here - m. 51 of the original recording has only a string melody, a french horn counter melody (applied in the texture of the left hand accompaniment), and the orchestral bass line. I didn't want to deviate from the original just to make the texture more complex.
• m. 64 - Added chord tones to thicken the texture in the triplets in the right hand.
• Page 1 - Updated the url to https

@latios, here's what I didn't do and why: I thought the goal of this site is to transcribe as accurately as possible the recordings used in the game. When I'm using a lighter texture, it's because there aren't any other instruments in the recording playing more notes. I probably would've arranged the whole piece very differently if I were doing an artistic arrangement for publication, but my understanding is we aren't supposed to do that unless we're posting to the "Piano Arrangements" section of the forum.

As for the notation, I didn't change m. 42 because I felt both suggestions you posed would make less clear notation and clutter the right hand. I realize there's an additional C in the melody, but since it was already included in the accompaniment texture, I felt it was unnecessary to confuse the reader for the sake of phrasing. If this were an arrangement and not a take-down, I probably would've used a different texture to begin with.

Regarding your suggestion to flip the stems in the left hand, I'd rather make sure the stems clearly indicated that the player should pound the bass note, then immediately engage the pedal during the accompaniment. I could rewrite it as a simple arpeggio and use pedal markings, but in my view that creates too many extra markings. Instead, as written, the player knows the bass line is important and must be held, yet they are given license to pedal however they feel appropriate - it also gives more consistent playback for folks who just want to download the piece and listen. I can back this up with a couple notation texts if you'd like, but if you think of Elaine Gould as an authority on notation, she recommends doing this in p. 72 (open ties and Laissez Vibre) and p. 337 (keyboard pedal markings) of her Behind Bars book.

[Latios212]

Yay, you're back (again)!

Updated:

• m. 37 - The first chord intentionally uses the upward stem to illustrate that the left hand must jump to the first staff briefly. I added lines to show this more explicitly.
• m. 44 - Removed triplet number for grace notes. It's present, but hidden in the Finale file because I don't like the way Human Playback phrases these as regular 16th grace notes.
• m. 50 - Reduced the texture and dynamics of the buildup here - m. 51 of the original recording has only a string melody, a french horn counter melody (applied in the texture of the left hand accompaniment), and the orchestral bass line. I didn't want to deviate from the original just to make the texture more complex.
• m. 64 - Added chord tones to thicken the texture in the triplets in the right hand.
• Page 1 - Updated the url to https

Alrighty, looks great!

@latios, here's what I didn't do and why: I thought the goal of this site is to transcribe as accurately as possible the recordings used in the game. When I'm using a lighter texture, it's because there aren't any other instruments in the recording playing more notes. I probably would've arranged the whole piece very differently if I were doing an artistic arrangement for publication, but my understanding is we aren't supposed to do that unless we're posting to the "Piano Arrangements" section of the forum.

Gotcha. We try to avoid specific criteria and restrictions for how closely the arrangement should stick to the original but the rule of thumb I go by is that it should reflect the sound of the original as well as possible on piano. While that doesn't mean arranging the piece in a different style or anything, it does entail sometimes making playability adjustments and experimenting with different pianistic textures and accompaniment patterns that evoke the spirit of the original without necessarily being a direct transcription. (Hopefully that made a bit of sense...) In any case, what you have is fine!

Regarding your suggestion to flip the stems in the left hand, I'd rather make sure the stems clearly indicated that the player should pound the bass note, then immediately engage the pedal during the accompaniment. I could rewrite it as a simple arpeggio and use pedal markings, but in my view that creates too many extra markings. Instead, as written, the player knows the bass line is important and must be held, yet they are given license to pedal however they feel appropriate - it also gives more consistent playback for folks who just want to download the piece and listen. I can back this up with a couple notation texts if you'd like, but if you think of Elaine Gould as an authority on notation, she recommends doing this in p. 72 (open ties and Laissez Vibre) and p. 337 (keyboard pedal markings) of her Behind Bars book.

Ah, in case it wasn't clear I wasn't suggesting collapsing the two layers into one, but simply flipping the top layer like here. The contour changes but I don't think it loses any clarity in the way of execution. But it's fine if you want to keep it!

Also, did you see this comment?

- There are a few places that aren't quite playable as written: m. 7 (maybe invert the chord down or omit the bass C, unless you want it to be rolled?) and m. 17 (omit the top note which obscures the melody?)

The only last thing I have to say is that your page numbers are at inconsistent heights outside the page margins.

Thank you for being so thorough!

[RustyJustice]

Thanks Latios!

Updated:

• Simplified the left hand in the intro
• Reduced chord texture in m. 17
• Reduced chord texture in m. 35
• Changed texture in m. 43 - 44
• Added accents to the top notes in m. 59 to bring out the melody
• Updated layout to correct misplaced text blocks, fit systems to 4 pages

[mastersuperfan]

Be careful with your rhythms—all of the quarter note triplets you have starting from m51 until the end (with the exception of m63) are actually dotted eighth - (sixteenth tied to eighth) - eighth rhythms. I was inclined to say the same for some of the earlier rhythms, but the 8-bit version has everything before m51 as clear triplets.

[Static]

Be careful with your rhythms—all of the quarter note triplets you have starting from m51 until the end (with the exception of m63) are actually dotted eighth - (sixteenth tied to eighth) - eighth rhythms. I was inclined to say the same for some of the earlier rhythms, but the 8-bit version has everything before m51 as clear triplets.

The 8-bit version is similar, but there are small differences between those versions and the originals; in the normal version 63-66 are all triplets as well.

Also bump.

[Static]

Archiving for inactivity. Feel free to resubmit when you can.