[NDS] Animal Crossing: Wild World - "3:00 A.M." by ayycast

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Animal Crossing
Game: Animal Crossing: Wild World
Console: Nintendo DS
Title: 3:00 A.M.
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: ayycast

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ayycast]

Audio :

[Static]

Nice to see some more Animal Crossing stuff, as always...

For your convenience, I made a file for you with all of the changes below, plus some additional formatting adjustments (here). Feel free to use/edit this, and of course if you disagree with anything or have any questions let me know.

• The title should be "3:00 A.M." to be consistent with the other track titles on site.
• Composer should probably just be Kazumi Totaka (the composers for specific tracks in this series are unclear, and while Asuka Ohta also worked on the WW soundtrack, she isn't credited in any official albums with other WW hourly music); copyright year should be 2005.
• So, you have a lot of empty space in the bottom half of the page. You have room to move the systems down so that the composer/arranger text isn't so far up. Ideally it should be below the game title.
• In 4/4, quarter note rhythms and any smaller subdivision should always show beat 3 in each measure. I'll show you what I mean by this with some screenshots, so let's take a look at m2:
  
  Spoiler

  
  Because of how you tied these notes, where beat 3 falls is unclear, which makes reading these rhythms confusing to the performer. So, instead, you should flip the 8th note and have it be in front of the half note like this:
  
  There are several spots in the score that have similar issues, so go through and try to rewrite those so that they align with regular 4/4 rhythm grouping.
  
  If you're confused about this topic, I recommend reading Latios's rhythm guide here. Of course, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.
  

  [close]
• I actually would not recommend using the pedal for most of this piece. The way you have it written, the chords kind of all blend into each other, but in the original there are clear breaks between each one.
• For those short chords, you use multiple types of notes to write those. Sometimes its staccato 8th notes, sometimes it's staccato dotted quarters, sometimes it's staccato quarters. I would actually suggest just writing all of those stabs as a basic 8th note, not staccato (actually maybe tenuto would work well here). They are short but I'm not sure if staccato would best indicate how to play them; they do sound really full in the original, not so light like a staccato marking might indicate... maybe I'm getting a bit too philosophical now...
• All those grace notes should actually be D# instead of D.
• Since the chords are below the whole note in m2, those Layer 1 rests should be moved down to be next to the chords. The 2nd chord should also be flipped down.
• There actually are a few differences between the normal and rainy/snowy versions. The melody in m4 and 8 are held longer compared to the normal version. Notating this all in one version might be a bit confusing to read, but luckily this piece is so short that you could fit another 3 systems on the same page.
• Those 16th notes in m4 and 8 don't really sound staccato to me, the 8th notes seem short if anything.
• That figure in m9 should also be 8va like in m5.
• The melody G in m6 should be in a separate layer like in m2-3, to indicate that it's part of the melody.
• Alright, let's talk chords now. This piece is deceptively tricky to arrange, and what you have is already really good. But I think there might be some more ways to try and include the rest of the chords/bass in some of the more empty spots. Here are some suggestions I have:
  
  • m2: The A in the first chord can easily be reached with the RH, so the D in the LH can be moved an octave down like in the original. In addition, there's an F underneath that. I would actually recommend including it even though it's a stretch to play, but I would leave it as an optional note (perhaps in parentheses).
  • m2: The 2nd chord should have a G between the F and A.
  • m4: Like in m2, the RH is easily able to play most of the first chord here. The 2nd chord should be G-F-A in the LH (a G-A 9th interval is definitely reachable here).
  • m5: First chord in LH should be E-G-B-D (Em7), second chord should be A-G-B-D (but move the D down an octave).
    
  • m6: Chords should look like m1.
  • m7: The 2nd chord here is interesting, it's a Bb minor chord (Bb-Db-F).
  • m8: This is another instance where you can relegate some of those LH notes to the RH, since there's space there. It's a Dm9 chord, so D-F-A-C-E.
  • m10-13: Since there actually is no bass here, just the chords, you can put the chords in the LH and have the RH play that upper voice.
• I saved this one for last since it'll affect the measure numbers, but the first measure should technically be written as a pickup (so just remove the first empty beat).
• So, with all the above changes, here's how this arrangement could look like:
  
  Spoiler

  

  [close]

I know that's a lot of feedback for such a short sheet, but these are the kinds of little details that elevate an arrangement from good to great.

[ayycast]

Hey Static!

Great writeup. Thanks for taking the time in breaking measures down for me and teaching me new stuff about this process.
I agree with everything you've pointed out just have a few points I'd like clarification on.
Sorry about the formatting, will do my best to get better!

Leaving beat 3 visible and distinguishable, definitely keeping that in mind for the future.
All your changes make sense and I wouldn't want to change anything!

Was confused on the rain/snow variations. I was assuming some parts to be different because of instrumentation. Where a melody would cut from one instrument into another. Also that ostinato click, m10-13,  I was under the impression that was percussion and not part of the piano piece. lol

A few of the voicings seem kinda hard to play on the right hand. Is it preferred to keep full voicings and shapes or to write as if it were for solo piano?
I know you mentioned placing notes in parenthesis on some notes.

Your shapes sound a lot better for m2, m4 and m5. 
The right hand on m4 is tough for me to pull off. Same with m5. Tried to shape those voices to be a bit easier but I recognize it was cutting a lot of the chord out. 

Yeah! m7 sounds a lot better now!
 
Did not know that changing a normal measure to a pickup measure changes the bar count.

Honestly blown away with the feedback. Your version is far superior in every way.
Don't think I could replicate what you've done with it so definitely let's keep the changes you've made.

[Static]

Was confused on the rain/snow variations. I was assuming some parts to be different because of instrumentation. Where a melody would cut from one instrument into another. Also that ostinato click, m10-13,  I was under the impression that was percussion and not part of the piano piece. lol

Yeah, so this is a really great point you bring up here. While this site specializes in piano arrangements, one of the great things about the piano is that it allows you to capture all sorts of percussion effects with just the keys of the instrument. For example, if you wanted to arrange an orchestral piece with a timpani roll, you could emulate that in piano with a low LH tremolo of some sort - the list goes on and on. When I'm arranging for piano, I'm thinking about how to capture the original texture of the piece rather than transcribing it exactly as it's played, although there are plenty of exceptions.
Anyway, the ostinato in this piece I think works well on piano because it's pitched, so it kinda fits right in. If it was unpitched, you could leave it out entirely, represent it with a pitched note, or include a hand percussion part such as tapping.

(Also regarding the rain/snow variations, the instrumentation does change, and because of that some of the notes are longer. In addition, that ostinato is absent. Because of that, I think it works better to indicate those changes in a separate variation)

A few of the voicings seem kinda hard to play on the right hand. Is it preferred to keep full voicings and shapes or to write as if it were for solo piano?
I know you mentioned placing notes in parenthesis on some notes.

The right hand on m4 is tough for me to pull off. Same with m5. Tried to shape those voices to be a bit easier but I recognize it was cutting a lot of the chord out.

I personally prefer to keep full voicings if possible, but I wouldn't write any intervals larger than a 9th without using an arpeggio marking (those vertical squiggly lines). Looking at the file, I realized I forgot to add those parentheses, but feel free to add them to the F in m1/5 and similar spots. I just prefer to make my sheets "too hard" if that makes sense, and then let the performer decide what notes to exclude if any. But even as-is, this sheet is still definitely possible to play (maybe my hands are just a little big lol). To make those wide LH chords easier, removing the middle notes generally makes it easier to reach the full 9th interval.
This is not to say you have to arrange it this way, so feel free to edit the voicings as you see fit. This is just how I'd do it.

If everything looks good, feel free to make a pdf/midi from that .mus file I linked and reupload it through the NSM panel (there's a little edit button on the right). This sheet has my approval.

[ayycast]

Yo Static!

Re-submitted the files. Thanks for helping me with so much stuff on that sheet. It's been nice talking shop with ya.

Glad it'll be up on the site for the future. 

[Static]

Yeah no problem! That's what the submissions process is all about, just learning about all this stuff. Great work here, files look good.

[Latios212]

This looks great! Just a few small things...
- "Arrangement" is misspelled
- Our other hourly sheets use "Rainy / Snowy" instead of "Snowy / Rainy", we should keep that consistent
- Typically, if there's just one grace note it's written as an eighth note instead of a sixteenth note (i.e. just one flag).

[ayycast]

Hey Latios!

I'll make those changes and re-upload! Thank you!

[Latios212]

You're welcome! Splendid work, accepting now

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Latios212.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot