[SWITCH] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - "Spectate" by FiveNineSquared

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Super Smash Bros.
Game: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Console: Nintendo Switch
Title: Spectate
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: FiveNineSquared

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[FiveNineSquared]

A bit confused about how to properly credit the composer(s) on this one so I basically just paraphrased what's written in-game

[LeviR.star]

While I see that you've allowed plenty of space for left-hand margins (and that's fine), the first system seems indented a little too much to me. Maybe you should pull it back to the left some?

[FiveNineSquared]

While I see that you've allowed plenty of space for left-hand margins (and that's fine), the first system seems indented a little too much to me. Maybe you should pull it back to the left some?

Eh... It did look a bit off. Updated so that the indentation is narrower!

[Khunjund]

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, and maybe Libera would disagree with me, but I can't say I'm too fond of your character indication. "Loud" isn't a character; it's a dynamic, and you already have that covered with the "fortissimo" in between the staves (it's a little mispositioned, by the way). "Intense" is OK, but it feels incomplete to me, because it doesn't convey a specific emotion, etc.: it doesn't say whether the piece is joyful, sorrowful, serious, wrathful, etc.—any one of these could be "intense", despite implying very different characters.

The "blaring brass" indication I think could be argued, but personally, since the arrangement is for solo piano, I'd prefer using pianistic expressions—in this case, the indication "molto marcato" could be used to signify essentially the same thing, but in a much more usual manner. (Also, I do believe the formatting guidelines require you to specify a metronome marking beside your character indication.)

Wikipedia lists Hideki Sakamoto as the sole composer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so I'd be tempted to just go with that, but you'd probably like the opinion of an updater on that matter. Personally, I wouldn't credit Bandai Namco.

For measures 4–7, I what I hear sounds more like this (with the Eb, D and C bass notes an octave lower, but compromises have to be made):

Spoiler

[close]

You can play around with this a bit, but I recommend not removing notes in measures 6 and 7, because you have a crescendo written, and playing fewer notes per chord undermines that.

For measures 9–14, I find your texture very thin despite the frequent fortissimos, etc. I suggest doubling the bass in octaves and filling out the right hand chords more (those that come after the sixteenth notes). I think it'd be especially important to have an A in the chord in measure 11, because I heard it as a C# minor chord when listening to your arrangement, when it's an A major chord in the original.

For measures 19–21, I recommend having the left hand play fifths instead of octaves, because this will give you a richer sound and thicker texture. In this case, you could have the left hand playing dyads instead of the right in measures 21–22 for visual continuity. Also, a few note corrections for the right hand: the third eighth of measure 20 is a Db, not an Eb, and the first beat of measure 21 has Eb>F>C, not D>En>Bn.

Finally, your "D.S. al fine" text should be in bold, and it clips the slur a bit. (Also, I think your subtitle is a little too close to your title, and the pedal release marking in measure 7 clips the following pedal mark a bit.)

P.S. After trying to mess around with it a bit, I can say there are some really funky things in your MUS file (e.g. hand-written measure numbers, 77% resize with 0.33 inch systems, etc.), and some of the above formatting issues might be caused by that. If you want, I can fix this for you after you're done with the notes.

[FiveNineSquared]

Updated accordingly -- thanks for the feedback!

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, and maybe Libera would disagree with me, but I can't say I'm too fond of your character indication. "Loud" isn't a character; it's a dynamic, and you already have that covered with the "fortissimo" in between the staves (it's a little mispositioned, by the way). "Intense" is OK, but it feels incomplete to me, because it doesn't convey a specific emotion, etc.: it doesn't say whether the piece is joyful, sorrowful, serious, wrathful, etc.—any one of these could be "intense", despite implying very different characters.

Admittedly I'm not very good at coming up with playing directions. I was going for a reinforcement of the ff dynamic, sorta. Replaced it with a more descriptive "Dramatically, grandly".

The "blaring brass" indication I think could be argued, but personally, since the arrangement is for solo piano, I'd prefer using pianistic expressions—in this case, the indication "molto marcato" could be used to signify essentially the same thing, but in a much more usual manner.

I can see how the direction could come off as a bit weird. Changed it to "ben marcato".

Wikipedia lists Hideki Sakamoto as the sole composer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so I'd be tempted to just go with that, but you'd probably like the opinion of an updater on that matter. Personally, I wouldn't credit Bandai Namco.

So after looking at the in-game credits, Hideki Sakamoto is indeed credited as the only composer, but before that a list of arrangers appears. I'm unsure if this means the "arrangement supervisor" Rio Hamamoto should be credited or not, since I'm a bit unsure how the piece was created. For now since I'm going off the final arrangement which both of them took part in, I suppose I can only credit Rio Hamamoto and Hideki Sakamoto confidently.

For measures 4–7, I what I hear sounds more like this (with the Eb, D and C bass notes an octave lower, but compromises have to be made)...
You can play around with this a bit, but I recommend not removing notes in measures 6 and 7, because you have a crescendo written, and playing fewer notes per chord undermines that.

For measures 9–14, I find your texture very thin despite the frequent fortissimos, etc. I suggest doubling the bass in octaves and filling out the right hand chords more (those that come after the sixteenth notes). I think it'd be especially important to have an A in the chord in measure 11, because I heard it as a C# minor chord when listening to your arrangement, when it's an A major chord in the original.

For measures 19–21, I recommend having the left hand play fifths instead of octaves, because this will give you a richer sound and thicker texture. In this case, you could have the left hand playing dyads instead of the right in measures 21–22 for visual continuity. Also, a few note corrections for the right hand: the third eighth of measure 20 is a Db, not an Eb, and the first beat of measure 21 has Eb>F>C, not D>En>Bn.

I followed most of your advice here, but I changed your suggestion for m4-7 a bit to emphasise the melody more. I'm not sure if it works well though.

...Also, I do believe the formatting guidelines require you to specify a metronome marking beside your character indication.

Finally, your "D.S. al fine" text should be in bold, and it clips the slur a bit. (Also, I think your subtitle is a little too close to your title, and the pedal release marking in measure 7 clips the following pedal mark a bit.)

P.S. After trying to mess around with it a bit, I can say there are some really funky things in your MUS file (e.g. hand-written measure numbers, 77% resize with 0.33 inch systems, etc.), and some of the above formatting issues might be caused by that. If you want, I can fix this for you after you're done with the notes.

I'm pretty sure the mus file is funky because of FiNaLe NoTePaD 2o12
- The tempo marking (1/4.=90) should be on the first note but when I move it out of the way of the playing direction the anchor note shifts too
- I can't edit any of the repeat text, because Notepad (the clipping slur is fixed though)
- Moved around the clipping objects -- fixed
- I didn't put the manual measure numbers this time around so anyone who wants to help doesn't need to delete them to add actual measure numbers
- I definitely need help with the formatting on any of my submissions haha
  Sure, you can go ahead and help to fix up the mus file a bit.

[Latios212]

Made the requested edits to the file (as well as fixed the copyright info) - let me know if I missed anything

[FiveNineSquared]

I did some extremely minor tweaking (i.e. i moved some clipping articulations).

[Maelstrom]

A few notes:
1. The DS goes to m2, not the signo
2. I can't hear the 2nd set of trumpet hits in m12 RH (b3-4)
3. M10-11 should look like this:

Spoiler

[close]

[FiveNineSquared]

1. Sorry again, I'm unable to change any of the repeat text with Notepad.
2. The second set is there, albeit very faint in the background (I think played by the strings, not trumpets).
3. Fixed!

[Latios212]

Fixed the playback issue (also moved the expression text in m. 1 away from the barline and bolded the "Fine" text in m. 22)!

[Maelstrom]

It's good

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Latios212.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot