[3DS] Pokémon Sun & Pokémon Moon - "Malie City (Night)" by InsigTurtle

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Pokémon
Game: Pokémon Sun & Pokémon Moon
Console: Nintendo 3DS
Title: Malie City (Night)
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: InsigTurtle

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[InsigTurtle]

- "Insig, why don't you stop spreading chords over 2 octaves?"
- "Insig, why don't you stop using extremely dense chord voicing?"

no.

[Khunjund]

Your sixteenth note "triplets" should be grouped as sextuplets, to match how they're beamed.

Regarding the dense chords and wide spreads, it's really not as bad as you'd think when looking at the sheet, but there are a few things I'd like to point out:

• You could put hooks around the bottom notes of the right-hand chords in measures 4 and 6 to show they're meant to be played with the left hand, if you want.
• I'd remove the E and A from the left hand treble clef chords in measure 5, for convenience.
• I'd move the left hand treble clef chords in measure 9 to the upper staff, and the rests should be visible and also in the upper staff (you have room between the right hand first and second layers).
• If you really want to have a dotted half note and note a whole note in measure 10, I think the quarter rest should be visible.
• I feel like the bottom chord of measure 11 should be lighter (maybe just A-E-A), and the full chord should be in the right hand. Also the slur shouldn't start on the first right hand note, because the the koto doesn't play it. Also, the left hand rests could be merged into one layer.
• Ideally, you want multiple fingers to do a single-note tremolo like in measures 13–14, so I'd assign the upper staff to the left hand, raising the D an octave and deleting the lower E (the one in the chord, not the bass note).
• Also for measures 13–14, if I remember my Debussy editions correctly, I think the bass should be a separate layer when the left hand has that type of pattern.
• The chord at the start of measure 16 is awkward. It'd be more natural to play if the left hand had F-C(octave lower than where it is now)-Ab and the right hand had just E-G, or the left hand just F-Ab and the right hand E-C(octave higher)-G.
• The layer 3 quarter rest in measure 19 should be a little closer to the staff.
• The layer 2 sixteenth notehead shouldn't overlap with the layer 1 half note notehead. (Also, there should be just one flat for both layers in front of the upper B flat, but I know this is a problem with incomplete versions of Finale.)
• I think measure 21 would look cleaner is the layer 3 slur went above instead of below.
• Maybe widen the space between the two staves for that system so the mezzo forte in measure 23 isn't so squished.
• I think the right hand layer 1 B in measure 26 is flat, but even if it isn't it should have a courtesy accidental (because of the previous B flat).

Two more things:

• I think you should make full use of the space two pages give you; a couple measures seem pretty cramped as is. You could also make the left margin 0.75 or even 0.5 instead of 1. Personally, I'd do that, then remove the 80% resize you put on the systems, change the staff height to 0.65 cm, lock measures at 3 per system, and tinker from there.
• Seeing your commitment to notating everything with so many layers, I assume you really value each melodic line, but sometimes this isn't the best solution for piano writing. By following the original lines, you kept in a number of consecutive seconds and seconds moving to unison (e.g. beats three and four of measure; beat three of measure 19), which are fine when you have different instruments playing each note, but really obscur the different lines on a piano. In these instances, I'd recommend choosing one of the lines to keep and discarding the rest (or moving them to a differet register so they can fill in the harmony, but your harmony doesn't really need any filling in as is).

[InsigTurtle]

Just replying to a couple of things rn:

In general - some of the rests, I hid so that they wouldn't bother me when I was arranging, but I forgot to show them again.

m.11- Yeah, the chord should have been higher, and I don't really like its sound when it's in the bass, but I put it there to make it easier. I'll mess with that. The slur actually refers to the phrasing of the flute line underneath, not the koto. Tried to imply the koto line was detached by ending the phrasing the note before
m.13-14 I actually use my RH 4-5 for the tremolo, which left my thumb free for that. Since the pedal is being used there, it's also possible to sound the F and E without holding it. The bass notation, I don't quite remember either, though.
m.16 I play the bottom 5 notes with 1-5-1-2-3 with my LH, so I left it like this so other performers could use their own fingerings.
m.20  - have no clue how that second flat got there, will fix
m.21 - honestly, I think it'd be clearer just to use three staves for this section. I don't like the clashing, but having the slur underneath makes it more clear which line it's referring to.

Noticed some alignment is a bit off, will fix that too.

Also, I kept it at 80% resizing since I hate how large everything is when printed out at 100% size, but I can do some tinkering to spread it out a bit more. I rationalized keeping a ton of voices in since even though having 5 voices at the same time isn't quite idiomatic for piano, I shun tradition anyway, and it's still possible to keep the voices clear if you're precise enough with your hands.

That being said, I do realize that most people who play this will probably muddle the voices

EDIT: (Dec 20) updated

[JDMEK5]

Wow, a beautiful sheet. Well done! I've read through everything concerning this sheet so as to understand what has been looked at and considered thus far.

I feel like if I had arranged this, I would've opted to include the ascending 16th runs in the beginning rather than the eighth note voicing you have here (though they are both in the piece, aye). Not saying what you have here is wrong, but I have to ask if there's a reason you chose this instead. I hear the 16th voice much more prominently personally and therefore for me it would be a stronger identifying factor in your arrangement.

Visually, I think the size of everything is manageable here; and, most importantly, everything is clear. I've got a couple aesthetic things to point out (and I think it's likely Latios will have a few more cuz he's just crazy at spotting things):
- Measure 6, LH: The treble clef is clashing with the roll indication. Could you space it out enough just to crisp it up? This also happens to a slightly smaller degree in measure 5 and otherwise throughout the piece; and I think cleaning these would serve well to clean up such an otherwise aesthetically-satisfying score.
- A bit of vertical spacing in the last system on the first page? That pianissimo looks smooshed.
- Measure 6, LH, Beat 4: Quarter rest here can be centered to the middle of the staff as it is by default.

m.13-14 I actually use my RH 4-5 for the tremolo, which left my thumb free for that. Since the pedal is being used there, it's also possible to sound the F and E without holding it. The bass notation, I don't quite remember either, though.

I was gonna say some things about this until I heard the original. The tremolo in this spot actually isn't that fast in the original (which also means I think you could potentially get away with a 16th-note version of the tremolo instead of the 32nd/unmeasured but that's your call; I don't think what you have is wrong) and therefore I think doing two fingers for a tremolo- yes even 4 and 5- will work here. Well played.

Seeing your commitment to notating everything with so many layers, I assume you really value each melodic line, but sometimes this isn't the best solution for piano writing. By following the original lines, you kept in a number of consecutive seconds and seconds moving to unison (e.g. beats three and four of measure; beat three of measure 19), which are fine when you have different instruments playing each note, but really obscur the different lines on a piano. In these instances, I'd recommend choosing one of the lines to keep and discarding the rest (or moving them to a differet register so they can fill in the harmony, but your harmony doesn't really need any filling in as is).

I rationalized keeping a ton of voices in since even though having 5 voices at the same time isn't quite idiomatic for piano, I shun tradition anyway, and it's still possible to keep the voices clear if you're precise enough with your hands.

That being said, I do realize that most people who play this will probably muddle the voices

I'm going to offer my two cents here: you both make valid points. While you may be correct here Insig, I would love to suggest taking each context into account for each instance. As a composer and arranger, personally I am a big fan of small optimizations that immensely help the difficulty of any particular piece or passage. If you can make a pianist's life significantly easier with a small note disappearing, consider it. One frustration I also run into when others are playing my work is that they put plenty of work into learning it, but often not enough to catch all the inflections I had intended in some places. Sometimes optimizing stuff like this can also be worth it if it guarantees that the result will sound the way you want; or that the piece will sound proper right away (rather than after X number of hours drilling the voices to make it sound right). This kind of edit to the score is bitter work, but is another sparkle in making this score the best that it can be. Now, if that actually results in no changes in the end, that's fine. But I wanted to offer this for your consideration.

[InsigTurtle]

That's true, especially when the score is information-dense it becomes a lot harder to interpret the piece. I've made the spacing changes you noted.

For the first bit, it was because I heard that voice as being predominant versus the 16ths, and also I thought it'd give a nice bit of unity by keeping that voice throughout vs. switching between different instruments' parts.

Also, perhaps this might be an extra layer of information that'd be even more difficult to parse during sightreading, but I may add an indication to some of the inner voices that they are optional? I'm finding it pretty difficult to remove some parts and to still conserve that original "feel", so to speak.

[Latios212]

(and I think it's likely Latios will have a few more cuz he's just crazy at spotting things)

Haha I try and leave this until the end when all the voicing and stuff is figured out, but it looks like everything's in great shape right now!

First, the arrangement:
- m. 8 beat 2, hearing a different chord in the top staff going B-E-G bottom to top; did you change that deliberately?
- The F on beat 3 of m. 10 struck me as a bit odd since it's out of place in the pentatonic descent and you're condensing another voice into the same layer whereas you seem to avoid doing so everywhere else. It's fine - I just did a double take.
- m. 19: to alleviate the above voice-crushing issue you could try moving layer 4 back up to its original octave to clear things up a bit without losing any voices:

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Regarding the concerns that D3ath and JDMEK5 had about the voicing, personally I think everything other than that one above works out alright - this song is slow and smooth enough that you can articulate it like you want it. I'm fine with the very thick texture as well, except for the below...
- m. 20: That first beat is raising a number of red flags for me. Is this meant to be rolled like the other places you have very spread-out notes? Are those A's and A flats at the same time (yuck)? What's intended to be the first note of layer 2?
- Also about that measure, the middle layer B flat on beat 3 could be an octave lower.

Then, finally the writing/aesthetics - please make sure everything's done first because I'm going to suggest some manual adjustments:
- Wavy lines - make sure they're centered around the chords and of consistent length (i.e. m. 3 vs 4). Also I'd highly recommend using the note mover tool to give them some more horizontal breathing space in general. Sometimes the 16th/32nd notes hog up some more space than they should and you should feel free to push back a bit by moving the clefs over a nudge in m. 5 and 9 for example.
- Because the first eighth notes in these groups (m. 8 beat 1, m. 9 beats 1 and 3, m. 10 beat 1) are forced to the side, I'd suggest moving the second eighth note left a bit to compensate, especially given there's nothing to align with on the top staff
- Last note in layer 2 of m. 9 misaligned
- There's a notch below the end of m. 11, is that supposed to be for 12?
- Extra accidental on Ab, m. 20 beat 4, as well as m. 22 beat 4.5
- Move the clef over to the right a bit at the end of m. 20

Also quotation marks on the second page title. Despite all the above comments, really nice work with this sheet!

whew

[InsigTurtle]

Just replying to a couple of stuff before I make changes

For m.8, I did do a little bit of revoicing there, just to try and simplify things a bit.
m.19, I'll do that for sure

The notch at the end of m.11 was probably from before I redid the measure distribution, didn't notice that

m.20 I think rolling isn't necessary here, the first beat is supposed to be a C in unison there (D3ath rightfully mentioned that I should change the notehead there) so there shouldn't be any Ab and A at the same time, so I'm just gonna double check to see what you're looking at here before I make changes

[Latios212]

m.20 I think rolling isn't necessary here, the first beat is supposed to be a C in unison there (D3ath rightfully mentioned that I should change the notehead there) so there shouldn't be any Ab and A at the same time, so I'm just gonna double check to see what you're looking at here before I make changes

Oops I must have clicked something in the file by mistake as I was checking it. It looks fine

[InsigTurtle]

gotcha

[Latios212]

sweeeeeeet

[Libera]

Really nice looking sheet!  Just one thing, my favourite piece of feedback:

-http to https.

[Latios212]

Insig's away, so I updated that

[Libera]

Sweet!

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Libera.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot