[NES] Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse - "Prologue" by Atcero

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Castlevania
Game: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Title: Prologue
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Atcero

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[Atcero]

Spooky month part 3 electric jamboree

I do need some help with the tempo markings across different time sigs but other than that, hopefully the sheet is good to go :catjam:

[Bloop]

I do need some help with the tempo markings across different time sigs but other than that, hopefully the sheet is good to go :catjam:

I think you can just make it quarter note = 82 (which is what I'm counting), since all time signatures are x/4 time signatures anyway.

As for feedback:
-I think you can put the key signature at the start as Am, since the F# seems to be functioning more as a Dorian #6 sound.
-m5-6: I think you can easily put in the other voices and still have it playable (with the pedal, but that fits in this part I think).
-m10 (and similar places): I think it's safe to say that all Gb's in this sheet from here on can be changed to F#'s, since it's part of a D7 chord (D F# A C): chord clarity takes priority over the chromatic motion.
-m17 and 25: The L.H. plays C on beat 1, and the R.H. plays the An instead. The hand crossing is very doable still, and the R.H. C on beat 1.5 doesn't distract too much from the L.H. melody.
-m21: Is there a reason you crescendo'd to mf here? It still sounds as the same dynamic level as before
-m22: The Gb (which should be F#) in the L.H. can be a half note like in other cases, and maybe you could move the C on beat 3 up an octave still, so it's still holdable during the Eb
-m26: I think you may have mistakenly added an Ab in the L.H. here. I don't hear it in the original at least.
-m29-32: I think you can move the R.H. down an octave and just delete the notes that will clash with the L.H. (so the first 8th in all but m32, in m32 it's the first two 8ths, since I don't hear them in the original)
-m33-36: The L.H. repeated bass pattern and arpeggio don't sound great together: I'd suggest either leaving it as just the repeated bass pattern, or just an arpeggio.
-m36: The quarter rest in the R.H. is touching the note, so you could move it down two ticks, as well as the 8th rest after it so they're on the same height.
-m37: Maybe you could use a Bb as the second voice in beat 1.5 instead of D, since it's there in the original too.
-m43: I think you can do some more stuff with the second voice here too:
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-m44-45: There's a Cb held below the R.H., instead of the Ab you have in the L.H.
-m45: I'm not sure the glissando in the L.H. really works that well: both black key or white key glissandos sound pretty out of key. Enharmonically the C#'s should be Db's, and then you could do three quick grace notes Cb-Ab-F down to the low Db

[Atcero]

Got that updated! I did do a few things tho

-m21: Is there a reason you crescendo'd to mf here? It still sounds as the same dynamic level as before

This was just a pianistic choice, can be changed but I personally like the sound cause it builds up into the melody

-m33-36: The L.H. repeated bass pattern and arpeggio don't sound great together: I'd suggest either leaving it as just the repeated bass pattern, or just an arpeggio.

I kept some of the bass in this with the arpeggio but did mainly arpeggio, let me know if it sounds fine!

[Bloop]

This was just a pianistic choice, can be changed but I personally like the sound cause it builds up into the melody

That works yeah! The sound wave change also has some more impact than I was giving it credit at first.

I kept some of the bass in this with the arpeggio but did mainly arpeggio, let me know if it sounds fine!

The dyads at the start of the bars were actually the main reason I suggested to change it into either arpeggio or repeated bass line, because those don't sound great in such a low register and distract from the actual bass note, making the chords sound different than what they should be. You could do something like this instead, based on what you did now:

Spoiler

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[close]

Some other stuff that popped up/hasn't been changed yet:
-m6: Not sure what happened here enharmonically, but all sharps should be flats (Dbmaj7 chord)
-m12: There's a note missing at the start of this bar, probably an accident :p
-m14: L.H. Gb should be an F# too
-m22: The L.H. F# here should be a Gb nah just kidding, but it should be a half note
-m32: Just thought of this now, but you could consider removing the R.H. note in beat 3.5, placing the two 16ths of the L.H. in the R.H., and moving the L.H. G down an octave. This saves both hands having to do a quick bigger-than-octave leap up to beat 3.5 and back down to m33.
-m36: The 8th rest on beat 2 should be moved down a bit so it's on the same height as the quarter rest before it (so two ticks down)
-m44: You could move the Cb in the L.H. to the R.H. instead as a second layer, so it can be held into m45 too.
-m44-45: The C#'s in the L.H. should still be Db's, the rhythm of the L.H. might look better as half note tied to 8th + 8th with the grace notes under the beam, and the grace notes should be 16ths (grace notes are only 8ths if there's one grace note, if there are more they should be 16ths)
tl;dr for m44-45:
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[Atcero]

Got that all updated, thank ya!

For this

m32: Just thought of this now, but you could consider removing the R.H. note in beat 3.5, placing the two 16ths of the L.H. in the R.H., and moving the L.H. G down an octave. This saves both hands having to do a quick bigger-than-octave leap up to beat 3.5 and back down to m33.

I kept the RH G but bumped it down an octave, and then kept the LH high G cause then itll just be a 7th to the next note in the next measure.

[Bloop]

Just a couple more tiny things!
-The staccatos are very shy and hide behind their notes :p If it's like that in your sheet as well, a ctrl+A and backspace should reset their positions.
-The F in the R.H. at the end of m6 is also a bit shy for some reason. Shouldn't the L.H. note be a dotted half as well btw?
-m33 and 34 R.H. are rhythmically the same, so they should be written the same too. You can choose which of the two you like more ^^
-m44: Last thing about this measure was this part:

and the grace notes should be 16ths (grace notes are only 8ths if there's one grace note, if there are more they should be 16ths)

Everything else looks good!

[Atcero]

Finally got it all updated, thanks so much!

-The staccatos are very shy and hide behind their notes :p If it's like that in your sheet as well, a ctrl+A and backspace should reset their positions.

Also yes I have to do this every time with any of my sheets that have articulations sadly :cri: it never saves it in the mus for me.

[Bloop]

I think I missed this all previous times, but the Gb in m10 beat 3.5 should be an F# too. I'll approve now though, since everything else is good!

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[Libera]

There's still a bunch of things Bloop mentioned that haven't been fixed.  Maybe the wrong file is currently up?  I'd have another look and check that this is definitely the right file, but I'll point out stuff anyway.

-What Bloop said about bar 10 above.
-Beat 1 of bar 12 should be a Bn, not a Bb.
-Beat 1 of bars 17/25 should be an An, not an Ab.
-Extra Ab in the left hand of bar 26 that is surely an accident.

Some other things:

-I think there's a bunch of places where courtesy accidentals would be useful here, like beat 1 of bar 16 RH, beat 1 of bar 26 RH (when the An is added in bar 25), and beat 1 of bar 32 LH.
-The a tempo in bar 9 looks a bit tight with the beam from the sixteenths, so just move it up a little bit.
-In general I think the cresc. hairpins should follow through to the end of the barline a bit more.  They stop a little early at the moment.
-I'd recommend removing the G in the RH on beat 3.5 of bar 32 because it obscures the melody pretty heavily there.  It will be almost impossible to not hear that as G -> F rather than the Eb -> F which is actually the melody in the original, and I don't think the G on the top adds that much anyway.
-Have you considered moving one of the composers from the second line to the third and then moving the composition by down to kill a line?  I think the hanging 'composition by' looks a little weird at the moment and it's not that important to keep the space to the left of the info clear.

[Atcero]

Got that all updated, thank you!

[Libera]

Just double checking the pdf for articulations since they're all off when I view the musx and noticed the staccato of beat 1 of bar 16 is on the wrong side.

Otherwise I think everything looks good and will accept when that's fixed!

[Atcero]

Got that hopefully all fixed up for ya, thank you!

[Libera]

Great, will accept.

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Libera.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot