[PS5] Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart - "Ode to Nefarious" by Fantastic Ike

[Kricketune54]

Sure thing, think everything should be good now.

Late notice on my part, but the same 8va change could also apply for m5. I will not make that conditional to approval though, so feel free to update that before the next feedback 

[Fantastic Ike]

Late notice on my part, but the same 8va change could also apply for m5. I will not make that conditional to approval though, so feel free to update that before the next feedback 

Oh right, took the liberty to do it myself beforehand but forgot to let you know. If you still think it needs to be moved more I can do that too

[Kricketune54]

Yeah, reference the ppt image from my 2nd most previous post should look a little more like that.

[Fantastic Ike]

Sure thing, updated.

[Bloop]

I might need to get back to this for some specific note checking and arrangement suggestions, but I've been kinda putting that off because I haven't been able to get in the right mindspace yet, sorry about that! Here's some stuff mostly about enharmonic spelling though.

-m3: I hear the Bb's on beat 2.75 and the Db's on beat 3
-m4-5: The chord here should be Cbm (Cb - Ebb - Gb), for the same reason as why it's like that in m6.
-m7: The chords in beat 4.25 and 4.75 in the R.H. in its technically correct form would be Bbb-Db-Bbb and Cb-Eb-Cb, but that wouldn't read very nicely. Maybe instead of An-Db-An you could do An-C#-An, and instead of Bn-Eb-Bn you could do Cb-Eb-Cb? That way the chromatic enclosure of the melody (that is, the An and the Cb being a half step below and above the resulting note Bb) still work, but look a bit more recognizable as well.
-m9 and 19: The An's here should be Bbb's for the underlying Gbm chord (Gb - Bbb - Db)
-m15: Either the Bn and Gn in the R.H. on beat 1 and 1.75 should be Cb and Abb, or the L.H. within beat 1 should be En-Bn-En. The chord is Em (E - G - B) or Fbm (Fb - Abb - Cb). I think my preference would go to Em though, as it reads a bit better and it kinda acts as resolving to Fm (although it goes down a half step too). In that case, the Fb in beat 2.75 of the R.H. might work better as an En too, since it resolves up to the Fn. Same in m23
-m20: I don't hear the Fn on beat 2 in the strings, only in the brass. I can hear the strings still holding the Bb from beat 1.
-m21: The An in the R.H. on beat 4 should be a Bbb, chord again is Gbm.
-m27: The An's in the R.H. on beat 1.5 and 2.75 should be Bbb for the above reason too. However, I think you could get away with writing this whole bar in sharps and naturals instead, to get the player warmed up a little for the sharps in the next bar. The chords here don't follow any traditional harmony, so you can use some freedom to write the chords a little more naturally (so F#m, G#m and Am)
-m34: You could add courtesy accidentals to the D# on beat 1, since they come right after a Dn in the previous bar.
-m35: The A# on beat 1.75 should be a Bb (Gm chord, G Bb D), and the Gn on beat 2.75 might work better as a Fx (like how in the Bbm section it was En going to Fn)
-m36-37: Chromatic scales should still follow the accidentals of the key signatures, as using flats when there's already set sharps is a bit redundant. Going from C# down to C#, enharmonic spelling would be C# Cn B Bb A G# Gn F# Fn E D# Dn C#. Like this, you only need to show the naturals (and the flat for the Bb). I suppose some #'s will have have to be appear when the scale restarts halfway through the bar, but it's still easier to read as sharps then too as they're more easily recognized as notes from the tonality (C#m).
-m36: In the R.H., the Cn on beat 4.75 should be a B#.
-m39: There's some more instruments starting in this bar, that play an Am chord and crescendo into m40. Maybe you could do something like this to imitate that:
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-m40: Maybe you could add a staccato to the C#'s here?

I think I explained every enharmonic spelling suggestion, but a lot of it comes from the weird harmony in this piece: there's a lot of minor chords outside of the tonality, that are a bit weird to see in Bb minor especially. If the piece was written in A minor, a lot of these would make more sense, but in Bbm there's a lot of chords that need flats flattened further, which causes a lot of double flats to appear. There are some places where you can take some liberty writing it differently, but unfortunately those aren't always possible without getting it more confusing.

[Fantastic Ike]

It's a doozy but it should all be updated.

[Bloop]

-m9 and 19: The An's here should be Bbb's for the underlying Gbm chord (Gb - Bbb - Db)

Oops sorry, I meant m11 and 19! In m11 and m19, the L.H. An's should be Bbb's too. In m9, the Bbb should be an An again.
Another way to look at this measure btw is to see it as F#m instead, which would make the notes F#, An and C#, but both work.

Now for the actual note checking/arrangement choice part:
-m6: I hear an An in the R.H. on top of the Cbm chord on beat 4.75. You could write this An as Bbb too, so it looks more like a Cbm7 chord.
-m7: In beat 4, I hear the R.H. chords going Ebm-Dm-Fbm. Ebm is Eb, Gb, Bb, Dm is Dn, Fn, An, Fbm is Fb, Abb, Cb: I'll have you choose how to distribute these in the R.H. The top notes you currently have are correct, so those can stay ^^
The new chords sound a little bit weird with your current L.H. though, but I can't really make out what's happening in the lower range. Maybe you could have it play the same notes as the top notes in the R.H. (so Bb, An and Cb)?
-m8: The melody starting in this part sounds a lot deeper and epic in the original than just a single line in the middle of the piano. Maybe you could add octaves on top? Also, you can add parentheses at the Bb's in the L.H. that play the same note as the R.H.
-m21: I hear En on beat 1.75 in the R.H., instead of Bb. The Bb is from the brass part, the En is in the strings.
-m24-26: I personally don't think you necessarily need the 8va in the L.H.: the low F is still fairly readable in context.
-m26: I think you can add an octave below the R.H. notes here too for extra power
-m27: Maybe you could add some more chord tones in the R.H. in the first layer? As long as they don't go below the second layer.
-m28: Maybe instead of having the L.H. pinky play the ostinato, you can move those notes up an octave for the thumb? I think that's a little easier to play, and a bit more consistent as well considering the first part of the song. Also, in the R.H., I hear the A in the second layer on beat 4 already (instead beat 4.5)
-m29: You could delete the low C#, G# and C# in the R.H. beat 1.75-2.75, as that makes this part a little bit easier to play: in this section, you usually have both melodies playing in single notes instead of octaves, so it makes sense to leave out the octave here too I think.
-m30: Is the Dn in the L.H. there to follow the 2nd layer melody? I think it's better to just keep the L.H. on the B, as it's a bit awkward to jump up to the Dn and immediately go back down for the octave.
-m32: Same thing as m28, the Dn in the R.H. should start on beat 4, not beat 4.5
-m33: I hear something like this in the two voices in the R.H.:
You cannot view this attachment.
I think it makes sense to write it out without any octave doublings here too, like in m29. In the L.H., you can keep the L.H. as C#'s too at beat 1.5
-m36: I hear a D# and Fx on beat 4.75 as well in the R.H.
-m37: The three chords at the R.H. on beat 4 should be something similar to m7 beat 4, except modulated to C#m. The chords then would be F#m, E#m, and Gm.
-m36-37: I'm not really sure if I like how that chromatically descending electronic sound is incorporated here: on piano it feels very out of place to play, and it sounds pretty out of place as well. Especially the latter half of m37 is pretty weird to play. Maybe you could just decide to go with arranging the L.H. similarly to m6-7?
-m38: You can add a lower octave C# to the L.H. in beat 1 for more depth.
-m39: Maybe you can add a pedal marking on beat 4 of m38 to the end of this measure, and add some dynamic markings as well to imitate the crescendo? Also, all notes in the R.H. should have their stems flipped downwards.
-m40: This ending chord sounds like it should be a bit deeper: maybe you can add an octave below the R.H., and move the L.H. down an octave as well?

[Fantastic Ike]

-m7: In beat 4, I hear the R.H. chords going Ebm-Dm-Fbm. Ebm is Eb, Gb, Bb, Dm is Dn, Fn, An, Fbm is Fb, Abb, Cb: I'll have you choose how to distribute these in the R.H. The top notes you currently have are correct, so those can stay ^^
The new chords sound a little bit weird with your current L.H. though, but I can't really make out what's happening in the lower range. Maybe you could have it play the same notes as the top notes in the R.H. (so Bb, An and Cb)?

Stacked the RH notes and put the LH in octaves.

-m27: Maybe you could add some more chord tones in the R.H. in the first layer? As long as they don't go below the second layer.

Put it in minor triad voicing, don't think it's much more complex chords than that.

-m36-37: I'm not really sure if I like how that chromatically descending electronic sound is incorporated here: on piano it feels very out of place to play, and it sounds pretty out of place as well. Especially the latter half of m37 is pretty weird to play. Maybe you could just decide to go with arranging the L.H. similarly to m6-7?

Yeah, this got out of hand. I didn't like how it was sounding tbh, lol.

-m39: Maybe you can add a pedal marking on beat 4 of m38 to the end of this measure, and add some dynamic markings as well to imitate the crescendo? Also, all notes in the R.H. should have their stems flipped downwards.

Whoops, had this in my Musescore file but not Finale.

Also took the liberty of changing pedal marking in beginning to match the end.

Think that's everything!

[Bloop]

You still forgot these:

In m11 and m19, the L.H. An's should be Bbb's too.

And forgot/didn't respond to this:

-m39: (...) and add some dynamic markings as well to imitate the crescendo?

-m26: Because of the lower added octave, you can keep this bar in the bass clef and switch to treble clef in m27.
-m27: The parenthesized natural on the lower C on beat 4 isn't necessary to be parenthesized anymore, since it's actually natural-ing the C# from beat 2. The top one technically doesn't need a natural sign, but it might be nice to keep the natural (without parentheses) for clarity. Also, you can move beat 3 to the right a bit, so the sharp of the R.H. D# doesn't clash with the An on beat 2.5
-m29: I probably could've worded this better, but I meant only the bottom notes in beat 1.75-2.75, not the middle notes, so like this:
You cannot view this attachment.

Aside from that, it's all good! Some of these, as well as one or two points from previous feedback, feel a bit sloppy/preventable: if you ever look at feedback and think "i don't know why they're saying this, this looks pretty weird", feel free point it out and we can either explain our reasoning or fix our own mistakes ^^

[Fantastic Ike]

Aside from that, it's all good! Some of these, as well as one or two points from previous feedback, feel a bit sloppy/preventable: if you ever look at feedback and think "i don't know why they're saying this, this looks pretty weird", feel free point it out and we can either explain our reasoning or fix our own mistakes ^^

I'm sorry, and I'll try to do that in the future! The main issue for me is just forgetting. Even after double/triple checking it's a long and arduous process converting from Musescore, so some things that I already did get left in the cracks. Updated.

[Bloop]

-m39: and add some dynamic markings as well to imitate the crescendo?

With this I actually meant a starting dynamic like the mp you have and just a crescendo hairpin :p With "to imitate the crescendo" I meant imitating the volume swell in the original, not leaving out a normal hairpin in favor of multiple dynamic markings. I had this in my original picture as well btw:
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That's officially the last thing though, haha

[Fantastic Ike]

That...makes more sense. Haha

Updated. I know this sheet has been difficult, but glad we're nearing the end it seems

[Bloop]

Not nearing the end, 'cause we're already there! I'm ready to accept now!
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[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Bloop.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot