[3DS] Fire Emblem Fates - "Desire Below" by Libera

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Fire Emblem
Game: Fire Emblem Fates
Console: Nintendo 3DS
Title: Desire Below
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Libera

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[Libera]

I'm very sorry to say that I can't find a non-extended version of this piece anywhere at all on youtube after my usual channel got shut down.  If someone does find one, please let me know!

Latios had already given me some feedback on this that I hadn't yet responded to, so I'm just going to post that here.

Haha what a start off to the year, great song!

I do have some thoughts about the intro, to start.
- I think each measure would be better halved
- Regarding the time signature, I feel like a compound time signature would be in order to eliminate all the 6s. Either that or simply hiding all the 6s since that's the norm here. I played around with 12/16 but 6/8 may work as well.
- Just sketching for now, but the voices get a bit intertwined as you wrote them and I envision something like this to isolate the melody:

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There were a lot of factors going into how I originally notated this section, and I was well aware at the time that the voices were getting muddled.  That being said, after reading what you had to say I decided to try and see if I could come up with something better.  Here's what I did:
-I really do feel like this in 4/4, with the measures exactly as I've written them.  The overall phrasing makes more sense this way, and the later melodies fit 4/4 better than 2/4 in my opinion.
-I've hidden all of the 6s after bar 1.  I'm pretty strongly against using a compound time signature here for reasons that... I'm not sure I can articulate very well.  It also makes my metric modulations really nice later on.
-The big thing I've messed around with is the voices.  My solution is pretty radical, but I've found some precedent for it in the classical literature (Chopin Op 15, No. 2).  To allow me to write the voices similarly to how you did, I've written the top rhythm as a dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver and then I've manually misaligned the semiquaver so that it coincides with the final sextuplet of the left hand voice.

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Unfortunately, I've completely botched the playback and the midi in the process, but I don't really have any experience with fixing that sort of stuff so I've just left it as it is.

Thanks for looking at it, and yes it's a really great piece!

[Latios212]

Tthat adjusted A section looks good to me (thought I still think the measures should be halved) - just need to find a better way to write the tuplets in the first measure so the 6s aren't in weird places.

Will actually run through and check this later, just wanted to comment that for now.

[Latios212]

Looking through the whole thing fully. Neat LH part in m. 51 you wrote in.

Aside from the above:

Major thing is to watch your accidentals when cross-staffing. Cross-staffed parts don't affect the accidentals of the other staff, so you may need to manually show or hide some. Here are the ones I found, check if I missed any:
- m. 4 beat 3, second note, the A needs a visible flat
- m. 5 beat 3, flat should be on the first D, not the second
- m. 5 beat 4, hide the flat on the last C
- m. 5 beat 3, quarter E needs a flat
- m. 7 beats 3-4, same as m. 5
- m. 8 beat 3: hide the second # on the G

Other stuff:
- I don't think you need the explicit pedal markings for the first section. Hiding them would also save some space.
- Give the stems more room in m. 4 beat 2 by adjusting the beam.
- m. 5 - half note should be an F.
- m. 13 beat 1 - I think it'd be best to put in an Ab above the melody to finish off the previous layer in m. 12/before.
- m. 15 last melody note - should be Bb
- m. 18, beat 1 - last note Ab instead?
- Any reason you didn't just leave the last section in 5 sharps?
- Try moving the music away from the header/page numbers a bit, particularly on the last few pages where there's room to mess with.

That's all, not a lot - this sheet's very solid.

[Libera]

Major thing is to watch your accidentals when cross-staffing. Cross-staffed parts don't affect the accidentals of the other staff, so you may need to manually show or hide some. Here are the ones I found, check if I missed any:
- m. 4 beat 3, second note, the A needs a visible flat
- m. 5 beat 3, flat should be on the first D, not the second
- m. 5 beat 4, hide the flat on the last C
- m. 5 beat 3, quarter E needs a flat
- m. 7 beats 3-4, same as m. 5
- m. 8 beat 3: hide the second # on the G

All fixed and I found a few others in bar 8 as well.  This was certainly not something I'd realised so thanks for pointing it out to me, I'll make sure to check properly for this when I'm cross staffing in future.

- Give the stems more room in m. 4 beat 2 by adjusting the beam.
- m. 13 beat 1 - I think it'd be best to put in an Ab above the melody to finish off the previous layer in m. 12/before.
- m. 15 last melody note - should be Bb
- Try moving the music away from the header/page numbers a bit, particularly on the last few pages where there's room to mess with.

All fixed!

- I don't think you need the explicit pedal markings for the first section. Hiding them would also save some space.

I've hidden them bar 10 onwards since it is just the same pattern after that.  I've kept the previous ones in because I think it is worth being explicit here and they don't take up a huge amount of space.

- m. 5 - half note should be an F.

The second layer here follows the string line which definitely starts on Ab.  Perhaps you're listening to a different part?

- m. 18, beat 1 - last note Ab instead?

There is an Ab in the background during this bit, and I can see why you might be inclined to think so because of the patterns in the rest of the bar, but this is a Gb as I've written it.  I triple checked just to make sure.

- Any reason you didn't just leave the last section in 5 sharps?

I could have also written bars 23-70 in 7 flats, but 5 sharps is a lot nicer than 7 flats (particularly bars 67-70 look way nicer written with sharps than flats).  The reason why I swap back to 7 flats at the end is to make the final cadence (across the loop) make sense.  Either I stayed in sharps for the whole time and that last cadence wouldn't make any sense (I guess it'd end up being a B# major chord at the end) or I swapped to flats at some point and I guess I figured that the most sensible place to do that was at the section change at bar 71.

I've also altered the beaming in the first section as we discussed.

That's all, not a lot - this sheet's very solid.

Thanks, and thank you for checking it!

[Latios212]

Haha no problem. It wasn't actually as bad to check as it seems.

- m. 5 - half note should be an F.

The second layer here follows the string line which definitely starts on Ab.  Perhaps you're listening to a different part?

I was following the piano line which ends on the F (from the En in the previous measure). I think it'd be nice to include to resolve that line.

Everything else looks good, except for the tuplets I mentioned a while ago. Best I can come up with to avoid the awkward positionings is to just use a bracket below; I think that should do just fine.

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[Libera]

I was following the piano line which ends on the F (from the En in the previous measure). I think it'd be nice to include to resolve that line.

Sure I can throw in that resolution.

Everything else looks good, except for the tuplets I mentioned a while ago. Best I can come up with to avoid the awkward positionings is to just use a bracket below; I think that should do just fine.

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Done.

Files updated!

[Latios212]

Sweet!

[mastersuperfan]

I always thought of the first section as having a BPM of 172. Perhaps that's just me.

Unfortunately, I've completely botched the playback and the midi in the process, but I don't really have any experience with fixing that sort of stuff so I've just left it as it is.

You could create a hidden set of staves with the actual rhythm notated out and mute the staves that are displayed. The playback caught me off-guard, so—as someone who enjoys listening to MUS/MIDI playbacks from the site—I'd strongly suggest doing this.

Courtesy accidentals would be nice in a lot of places, imo. I wouldn't want the sheet to become oversaturated with them, considering how many accidentals are used in every measure, but I think places like the C on beat 1 of m6 and the Bb on beat 1 of m78 would appreciate them.

I think a simile would suffice in m51-70 after a few measures, especially since you have one in m10. Personally, I'd also use a simile at the very beginning for m1-7 (and then the manually notated pedal changes in m8 should make it clear that the pattern is no longer being followed then).

That's all I've got. Great sheet! I love this track, and you've really done it justice here.

[Libera]

You could create a hidden set of staves with the actual rhythm notated out and mute the staves that are displayed. The playback caught me off-guard, so—as someone who enjoys listening to MUS/MIDI playbacks from the site—I'd strongly suggest doing this.

It was a pain, but I think I've done it.

Courtesy accidentals would be nice in a lot of places, imo. I wouldn't want the sheet to become oversaturated with them, considering how many accidentals are used in every measure, but I think places like the C on beat 1 of m6 and the Bb on beat 1 of m78 would appreciate them.

I think a simile would suffice in m51-70 after a few measures, especially since you have one in m10. Personally, I'd also use a simile at the very beginning for m1-7 (and then the manually notated pedal changes in m8 should make it clear that the pattern is no longer being followed then).

Added in.  I normally don't really like courtesy accidentals, but this piece is confusing enough to warrant them in some places I feel.

That's all I've got. Great sheet! I love this track, and you've really done it justice here.

Thanks!  And thanks for looking at it!

[Maelstrom]

Checked it and it's pretty great. I think the playback is working nicely this time around.

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Maelstrom.

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