[DELETED] [NDS] Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - "Jail of Jewel" by Atcero

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Castlevania
Game: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Console: Nintendo DS
Title: Jail of Jewel
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Atcero

[Atcero]

OG Song:

[Latios212]

Yay! Submission!

This looks pretty solid overall, good job. (Great song, too.) Don't have the time at the moment to go through the entire thing, but here are some comments based on what I've looked at so far:
- This piece should be written with a blank key signature - A minor. I think Notepad doesn't allow you to change the keysig so here's a file with that
- Watch the octave register you have your right hand in. Sometimes it's higher or lower than you have written. For instance, the right hand of the first few measures should be an octave down.
- Just curious, what's the idea behind the pedaling only during the second half of each measure in certain sections? I don't immediately hear anything in the original that suggests that kind of change in sound.
- Be mindful of your note durations. For example at the beginning the right hand notes are both rather light/short. You might want to consider putting a staccato on the quarter notes. Measure 19 would be cleaner using an eighth rest instead of 16th note+16th rest.
- Dynamics - you can use crescendos in the beginning too! In the other places where you have cresc./dim. written with a dotted line, you can simply use a hairpin cresc/dim instead.
- Measure 7 still has the D# in the second chord.

Let me know if you need help with any of the above! I will continue checking more later.

[Atcero]

I'll get some of that changed, Thank you! The pedaling just happened on export, Notepad didn't like Musescore having pedaling the whole way through so it yeeted it out sadly.

Also I am confused on what you mean by the D# in measure 7.

[Latios212]

No problem!

Sorry, about measure 7, I meant that the second chord should have a D# in it, similar to the ones in previous measures

[Atcero]

Ok I cleaned up the pedals and the dynamics are centered. Everything for the submission is currently updated

[Latios212]

More feedback! Sorry this is a lot to go through at once, if you don't mind I'm going to continue to give you feedback for certain parts/sections at a time.
- Intro - beat 2 should be B in the left hand, not C. That pattern continues throughout the section, with the beat 2 note being a second interval above the first note, instead of a third interval.
- I think measure 15 beat 2 plays F in the bass as well
- Include more of the bass in m. 16?
- The above comments also apply to m. 23-24
- Measures 25-40 would make more sense in F# minor (three sharps) (I can help you with this if you need)
- Bass moves down to D in m. 29-30 and E in m. 31-32 (same pattern)
- Check the bass again in m. 37-40. Aside from pitch correctness, one thing to think about is how low the bass is getting, and how it jumps up a huge amount from measure 40-41.
- Still with the pedals - it seems to me they're arbitrarily in some places and not others. I wouldn't say they're really necessary throughout the sheet
- Same comment as above with using hairpin dynamic changes instead of dotted lines, for the rest of the sheet.

[Atcero]

Ill get that cleaned up and updated, thank you! May be a few days since summer got busy

[Atcero]

I believe I have it all updated. With the left hand in m. 41-48, I went with the strings rather than the bass as to me those are much more prominent. I dropped them an octave and it still sounds fine to me at least, hopefully they work otherwise I can change them to the bass.

[Latios212]

Thanks, and sorry again for the wait >< I'll get through the rest of the notes now, and then later we can probably finish up the aesthetics and polishing the arrangement itself. Here goes!
- Subsequent page titles are accidentally pluralized
- Is there a reason m. 25+ is raised an octave from the original?
- m. 27 RH beat 2 - I think the lower note in the dyad should go up to F# instead of staying at C#
- Check the harmonies in m. 29 - it sounds like there are consistent parallel thirds here except for the first and last dyads. Something like this...
You cannot view this attachment.
Similarly check m. 31 - those sound like mostly thirds as well aside from the B-E fourth at the end - and take a look at 35-36 as well. (m. 37-40 look good!)
- The chords in m. 41-44 sound like major triads I think... C major, B major, C major, D major. Same for m. 45-48 except for the last one - in order sounds like Eb, D, Eb, F, G, A, and then for the last one only the top note drops by a half step.
- F# in m. 57 should be natural
- F# in m. 62 should be an E
- RH in m. 65 should match m. 57
- F# in m. 68 should be G
- m. 69 sounds like it should be parallel sixths (B and C on the bottom). It also sounds like beat 3 is re-struck.
- For m. 71 I'm hearing something different - the D and C being the melody on top of D minor and A minor triads respectively.
- The last four RH notes of m. 74 sound like Eb-Bb-F-Bb
- Check the bass in m. 38-40, I don't think it's droning the same note repeatedly
- m. 49 bass: beat 2.5 should be G, beat 4.5 should be F. m. 50 beat 3 should be G. Same for m. 51-54
- Last three bass notes of m. 55 are all A
- m. 71-72 should have the same bass pattern as in the beginning
- m. 74/76/79 should have E flats in the bass instead of E's. D#s should be respelled as Fb in the right hand
- I'll check the spellings of the last couple measures later...
- The last measure (81) should be a 2/4 measure. There are a few more 4/4 measures after that before the song loops back to the repeat point you have in m. 9.

Let me know if you need help with any of the above In particular if you need to listen closely to check some of these harmonies/bass notes try something like this if you haven't already!

[Atcero]

So for some of the bass I actually have it modeled after the strings that play along with the bass guitar. It sounds better to my ear personally than having the actual bass that does the 2nd then 3rd intervals. I can change it to all the bass still but I personally think the strings sound better and am not sure if that would be accepted.

[Latios212]

Which parts are you referring to?

[Atcero]

So instead of this:


it would be like this for the parts that have strings:

[Latios212]

Hmm I see where you're coming from, it does seem to make sense on piano but the original is pretty explicitly doing that.

I'll have someone else weigh in on this one

[mastersuperfan]

I actually couldn't even tell for sure if the bass was going up a second or a third on beat 2.5 until I raised the track one octave up. I think either way is perfectly valid. Writing the original bass is more true to the original, but I definitely see the merit to Atcero's way of writing it, since I think the original bass pattern (going up a second on beat 2.5) is a little bit more awkward on piano.