[PS2] Tales of the Abyss - "Nature's Dungeon" by thatoneguy

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Tales
Game: Tales of the Abyss
Console: PlayStation 2
Title: Nature's Dungeon
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: thatoneguy

[attachment deleted by admin]

[thatoneguy]

As per my usual, a few notes ahead of time:

• Second system on page two needs some fixing. Don't know why it did that.
• As I'm looking at the PDF, I didn't realize that it made page numbers. So spacing/formatting of that may be needed.
• VGMdb says it's "Nature dungeon." I'm going by the in-game listing of "Nature's Dungeon".
• There's quite a bit of ledger-line reading in the base. Usually it's an octave jump or a 2nd up from the prior note, so I chose not to 8vb. If you think it's necessary, I'm okay with that.
• I chose to make this basically look like a "three hands" because the middle part is so essential to the song; it's the only part keeping the song moving.
• 3 more things I should explain with the middle part:

• Measure 54: I changed the middle part to go down, otherwise it's almost impossible to discern the melody in the RH
• Measure 55: The middle line is brought back up as I don't think it hurts the melody as much as m54 would have.
• Some notes although may seem hard, I left in as with a good balance between using RH and LH could make some of it work. I didn't put in RH or LH for performer's preference. However, I'm not sure how realistic this actually is.

• Dynamics are the only thing I'm not sure about. I don't really hear much (if any) of a dynamic change in the piece. Only place I might say has one is RH only @ m34-40 and possibly @ m57-60 RH only.

Thank you once again!

[thatoneguy]

Small update: I went back to play and make sure it was playable, and found some errors I made. So I fixed those and updated the files

[Latios212]

Apologies for the wait, thanks for being patient!

• There's quite a bit of ledger-line reading in the base. Usually it's an octave jump or a 2nd up from the prior note, so I chose not to 8vb. If you think it's necessary, I'm okay with that.
• I chose to make this basically look like a "three hands" because the middle part is so essential to the song; it's the only part keeping the song moving.
• Some notes although may seem hard, I left in as with a good balance between using RH and LH could make some of it work. I didn't put in RH or LH for performer's preference. However, I'm not sure how realistic this actually is.

These are fine. Some of the jumps are rather large but the piece isn't very fast so I think it's fine. And it's pretty easy for the performer to opt to omit a note in the middle part here or there if they need to prioritize the bass.

• Dynamics are the only thing I'm not sure about. I don't really hear much (if any) of a dynamic change in the piece. Only place I might say has one is RH only @ m34-40 and possibly @ m57-60 RH only.

Yep, perfectly fine to just stay at one level throughout.

I actually don't have much to suggest after skimming it formatted the files for ya (and flipped the tie direction in m. 33-34 RH) and here's an approval

[thatoneguy]

No worries! Also, should I put "con pedale" in? I realized I didn't put it in (despite the fact that I played it con pedale when attempting it myself).

[Latios212]

Sure, we can do that. It's not super necessary because the layering already implies it, but I guess clarifying that at the start where there aren't extra sustained layers would be good.

I've added it!

[thatoneguy]

Okay, great. Thanks!

[Static]

Looks pretty great, just a couple things:

• In m44 and 54, when the middle part drops an octave, I think it would sound better if you instead put it in the normal range but removed/doubled notes as necessary. It sounds kind of weird to me when the texture suddenly shifts there. Even if you think the melody would be hard to hear, keep in mind that it's still the upper voice so the ear naturally hears it more prominently. In addition, it's up to the performer to bring out the moving lines and hold back ostinatos. Just my two cents there. Here's an example of how that could look like (this is m54):
  
  Spoiler

  

  [close]
• m57-onward: Since we are in 3/4 time (instead of 6/8), the 2nd dotted 8th note in a measure is more appropriately written as an 8th note tied to a quarter. This is to clearly show where beat 3 falls.

[thatoneguy]

In m44 and 54, when the middle part drops an octave, I think it would sound better if you instead put it in the normal range but removed/doubled notes as necessary. It sounds kind of weird to me when the texture suddenly shifts there. Even if you think the melody would be hard to hear, keep in mind that it's still the upper voice so the ear naturally hears it more prominently. In addition, it's up to the performer to bring out the moving lines and hold back ostinatos. Just my two cents there.

I agree with you on that, especially with m54. For whatever reason, every time I clicked on the parentheses to re-adjust them they went back into place, until I did something else. That'll need to be looked at and fixed if needed. Now with m44, I did something a bit different. I got rid of the F# in the ostinato because the clash distracts from and would overpower the melody in that instance, unless the performer makes the F# like ppp for that one moment. I kept the E in the ostinato because it didn't really affect the melody too much; especially as the D is re-struck immediately after that in the ostinato anyway, which is why I didn't put any parentheses on it.

m57-onward: Since we are in 3/4 time (instead of 6/8), the 2nd dotted 8th note in a measure is more appropriately written as an 8th note tied to a quarter. This is to clearly show where beat 3 falls.

Yeah.....I'm a bit ashamed to say I didn't think about that. Fixed.

[Static]

Yeah.....I'm a bit ashamed to say I didn't think about that. Fixed.

Sorry if I wasn't clear - only the 2nd dotted quarter note in each measure should be written with ties. You can have a dotted quarter note on beat 1.

I've fixed that for you, along with the parentheses. Files have been uploaded, so I'll accept now.

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Static.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot