[MUL] Celeste - "Spirit of Hospitality" by Greybird

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Celeste
Console: Multiplatform
Title: Spirit of Hospitality
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Greybird

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[Greybird]

[Bloop]

Welcome to the submission side of NSM!

-Since this is a pretty strict polyphonic piece with clear separate lines, it's best to keep every line to its own layer in its own octave, even if these go above higher voices. For example, m6 would look like this:
You cannot view this attachment.
I think it should be all playable throughout the sheet as well.
-I don't think you necessarily need the sempre staccato mark at the start, since all voices have the same quick delay as a normal piano tone.
-m13, 21 and 37: F in the R.H. should be an E.
-m18: Once the R.H. on beat 3 E is transposed up an octave, there should be enough space for the F in the L.H. to be transposed up an octave as well.
-m26: Kinda similarly as above, though the F would probably go to the R.H. (I can just play it with the L.H. too, but for some smaller handed individuals it will probably be a bit hard)
-m41-48: The L.H. bottom voice from before isn't fully gone, it's just playing a lot of unisons with the top voice that has moved down an octave. Make sure to include that one too ^^
-m49-52: Usually for our sheets on site, we use repeat signs or D.C./D.S. signs to show where the track loops back to, instead of including a few fade out bars. In this case, a D.C. would suffice, since the piece just loops back to the beginning.

[Greybird]

Thanks for the feedback!  Here's my comments about each of your points

1: "-Since this is a pretty strict...":  This was in my original transcription, but I found having, for instance, the E5 in m6 instead of the E4 interferes with the downward melody (since the second voice is quieter in the recording than the first).  A decent performer could pick the descending line out though.
2: "-I don't think you necessarily...":  I'm worried that not having this would make people hold the dotted quarters and halves for their full length, which is not right for the piece.
3: "-m13, 21 and 37: F in the R.H. should be an E."  This was also in my original transcription -- but D-F-E-A sounded quite crunchy to me (mostly since it's at the beginning of a bar, one of the few places all four voices sound at the same time), and it doesn't resolve to anything, which makes it a little out of place.
4: "-m18: Once the R.H. on beat 3..."/"-m26: Kinda similarly as above, though...":  Yup, will put that back in.
5: "-m41-48: The L.H. bottom voice...":  Also in my original transcription.  When I do keep this voice in, some crunchy things happen: A2/B2 in m44, B2/C3 in m46, and F2/E3 in m47 (not as bad though).  I guess I could include it -- maybe tweak the B2/C3 though?  But I left it out since the piece is tapering off by that point, and keeping a harmonically busy left hand interferes with the two more melody-like voices we have left, which in my opinion weakens the 'tapering off'/'dying away' feeling that should be happening
6: "-m49-52: Usually for our sheets on...":  Huh, I though about it as a simple return of the first voice -- didn't even consider looping.  I will implement this, and keep it in mind for future tracks.

It looks like all of the major changes you suggest are in favor of accuracy over adapting the piece to a piano (whose harmonies can turn out a little crunchier, since it doesn't have the option of having each voice in a separate instrument with its own unique timbre).  I think that the changes I made make the piece 'feel' a bit more like the original than an exact transcription would -- however, I will of course adopt this convention of accuracy if it is what is preferred on this site.

Thanks again for the feedback!  I'll resubmit in a few days (through the edit button on the submissions page I assume), once I get home to my piano and can test these changes out (they're major enough that I want to do more than just hear them digitally).

EDIT:  "Convention of accuracy" isn't really a good term -- after all, some pieces cannot be arranged for one piano with perfect accuracy.  What I'm trying to communicate is that your suggestions seem to prioritize Playability > Transcription Accuracy > Matching 'Feel', whereas for this arrangement I chose to prioritize Playability > Matching 'Feel' > Transcription Accuracy.

[Bloop]

2: "-I don't think you necessarily...":  I'm worried that not having this would make people hold the dotted quarters and halves for their full length, which is not right for the piece.

Couldn't you then write the dotted quarters and half notes as just quarter notes with rests?

3: "-m13, 21 and 37: F in the R.H. should be an E."  This was also in my original transcription -- but D-F-E-A sounded quite crunchy to me (mostly since it's at the beginning of a bar, one of the few places all four voices sound at the same time), and it doesn't resolve to anything, which makes it a little out of place.

I'm personally not against that kinda crunch, but I do have a preference for dissonant stuff that may influence my opinion, haha. However, in the case of m13 and 21, we're just talking about a major 7th F-E being a bit crunchy, which happens in a lot of other places in your sheet as well.

It looks like all of the major changes you suggest are in favor of accuracy over adapting the piece to a piano (whose harmonies can turn out a little crunchier, since it doesn't have the option of having each voice in a separate instrument with its own unique timbre).  I think that the changes I made make the piece 'feel' a bit more like the original than an exact transcription would -- however, I will of course adopt this convention of accuracy if it is what is preferred on this site.

EDIT:  "Convention of accuracy" isn't really a good term -- after all, some pieces cannot be arranged for one piano with perfect accuracy.  What I'm trying to communicate is that your suggestions seem to prioritize Playability > Transcription Accuracy > Matching 'Feel', whereas for this arrangement I chose to prioritize Playability > Matching 'Feel' > Transcription Accuracy.

We generally try to prioritize transcription accuracy a bit more than most online piano arrangements, but we're usually also morphing between that and matching feel. If you ultimately decide to still leave out or octave-transpose some voices, that's fine too, because then we know for sure it was a conscious decision with good reasoning. Though in that case, I'll still stand by switching layers around if the second voice goes above the top voice (like in m7-8), so that a more experienced player can differentiate between the voices.

[Greybird]

Ok I've tried out everything you've suggested (sorry for the long wait), so here we go:

1: (Implemented) Yes, the voices is a good suggesting -- I've changed everything around so that the top two voices are present as in the original.
2: (Not Implemented)  I think the music looks much cleaner without rests, especially since there are two voices in the same staff, with potentially different lengths of rests.
3: (Implemented)  On further playing, this is not *that* crunchy -- should be fine.
4: (Implemented)
5: (Not Implemented)  Ok this is just too crunchy, like I said in my previous post.
6: (Implemented)

Note:
There are 'pedal hook symbols' used to show when the r.h. plays the l.h. voice.  These occur in the following places:
m. 29 / 37 on beat 3
m. 26 / 34 on beat 3
m. 27 beat 3 to m. 28 beat 1,  similar for m. 31, 35, 39
I am resubmitting without these hooks, since I haven't found a way to add them in Finale Notepad, and they do not transfer in the MusicXML file from MuseScore.  Once a final version has been arrived on, someone with full Finale can add them back again.

[Bloop]

I am resubmitting without these hooks, since I haven't found a way to add them in Finale Notepad, and they do not transfer in the MusicXML file from MuseScore.  Once a final version has been arrived on, someone with full Finale can add them back again.

Have you tried copying them over from the .mus of your previous version? That should work as well, and saves us some time trying to add them in.

Also, I think a simple "D.C." would suffice as repeat (so without the "al Fine" and the "Fine" in m4): most of our sheets either just use a D.C., D.S. or repeat bar to show the repeat, or add an optional ending if they wish. As it stands, it wouldn't make sense to have the player end at the end of m4 (also not with fade out, as that's not an effect most pianists can do that effectively on piano)

[Greybird]

I can't figure out how to copy the symbols themselves....  I can copy notes/bars that have the symbols attached, but when I paste them into the new version of the score, page breaks stop working, so the formatting goes weird.
If you know a way to copy the symbols directly or add page breaks back in, let me know!

[Bloop]

Ah yeah, that does seem to happen unfortunately, I don't think there's an easy solution to that then. For a next time, you could try to edit the mus file directly, so you won't have to re-export from musescore, unless there are fixes needed in formatting themselves (in which case, you could also leave that to someone with full finale, as those are usually easier to do than these pedal hooks).

Did you have an opinion on the D.C. thing I mentioned as well? If you agree, you can use this .mus to update the files, as it has the hooks added and D.C. changed ^^ Either way, I'll approve for now so another updater can take a look.

[Greybird]

I'll keep the .mus file editing in mind for next time -- so long as I can figure out how to do things....

As for the D.C. thing, I notice other Celeste sheets do a similar thing if they repeat and fade out (one has a little note saying "OST ends here on second repeat"), so your suggestion is fine.  I would like to use the file you provided, but I can't figure out how to delete the "Fine" marking (it doesn't seem to be select-able under any of the editing categories).

[Bloop]

Oh strange, I thought I had deleted that. Anyway, you should be able to delete it with the Repeat Tool (the one with the repeat sign), or you can re-download the file in my previous post, which doesn't have the Fine now.

[Greybird]

Successfully deleted!  I guess it is a kind of repeat -- thanks for that tip.
Submission updated.

[Libera]

This pretty much looks fine but the lack of including the piano really starts to show towards the end of the piece when most of the voices have dropped out.  Did you consider trying to include it?  Particularly the rhythm on beat 3 of bar 48 (and others like it) is missing.

[Greybird]

Including the entire piano line an octave above the RH is infeasible.  It is possible to add parts of it, but this sounds rather discontinuous (to my ears).
Including it on the same octave is fine from a play-ability perspective, but loses the distinctiveness it has in the original, since it's so close to the RH (doubling in a lot of cases).
However, the piano flourish you mention would be easy to add to m 40 and 48 -- and it is the only distinct bit of the piano line: the rest is doubling.  Would this be enough interest for the ending part, or should I try to fit in more elsewhere?

[Libera]

I wouldn't say it is unfeasible.  Maybe unfeasible verbatim, but that is where arranging comes in.  Anyway, I do think it would be fine just to add in the bits in 40/48, though I admit that I don't follow your picture.  It sounds like it should just play the A -> B -> G# on beats 3-4.