[PC] Hollow Knight - "White Palace" by PlayfulPiano

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Hollow Knight
Console: PC
Title: White Palace
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: PlayfulPiano

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[PlayfulPiano]

after finishing the comforting memories arrangement combined with someone messaging me on twitter about my arrangements, it might've just given me a spark of motivation to write up an entire white palace arrangement I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Surprisingly nobody did this yet on ninsheetmusic. I've seen a few arrangements done on other platforms (main ones were Stoh on musescore and SMB on youtube), but Stoh's had some inaccuracies/legibility issues from what I remember & SMB doesn't publicize their sheets for free. So I wanted to take a stab at writing one out with a clearer legibility and making is as accurate as possible while keeping it playable with piano.

There are definitely some octave jumps involved so it's for sure a difficult piece, but all the finger ranges *should* be possible otherwise.

[TorenChuchi]

Finally. it is so good to see that Hollow knight has made a small return in the sheet music area. I hope that Silksong reignites it's sheet music production

[Bloop]

-m5 and 9: Maybe you could tie the notes in beat 1 to beat 7 too? Rests halfway through a measure seem a bit weird in pieces with pedal, because it might suggest the pedal should be lifted to mute the note.
-m16: I think I can slightly hear the D from the harp that you'd expect on beat 12, but it's very faint.
-m25: The L.H. note on beat 1 will most likely be rolled by most pianists: the Eb to G stretch is pretty wide, and having the 2nd finger play another Eb will be pretty hard then too.
-m29-44: Maybe you could move the strings countermelody to a different layer (when it isn't already in one) and move some notes up an octave to have them resolve more (for example: the C in m32 is the resolution of the D in m31. Having it resolve down an octave makes both notes sound isolated)
-m31: If you decide to keep the countermelody in its current layer, the R.H. note on beat 1 should have its stem flipped.
-m45-52: Maybe you could change the rhythm of the R.H. lower voice to all quarter notes, since it's a pretty clear polyrhythm for this whole section.
-m50 and 52: The dots next to the lower two notes in the L.H. touch each other: one of them should be moved up to the next staff space.
-m52: I hear D and Bn in the R.H. second voice on beats 3 and 5 (instead of C and Bb), and I hear the R.H. eightuplet more like a septuplet C-D-Eb-F-D-Eb-F, or as an eightuplet C-D-Eb-F-D-Eb-F-G tying over to m53.
-m60: The English Horn plays something else than the L.H. in this bar (from beat 2, C-Eb-C-Eb-F)
-m71: The harp actually plays C and Eb on beats 5 and 6 (instead of Eb and F), but you do miss out on the F on beat 4 because of that. Not sure what's best :p
-m81-88: Same thing here as in m29-44 about separating the voices in different layers.
-Does the piece repeat in-game too? If possible, we like to at least include a repeat mark/D.S./D.C. so it's clear where the piece repeats too, and denote an optional ending after that.
-As for the ending, maybe moving the R.H. down an octave and adding an Eb and G in-between sounds a bit better? In the original, only the strings and horn Bn resolve to C, but not the harp. Adding the Eb and G also gives some more harmonic resolution rather than just ending on all C's.

[PlayfulPiano]

-m5 and 9: Maybe you could tie the notes in beat 1 to beat 7 too? Rests halfway through a measure seem a bit weird in pieces with pedal, because it might suggest the pedal should be lifted to mute the note.
-m16: I think I can slightly hear the D from the harp that you'd expect on beat 12, but it's very faint.
-m25: The L.H. note on beat 1 will most likely be rolled by most pianists: the Eb to G stretch is pretty wide, and having the 2nd finger play another Eb will be pretty hard then too.
-m29-44: Maybe you could move the strings countermelody to a different layer (when it isn't already in one) and move some notes up an octave to have them resolve more (for example: the C in m32 is the resolution of the D in m31. Having it resolve down an octave makes both notes sound isolated)
-m31: If you decide to keep the countermelody in its current layer, the R.H. note on beat 1 should have its stem flipped.
-m45-52: Maybe you could change the rhythm of the R.H. lower voice to all quarter notes, since it's a pretty clear polyrhythm for this whole section.
-m50 and 52: The dots next to the lower two notes in the L.H. touch each other: one of them should be moved up to the next staff space.
-m52: I hear D and Bn in the R.H. second voice on beats 3 and 5 (instead of C and Bb), and I hear the R.H. eightuplet more like a septuplet C-D-Eb-F-D-Eb-F, or as an eightuplet C-D-Eb-F-D-Eb-F-G tying over to m53.
-m60: The English Horn plays something else than the L.H. in this bar (from beat 2, C-Eb-C-Eb-F)
-m71: The harp actually plays C and Eb on beats 5 and 6 (instead of Eb and F), but you do miss out on the F on beat 4 because of that. Not sure what's best :p
-m81-88: Same thing here as in m29-44 about separating the voices in different layers.
-Does the piece repeat in-game too? If possible, we like to at least include a repeat mark/D.S./D.C. so it's clear where the piece repeats too, and denote an optional ending after that.
-As for the ending, maybe moving the R.H. down an octave and adding an Eb and G in-between sounds a bit better? In the original, only the strings and horn Bn resolve to C, but not the harp. Adding the Eb and G also gives some more harmonic resolution rather than just ending on all C's.

-fixed those two, but I swapped layers for m9 since otherwise the tie was interfering with the other layer.
-I actually don't hear the D at all, even with higher volume and it slowed. It probably has that mental autocompletion that actually doesn't happen due to the ostinato.
-Yeah I did some initial editing on some of these chords due to the concern about wide chord gaps. That's one of like 2 or 3 I left in that I thought could probably be played fine or at least with a roll. But I'll add a chord roll articulation to it.
-I actually had it as a secondary layer but removed it whenever it was without any rhythm differences to the primary layer so it was more legible, but I can go revert that. I'm assuming you would otherwise recommend the countermelody to be an octave higher then? (i.e. instead of the C4 range it's the C5 range) If so, then I'll try doing that for cases which already were in the C5 range. Hopefully that's fine even if it's less consistent with the countermelody, but let me know if it's not. Also at measure 37 do you happen to hear any of the countermelody in b1-6? I don't think there is but it's hard to tell on playback.
-N/A
-Ok cool, wasn't sure if I was allowed to do that or not.
-I tried fixing up the dots but they're always finicky on finale. Let me know if you have any specific positions you'd suggest for them.
-Fixed both, good catch. The eightuplet was definitely annoying to figure out.
-Added this in with the R.H. with b6 having a courtesy note for the overlap.
-I put in the notes for b1 and b4 for the left hand since they technically fit within the octave range, but let me know if you think this might be too difficult to perform.
-Done, but I also adjusted m95-m96 so the horn's octave stays consistent by modifying the harp a small bit.
-It does but I also am unsure how I can fit that in without adding in a 10th page (as it is it took a bit to squish it down to 9 pages while staying legible). Also it in itself is a very long track one time through, and with the OST version there is a way to interpret the final measure as the ending on non-loop cases.
-Done, I did add in the Eb and G across both hands though.

Updated.

[Bloop]

-I tried fixing up the dots but they're always finicky on finale. Let me know if you have any specific positions you'd suggest for them.

I think it'll look a bit better if they're in a similar horizontal positioning as the ones on the whole notes, but vertically it's good ^^

-It does but I also am unsure how I can fit that in without adding in a 10th page (as it is it took a bit to squish it down to 9 pages while staying legible). Also it in itself is a very long track one time through, and with the OST version there is a way to interpret the final measure as the ending on non-loop cases.

Good point yeah, you could also choose to fully embrace the 10th page and do 5 measures per page, which will end up with about 4 on the new 10th page. It won't matter too much for page turns either. But yeah, since it's such a long piece, there probably won't be too much people wanting to repeat back to the start.

Everything else looks good! Just one tiny thing left over:
-m52: In the R.H., the C in beat 5 should be a Bn

[PlayfulPiano]

I think it'll look a bit better if they're in a similar horizontal positioning as the ones on the whole notes, but vertically it's good ^^
Good point yeah, you could also choose to fully embrace the 10th page and do 5 measures per page, which will end up with about 4 on the new 10th page. It won't matter too much for page turns either. But yeah, since it's such a long piece, there probably won't be too much people wanting to repeat back to the start.

Everything else looks good! Just one tiny thing left over:
-m52: In the R.H., the C in beat 5 should be a Bn

Fixed the dots and the note, but kept the ending as is. Updated.

[PlayfulPiano]

One other thing I forgot to mention is that I will be away for the rest of this week on vacation. I should be back by Saturday or Friday.

[Bloop]

Alrighty, then I'll approve!
You cannot view this attachment.

[PlayfulPiano]

Alright I'm back home.

[PlayfulPiano]

Want to mention quickly as I just remembered, but over break I noticed two measures which I caught some missing notes (m79 and m87 right hand woodwinds I think?), so I added those in. Not 100% sure if those new notes I added are 100% accurate by ear though.

Edit: Also decided to bring up the octave for the m29-m44 section that weren't already up. Noticed while playing that D4/D5/Eb5 is really difficult to play, especially on pace.

[Kricketune54]

Sorry for a bit of a wait on this, but it seems to be in pretty good shape atm

- m7 hearing C still with the the F in the RH, actually sounds like how m9-10 are written
- m24 RH actually hearing the C continue under the high D
- m47 RH that lower layer progression is Eb-D-C-Ab-G-F, and for m48 it's Eb-D-C-Bb-Ab-G, and for m49 it's Eb-D-C-Ab-G-F
- m48 RH top layer is slightly different:

Spoiler

[close]

- m50 hearing the harp do something different for the lower RH layer:

Spoiler

[close]

is this how you had it before Bloop's feedback for this measure? If so I suppose good to keep as is

- m83 RH could have the lower of the A's on beat 2 tie into beats 3-4 and into m84 as a whole note
- m89 RH you could add an F half note and a Bb half note on beat 3 tying into m90 (Bb in between the F's) cause as is seems a bit... hollow
   - m91-92 same as above for beat 3 but with Ab

[PlayfulPiano]

Sorry for a bit of a wait on this, but it seems to be in pretty good shape atm

- m7 hearing C still with the the F in the RH, actually sounds like how m9-10 are written
- m24 RH actually hearing the C continue under the high D
- m47 RH that lower layer progression is Eb-D-C-Ab-G-F, and for m48 it's Eb-D-C-Bb-Ab-G, and for m49 it's Eb-D-C-Ab-G-F
- m48 RH top layer is slightly different:

Spoiler

[close]

- m50 hearing the harp do something different for the lower RH layer:

Spoiler

[close]

is this how you had it before Bloop's feedback for this measure? If so I suppose good to keep as is

- m83 RH could have the lower of the A's on beat 2 tie into beats 3-4 and into m84 as a whole note
- m89 RH you could add an F half note and a Bb half note on beat 3 tying into m90 (Bb in between the F's) cause as is seems a bit... hollow
   - m91-92 same as above for beat 3 but with Ab

-I can't really hear it, but I'll take your word for it.
-This I actually don't hear the C under the D. Sounds like a clear note change without dissonance.
-Huh, I hear the differences now. Never caught that before. Good catch.
-I'll trust you here for this change as well.
-Changed here, but I do hear a C on the third quarter of m50. Also how I had it before was just the same as the first 6 measures with it changed at the end, so no.

Also after changing it, god damn does it sound so good.

-Not sure why I would have that? Doesn't seem to be necessary nor do I really hear it on playback either. Also doesn't really convey anything special to the performer all things considered.
-I'll include this because I do hear some strings that I'm not 100% sure what the notes are, but the added sound should probably help yeah.
-Same as the above but I'll exclude the F for b1 because I don't think a full proper chord structure sounds right to include for this score in general.

Updated.

[Kricketune54]

-This I actually don't hear the C under the D. Sounds like a clear note change without dissonance.

It's in there, a bit faint but it's there

-Changed here, but I do hear a C on the third quarter of m50. Also how I had it before was just the same as the first 6 measures with it changed at the end, so no.

Yeah... relistened and I hear what you have.
 

-Not sure why I would have that? Doesn't seem to be necessary nor do I really hear it on playback either. Also doesn't really convey anything special to the performer all things considered.

It's not really about conveying anything special. The A is quite audible and could augment the current pitches, that's all.

-I'll include this because I do hear some strings that I'm not 100% sure what the notes are, but the added sound should probably help yeah.
-Same as the above but I'll exclude the F for b1 because I don't think a full proper chord structure sounds right to include for this score in general.

Relistened to this again as well, and I'm not hearing these notes this time. Sorry about that can remove


Only other thing I have to add I tagged you on Discord about.

[PlayfulPiano]

It's in there, a bit faint but it's there
 Yeah... relistened and I hear what you have.
  It's not really about conveying anything special. The A is quite audible and could augment the current pitches, that's all.
 Relistened to this again as well, and I'm not hearing these notes this time. Sorry about that can remove


Only other thing I have to add I tagged you on Discord about.

-I still don't hear it honestly. It's just the one high strings playing it and it definitely just moves up to a D.
-I think I do like what I did added with these measures (89-92) if you think it's fine to keep.
-Fixed.

Updated.