Code_Name_Geek's "Too Hot To Handle" Project Sheet(s)

[Code_Name_Geek]

Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak - Sandy Bay
Link to Dropbox file

Here's my first submission for this project! This is the theme for the beach area in the game. It shouldn't be very complicated but one thing I wasn't sure about were the chord voicings in the second-last measure.

Edit: Woke up and had a bad feeling about the 16th note runs so I took a second pass at them. Not so sure about the one in the last measure anymore but it's as close as I could manage.

Final Fantasy VII - Costa del Sol
Link to Dropbox file

And here's my second submission, the theme for the sunny resort town of Costa del Sol in FFVII. I made some minor omissions to the accompaniment for playability but otherwise it's fairly straightforward.

[Latios212]

For the intro, it sounds an octave lower than where you have it now. It's also a pitch bend so it would make more sense to write something in chromatic than diatonic given it doesn't stray far from the A-D dyad - try something like this instead? Similar comment about m. 9.
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The 16th run at the end doesn't sound totally correct, but it is a bit weird... sorry I'm not more help in that regard at the moment!

[Code_Name_Geek]

For the intro, it sounds an octave lower than where you have it now. It's also a pitch bend so it would make more sense to write something in chromatic than diatonic given it doesn't stray far from the A-D dyad - try something like this instead? Similar comment about m. 9.

Makes sense. The chromatic option sounds more dissonant with the pedal but without the pedal the playback cuts off the last note instead of holding it the full value... if anyone knows how to fix that let me know. For m. 9, I think the bend is slightly deeper (approximately a third rather than a second) so I did three notes, Fn-G-G# (Fn rather than F# because I think that's the lowest pitch in the bend).

Thanks!

[Kricketune54]

Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak - Sandy Bay
• Believe it or not, counted tempo to be q = 159
• m1 You could move the first pedal mark a little to the left so it's more centered under note head. Just for clarity is the pedal supposed to lift up right before beat 3?
• m9 LH beat 4 hearing this A as an 8th note, with an A down an octave on 4.5
• m13 RH beat 3 the triplet hearing the G's as G#'s
• m14 RH lower layer did you ever consider writing out more of this part or did you find it difficult with the top layer? If you already did and didn't like the results (I didn't try myself to check) you could hide the second layer rests, and maybe flip the slurs down on beat 2-3.
• m17 beat 3.0 this 8th rest could be normal height
• m17 run... this is quite hard to tell because of the somewhat off key nature of the run's pitches. But this is what I'm hearing:

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[Code_Name_Geek]

• Believe it or not, counted tempo to be q = 159

Yeah surprisingly it does count out to that. Normally I prefer rounding tempo markings to more standard markings but in this case it's really consistently 159 so I'll go with that.

• m1 You could move the first pedal mark a little to the left so it's more centered under note head. Just for clarity is the pedal supposed to lift up right before beat 3?

That was the idea, but listening again I don't think the pedal sounds good with the chromatic notes so I removed it entirely. Playback still isn't right (beat 2 should be longer) and I can't figure out how to fix that, but I don't like the pedal either lol.

• m9 LH beat 4 hearing this A as an 8th note, with an A down an octave on 4.5

Yeah you're right, fixed.

• m13 RH beat 3 the triplet hearing the G's as G#'s

I think what's happening on the first note is a bend from Gn into G#, but that would be unwieldy to play on piano so I'm fine with making them both G#s.

• m14 RH lower layer did you ever consider writing out more of this part or did you find it difficult with the top layer? If you already did and didn't like the results (I didn't try myself to check) you could hide the second layer rests, and maybe flip the slurs down on beat 2-3.

I did consider this, but decided not to both for difficulty and because I don't think that slide would translate well to piano. Fixed the rests and slurs though.

• m17 beat 3.0 this 8th rest could be normal height

Done.

• m17 run... this is quite hard to tell because of the somewhat off key nature of the run's pitches. But this is what I'm hearing:

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Yeah that part is really difficult to hear. Made the adjustments and it's sounding closer now, thanks!

Thanks again for the feedback!

[Kricketune54]

I think what's happening on the first note is a bend from Gn into G#, but that would be unwieldy to play on piano so I'm fine with making them both G#s.

Yeah I see what you mean with the pitch bend. I think you could make the first note a Gn and then have the second current G# be a G#/Ab.

Yeah that part is really difficult to hear. Made the adjustments and it's sounding closer now, thanks!

Yeah it's really not all that easy to make out lol. I did relisten, and this is what I came up with

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Couple other things:
• m7 RH 2.0 these F's are G's
• m8 RH 3.5 these E's are F's

[Kricketune54]

Final Fantasy VII - Costa del Sol

Wanted to leave some comments on this as well, one of my favs from FF7!

• If going by exact tempos, this one actually times to q=117
• m1 RH 4.5, all of m2, and elsewhere: hearing E stay E as opposed to moving to D. So cluster is C-E-F#. LMK if I need to be more specific for this feedback, because this does apply for a bunch of measures on page 1.

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• m9, m13, m17, and m21 RH top layer the first note could be held out for half note length. It is a bit more of a reach in the lower layer for m9 and m17, but entirely possible
• m26 and m28 RH lower layer hearing D-Bb-A-F for beat 1.0-2.0.

Something is a bit off with m29-32, outside of melody part most of the notes are wrong. Did you move a key signature here at one point?
• m29-32 LH which notes are these supposed to be? m29 and 31 the bass that has these rhythms is G's and m30 and 32 are A's
• m30 and 32 RH lower layer hearing C#-A-G-E for beat 1.0-2.0.
• m29 and 31 RH lower layer, the F#'s are good, but given this is in G major, Bn is gonna work better than An.  However, for beat 4.5, you could do A and C# or just A given the part this layer is changes key before the measure is over. Fixed measure could look like this for m29:

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[Code_Name_Geek]

Ham-Ham Heartbreak - Sandy Bay

Yeah I see what you mean with the pitch bend. I think you could make the first note a Gn and then have the second current G# be a G#/Ab.

I like this option the best, great suggestion!

Yeah it's really not all that easy to make out lol. I did relisten, and this is what I came up with

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Changed again, thanks for the help on the part.

• m7 RH 2.0 these F's are G's
• m8 RH 3.5 these E's are F's

Don't know how I missed these, fixed.

Thank you once again! I see the feedback for Costa del Sol as well, I'll get to it later but wanted to get these edits done asap.

[Code_Name_Geek]

Final Fantasy VII - Costa del Sol

Didn't actually take as long as expected to get to this, so here goes.

• If going by exact tempos, this one actually times to q=117

Done.

• m1 RH 4.5, all of m2, and elsewhere: hearing E stay E as opposed to moving to D. So cluster is C-E-F#. LMK if I need to be more specific for this feedback, because this does apply for a bunch of measures on page 1.

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I think I got everything, but let me know if I missed anything.

• m9, m13, m17, and m21 RH top layer the first note could be held out for half note length. It is a bit more of a reach in the lower layer for m9 and m17, but entirely possible

Ah yeah I wrote that out the way I'd have to play it with my small hands, but I don't mind changing that since pianists like me are good at knowing how to modify spots like that.

• m26 and m28 RH lower layer hearing D-Bb-A-F for beat 1.0-2.0.

I think I actually had something more like this before but second-guessed myself. Fixed anyways.

Something is a bit off with m29-32, outside of melody part most of the notes are wrong. Did you move a key signature here at one point?
• m29-32 LH which notes are these supposed to be? m29 and 31 the bass that has these rhythms is G's and m30 and 32 are A's
• m30 and 32 RH lower layer hearing C#-A-G-E for beat 1.0-2.0.
• m29 and 31 RH lower layer, the F#'s are good, but given this is in G major, Bn is gonna work better than An.  However, for beat 4.5, you could do A and C# or just A given the part this layer is changes key before the measure is over. Fixed measure could look like this for m29:

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This part is entirely on me, something about these bars must have been tricking my ears. Thanks in particular for these corrections, they should all be done.

Wanted to leave some comments on this as well, one of my favs from FF7!

Same here, I couldn't believe it wasn't on the site already! Thanks again for all the feedback!

[The Musical Poet]

I came here because I thought this was related to programming. I was disappointed. However, the music is good though, so this wasn't too bad.

[Kricketune54]

Ham-Ham Heartbreak - Sandy Bay looks good now, so I will approve it!

Final Fantasy VII - Costa del Sol

Didn't actually take as long as expected to get to this, so here goes.

Thankfully a lot of the parts I pointed out are pretty easy to copy and paste between, and it is a fairly straightforward track at that.

Not too much more from me on this as well:
• in the RH lower layer, there's a few places like m8 that the new F# accidental is inside the notehead of the E. You could move the # symbol a little to the left like this, applies for m9,10,12,17,18,20 as well (image is fixed m8)

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• I'm a little torn on this, but 25-28 the string part that's the RH lower layer is technically playing A-C-E on each beat to fill out the F that the bass plays. You could have En under the current An as opposed to Fn except for beat 4.5 (the strings lead into next chord, where they play A-D-F technically), but I'll leave it up to you since it is just replacing one octaved note (F) for another (E) between the hands. This feedback has similar recommendation to one I left about middle layers for m29-32, essentially

[Code_Name_Geek]

Final Fantasy VII - Costa del Sol

• in the RH lower layer, there's a few places like m8 that the new F# accidental is inside the notehead of the E. You could move the # symbol a little to the left like this, applies for m9,10,12,17,18,20 as well (image is fixed m8)

Aw shoot, I had noticed those before and meant to fix before submitting but it must have slipped my mind. Should be fixed now.

• I'm a little torn on this, but 25-28 the string part that's the RH lower layer is technically playing A-C-E on each beat to fill out the F that the bass plays. You could have En under the current An as opposed to Fn except for beat 4.5 (the strings lead into next chord, where they play A-D-F technically), but I'll leave it up to you since it is just replacing one octaved note (F) for another (E) between the hands. This feedback has similar recommendation to one I left about middle layers for m29-32, essentially

I like the E because it matches what's going on in m29-32 with the F#, good idea!

Thanks again!

[Kricketune54]

Costa del Sol looks good now! Approved

[XiaoMigros]

• m8 beat 3.5 LH: I hear an extra D here
• m13 beat 4.5 and all similar occurences: The Bb-C-E chord sounds to me like a Bb-D-E chord
• m29 & 31 beat 4.5 RH: I hear the guitar play C#-E-G here, but no A. Could you incorporate that somehow?
• System spacing: Maybe 4 per page would be better than 5 and 3?

That's all though, nice arrangement!

[Code_Name_Geek]

Sorry for the delay on this!

• m8 beat 3.5 LH: I hear an extra D here
• m13 beat 4.5 and all similar occurences: The Bb-C-E chord sounds to me like a Bb-D-E chord
• m29 & 31 beat 4.5 RH: I hear the guitar play C#-E-G here, but no A. Could you incorporate that somehow?
• System spacing: Maybe 4 per page would be better than 5 and 3?

-Yeah you're right about that, fixed.
-That makes sense since it would match what's happening in the previous section, also fixed.
-Incorporated the E-G, but left out the C# since it comes in in the next beat anyways.
-That looks more balanced, so fine with me.

That's all though, nice arrangement!

Thank you, and thanks for taking a look! I'm quite happy with the way this one turned out.