Transcription vs. Arrangement

[Gallahaut]

Mainly regarding NES music with (typically) only three musical lines.

Should there be a distinction between transcriptions (just the notes transcribed perfectly into a notated form) and arrangements (adding to the music with the arrangers own creative material)?

It seems there are many pieces that are pitch accurate transcriptions of NES music but also quite a lot of arrangements that include a lot of things that aren't in the original tracks. I'm personally for pitch accurate sheets (within the realm of playability), but I also respect arranging things to have more pianistic value. However, its impossible to tell what kind of sheet Im going to get (arrangement or transcription) until I open it and compare with an original track. I was just curious what others thought about this.

[Olimar12345]

Our goal is to get as close to the original and to a piano as possible (lol). We do on occasion allow a bit of leniency to make things work out though.

[Gallahaut]

Yeah... I guess what I'm getting at is that there are quite a few examples (in the FF series for instance) where the inner or bass textures are harmonically correct but nowhere near the original line. It seems strange to me that these things occur when the part on paper is so clearly not what is heard in the original version. Even though it may sound fine, I have to wonder how these things happened in the first place as these notational "choices" that deviate from the original don't seem to necessarily serve any pianistic value either. It seems it would have been easier to just write what's heard in the originals in the first place.

[FireArrow]

Keep in mind, some of the pieces on site were uploaded before our current standard. If you want to point to a piece with too much "creative liberty" I'm sure someone will be willing to make a replacement. The only situation where such deviations are ok is when the piece would otherwise be unplayable.

[Gallahaut]

I see. So then, if I am making an arrangement, I should really think of it more as a transcription and transcribe the pitches exactly as heard in the original rather than arranging my own thing. (And then afterwards play through it and make small adjustments accordingly).

[The Deku Trombonist]

As I'm not particularly familiar with Final Fantasy music, I'd be interested to see which sheets/arrangers you think are the offending ones.

Anyway, as FireArrow said, our current standards are the product of 10 years of gradual improvements from our very humble beginnings. So lots of sheets have been added at various stages of our development.

Edit: yes we aim to have sheets as reasonably close to the original music as possibly. Obviously certain liberties need to be taken at times and accordingly every sheet submitted is assessed individually.

[Gallahaut]

So I made a super quick and dirty transcription as an example, so it might have a couple mistakes.

Here's the tune:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR06uwC4e20


Here's a sheet posted on the site:



And here's my dirty transcription:



I literally transcribed everything as heard from the track, so it's probably not the most piano-friendly piece of music, but you can see that (especially the bass line) the previous arranger chose an interesting rhythmic and melodic variation in the bass voice when it seems it would have been easier to keep it the same. I don't mean to single anyone out by doing this, but it seems many of the NES transcriptions are like this. I understand that many of them are old, so maybe I can help update some of these strange transcriptions. 

[FireArrow]

Neither of those arrangements would be accepted. The first because it's too inaccurate, the second because it isn't a piano arrangement.

Based on what you said, you seem to understand this.

[The Deku Trombonist]

There's a curious back story to those 3 sheets but basically we think they're from a FF remake but we're not sure which one. They used to be grouped into a separate section but it seems at some point they got moved in with the rest of the sheets from the original Final Fantasy game. I think some more investigating needs to be done with those.

I definitely see your point and I do agree though.

second because it isn't a piano arrangement.

That wasn't the point he was trying to illustrate.

[FireArrow]

There's a curious back story to those 3 sheets but basically we think they're from a FF remake but we're not sure which one.

Completely separate question, but what's NSM's take on remastered and remade soundtracks? Do we always go with the song in the original games, and if so, what place do remastered tracks have on NSM (if any?)

[Maelstrom]

Completely separate question, but what's NSM's take on remastered and remade soundtracks? Do we always go with the song in the original games, and if so, what place do remastered tracks have on NSM (if any?)

I think, if they are official, they can be used a secondary sources.
e.g. Twilight Symphony

[The Deku Trombonist]

Completely separate question, but what's NSM's take on remastered and remade soundtracks? Do we always go with the song in the original games, and if so, what place do remastered tracks have on NSM (if any?)

I'd probably say these would get judged on a case-by-case basis