[WiiU] Mario Kart 8 - "Mario Kart 8" by holland_oates89

[holland_oates89]

The original is definitely much faster (my ear clocked it at half-note ≈ 135) , but this arrangement requires a lot of fast, large interval leaps in both hands and I don't see that being possible to play, even for great stride piano players. If we think it would be best to speed it up, though, it's very easy to edit that tempo marking and make Finale's imaginary fingers burn.

As far as the jazziness goes, I did remove a few artistic liberties (I'm a jazz musician) in my second version of the piece, but like TheMarioPianist said, it is a funk tune with a lot of hybrid chords and other complex harmonies so it is bound to sound jazzy no matter which way you look at it. Most of this arrangement is just a transcription of the bass/horn parts with a guitar solo and a lot of edits to make it playable on piano.

@Altissimo: Wow, haha that is a new one - I honestly never thought that SmartMusic would be used for dates!  I obviously love the program and am pretty biased, but yeah I think it can be a great practice tool. My team has been working really hard this summer and we actually just implemented a beta program for choral music! I can't imagine music education is discussed a lot around here but we're really excited about the role we play right now. It's so hard to find a good practice tool that can slow down an audio performance for you, give you immediate feedback on your playing, and display professionally engraved sheet music all at the same time. I could go on but I made a strict, personal commitment not to spam any MakeMusic products.

[Tobbeh99]

I think you should speed it up. But you could make the metronome marking something like Q=120-135. I also don't get thing about big leaps, there a few leaps in this arrangement that are larger than an octave.

[holland_oates89]

Version 3 Notes:
Most of this is #justengraverthings, but I thought I'd spruce up the engraving a bit and correct a couple bugs that I implemented in playback on accident. I also sped up playback and adjusted the tempo expression. Thanks everyone for your feedback!

• Changed tempo expression to half-note=130 - 140. I used a beat analyzer and the tempo is around 135 with some drifting. I decided to speed up playback tempo to about 135.
• Added some light pedal markings in places where it seemed obvious.
• Increased rehearsal mark enclosure line thickness to 3EVPUS
• Fixed stem bug in mm. 12 which caused beams to flip on playback and printing.
• Adjusted tie positioning to avoid collision with eighth-note flags
• Flattened some slurs to avoid collision with accidentals
• Adjusted spacing in mm. 87 to account for correct accidental spacing
• Re-engraved repeat structure to prevent Finale's infamous "Please enter a number between 1 and 1" bug
• Added File Info Data
• Changed playback instrument to Bright Piano

[mikey]

Your update posts are so pretty they look just like patch notes from LOL

[holland_oates89]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

Thanks? Also, CHICAGO SERVERS WHOOOOOOOOOOO MY PING IS GONNA BE LOWER THAN MY IQ FINALLY!!!

That either means I'm dumb or have bad internet. Regardless, I'm glad they moved their servers from LA so that when I lose I at least can't blame it on lag...

[ThatGamer]

My ping has never been lower than my iq, lol. Failed the test horribly.

So, anyways...is this sheet done? It looks like its good....

[holland_oates89]

Thanks! I feel like it's done but I'm of course open to any more feedback if it's needed.

[ThatGamer]

Thanks! I feel like it's done but I'm of course open to any more feedback if it's needed.

You probably have more expertise at music then us, since you actually have a profession in music. You should be able to accept your own arrangements lol

[Altissimo]

You probably have more expertise at music then us, since you actually have a profession in music. You should be able to accept your own arrangements lol

I think it's still important for people to get feedback from others. People are their own worst critics, but they can also be blind to small things just because they've been working with the same arrangement for such a long time that the arrangement version sounds correct. (Recently, Latios showed me one of his arrangements and I immediately, on first listen, pinned a few notes that were wrong, but I'm sure they sound right to him because he's been doing that arrangement himself so long. But in contrast, there were several wrong notes in my flagship arrangement that I didn't notice until DonValentino pointed them out!)

[holland_oates89]

Exactly what Altissimo said. Even us professionals need to have "Quality Assurance" people who can proof our work. While I'm proud of my arrangement, if I could've released the first version it wouldn't have been the right tempo and would've taken up 7 pages instead of 4. Even though I engrave professionally and I'm confident with my abilities, I'm still not above anyone. Just like performing, composing, or developing software (lol) it is really important not to forget your audience. In this case, I want to engrave for people who will download the sheet, and if I have a chance to get their feedback before putting it up I'd ask for it 7 days a week and twice on Sunday.

[holland_oates89]

My dreams of getting to play this in a studio were dashed recently, so I recorded myself playing it to a MIDI keyboard. The closest I could get it to was 120, but I can keep trying to get it up to speed. The devil in me tried to speed it up artificially, and it sounds ok sped up to tempo that way, but it's not "authentically" a recording of me trying to plunk through it.

Edit: I actually changed my mind on this. I'd rather the MIDI file reflect exactly what's heard in the Finale output, so I uploaded the original MIDI file instead. I think I might start making recordings of these pieces as I learn to play them. I'm not a good enough performer to play it all at once but I've been thinking of making a SoundCloud specifically for my sheet performances and posting that elsewhere...

[Tobbeh99]

My dreams of getting to play this in a studio were dashed recently, so I recorded myself playing it to a MIDI keyboard. The closest I could get it to was 120, but I can keep trying to get it up to speed. The devil in me tried to speed it up artificially, and it sounds ok sped up to tempo that way, but it's not "authentically" a recording of me trying to plunk through it.

Edit: I actually changed my mind on this. I'd rather the MIDI file reflect exactly what's heard in the Finale output, so I uploaded the original MIDI file instead. I think I might start making recordings of these pieces as I learn to play them. I'm not a good enough performer to play it all at once but I've been thinking of making a SoundCloud specifically for my sheet performances and posting that elsewhere...

You could always try simplifying it a bit. Don't know if it's that easy to so for this song however. This is also the reason I started this idea.

[holland_oates89]

I will likely end up making a simplified arrangement of this. If I do, I'll start a personal arrangements thread and post it there. Until then, I'm going to see if I can cobble this together but I'll keep my expectations low, heh...

Also bump. This piece is in its final form (ha), unless anyone has further feedback for me!

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by DonValentino.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot