[DELETED] [PC] Undertale - "Heartache" by Madmonk12345

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Undertale
Console: PC
Title: Heartache
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: Madmonk12345

[Madmonk12345]

Let's see if this is ready for submission.

[braix]

I'm not sure how playable this would be, especially at 240bpm. I'd imagine it'd be very difficult if not impossible

[Tobbeh99]

The metronome mark is wrong/confusing. The mark for compound meter such as 6/8 should be a dotted value, such as dotted quarter. Btw. now when I listen to the song I think that the time signature should be 3/4, or a longer (2 measures) 6/8.

[Bespinben]

While what you have sounds amazing (truly), the way it is notated makes it unwieldy for human use. This is not to say the arrangement itself unplayable, but that the accumulation of disorganized layer usage, ambiguity of hand placement, and (here's a biggie) planning triads on 16ths creates serious roadblocks.

I think before you do anything else though, the biggest hurdle that needs to be done is halving all your note durations so that your 6/8 time signature will make sense. Here's what I mean:



See how much cleaner this is? Not only do you see the beat patterns easily, but now all the accompaniment figures all neatly beamed together.

[mastersuperfan]

While what you have sounds amazing (truly), the way it is notated makes it unwieldy for human use. This is not to say the arrangement itself unplayable, but that the accumulation of disorganized layer usage, ambiguity of hand placement, and (here's a biggie) planning triads on 16ths creates serious roadblocks.

I think before you do anything else though, the biggest hurdle that needs to be done is halving all your note durations so that your 6/8 time signature will make sense. Here's what I mean:



See how much cleaner this is? Not only do you see the beat patterns easily, but now all the accompaniment figures all neatly beamed together.

I disagree with that picture and say that the entire thing should be in 3/4, with each 6/8 measure displayed in 3/4 instead with quarter note = 80.

[Bespinben]

Are you telling me you hear this song like this? (Btw, it would be 120 bpm if done this way)



That is simply not correct. There are several indications that the beat falls on each dotted quarter instead of at quarters. Look at the LH of m. 1-3 for instance. In the 3/4 version, the beaming of the RH doesn't match up with the LH pattern, indicating something amiss.

EDIT: Perhaps I misunderstood. Did you mean this?



Even so, the bpm of 240 is a dead giveaway that this is not a proper time signature. This is not a prestissimo piece, nor a waltz.

[Madmonk12345]

The metronome mark is wrong/confusing. The mark for compound meter such as 6/8 should be a dotted value, such as dotted quarter. Btw. now when I listen to the song I think that the time signature should be 3/4, or a longer (2 measures) 6/8.

Unfortunately I cannot fix either of those without creating new problems. I can't put in metronome marks and if I copy it to another file in 3/4 I won't be able to remove the abbreviated piano markings like I had someone else do, who is also the person who put in the metronome mark.

Can you or someone else do that?

While what you have sounds amazing (truly), the way it is notated makes it unwieldy for human use. This is not to say the arrangement itself unplayable, but that the accumulation of disorganized layer usage, ambiguity of hand placement, and (here's a biggie) planning triads on 16ths creates serious roadblocks.

I think before you do anything else though, the biggest hurdle that needs to be done is halving all your note durations so that your 6/8 time signature will make sense. Here's what I mean:



See how much cleaner this is? Not only do you see the beat patterns easily, but now all the accompaniment figures all neatly beamed together.

...That's a lot of work. is there some sort of script or quicker way to handle such a conversion?

Also, would changing to 3/4ths avoid that? I'm not sure I'm determined enough to do that if there's no script driven shenanigans to solve that. We're talking like 3-4 hours of clicking every note in the song to make it small and then copy pasting every other measure into the measure before it.

The solution isn't raising the lower notes an octave for measures 5 and 6;  the top notes are an octave above the melody so thee lower notes can be played by the right hand. the only reason I never included them there is because I couldn't make clef changes; if I could have I would have separated them from the very beginning.

A lot of these decisions leading to poor notation weren't made by choice really; I've been doing the best I can with what Finale Notepad allows me.

[Bespinben]

A lot of these decisions leading to poor notation weren't made by choice really; I've been doing the best I can with what Finale Notepad allows me.

Frustrating right? Makemusic offers a 30-day trial of Finale 2014. I highly recommend it. Talk to me once it expires, and we can work something out.

[mastersuperfan]

Are you telling me you hear this song like this? (Btw, it would be 120 bpm if done this way)



That is simply not correct. There are several indications that the beat falls on each dotted quarter instead of at quarters. Look at the LH of m. 1-3 for instance. In the 3/4 version, the beaming of the RH doesn't match up with the LH pattern, indicating something amiss.

Yes, that is what I mean. It becomes much more clear as the theme proceeds past the introduction in my opinion.

[Madmonk12345]

OK, updated it in the way that Bespinben was looking for; I thought I had used up my Finale trial long ago, but apparently not.

What do you mean by triads on 16ths though? Meaning escaping me at the moment.

Also, it won't let me upload a new pdf for some reason. Says the file is too large. What should I do?

[Zeila]

Sorry for the noobish edit. It definitely looks much cleaner now though!

What do you mean by triads on 16ths though? Meaning escaping me at the moment.

I believe he meant placing triads (a group of three notes) is impractical at that speed, but I could be wrong

Also, it won't let me upload a new pdf for some reason. Says the file is too large. What should I do?

If the site is talking about the group of attachments, then perhaps there is a way to delete the old ones since you have two groups of files. If not, then you could try uploading the pdf to dropbox and editing it into the 2nd post, but I don't know if that is acceptable or if there is another (better) way to solve that problem

[Enaryok]

You have to go to the NSM Panel, your submission will be displayed and at the right of it there's a notepad to edit it. That should make proper updates.

[Madmonk12345]

Got it working. I suspect the problem was that Finale has a larger file for the pdf when saving than Notepad does, which was too large for the uploader.

[mastersuperfan]

Am I the only one who hears it this way? To me this seems undoubtably like the correct notation.

As for the left hand notes in the beginning not falling on the beat in 3/4... that's just syncopation. This comes up multiple times throughout the course of theme, but the main melody in areas such as m8-11 is a giveaway to the 3/4 time signature.

Am I alone in thinking this?