[NES] The Mysterious Murasame Castle - "Murasame Castle" by WandringMinstrel

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: The Mysterious Murasame Castle
Console: Nintendo Entertainment System
Title: Murasame Castle
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: WandringMinstrel

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[WandringMinstrel]

[Tobbeh99]

The 2/4 should be a pickup measure.

[WandringMinstrel]

I was bouncing back and forth between using a pickup or a 2/4 measure. But I've figured out how to use a mid-measure repeat so that I can make up the extra half measure at the end and keep the loop accurate, so the pickup measure works. Replaced and resubmitted.
Oh, and the four voices in the other piece? Power of the Famicom Disk System. Other games use the 4 voices too, like Shin Onigashima and even the FDS version of Kid Icarus.

[Tobbeh99]

Aah that's really neat! (takes notes) might come in handy sometime.

[Bespinben]

M. 3 and m. 7 look like German 6th chords to me, based on the fact that they seem to function as a predominant to the following chord, G7. Because of this, I would respell the Gb to F#.

[WandringMinstrel]

An augmented 6th would functionally be the same as a tritone substitution for the secondary dominant, so either would be correct from the harmonic perspective. But since the melody is descending chromatically from G to Gb/F# to F, Gb is preferable from the melodic perspective (the Gb "resolves down" to F).
Tritone substitution chords are perhaps most common in jazz, but they're still found in almost every other musical style.

[Bespinben]

Ah, I think I understand now. Classical augmented 6ths are particularly preoccupied with the idea of contrary voice-leading (the 6th moving upwards and the root downwards), so this song would fit the tritone substitution model better.

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Bespinben.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot