[MUL] Shantae and the Pirate's Curse - "Bran-Son" by BrainyLucario

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
Console: Multiplatform
Title: Bran-Son
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: BrainyLucario

[attachment deleted by admin]

[BrainyLucario]

I have no idea when I did this sheet, so this is a surprise to me as much as it is to you guys

[Sebastian]

The one main idea I have for this arrangement is that it could use some spice. More specifically, some more notes. For example, use some octaves, fill in some chords, etc. so it's more like the original. This is a cool song.

[Khunjund]

The arrangement you made works fine if your goal is to have it played by a beginner-level pianist, but it's possible to embellish both the accompaniment (e.g. by filling in chords) and the melody (e.g. by doubling). If you plan on continuing to work on this project, I suggest you take a look at a few quick edits I made (MUS/PDF) for inspiration. (Also, you had the harmony wrong in measures 18 and 19, and I made a few other fixes as well.)

[BrainyLucario]

Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. Sebastian and I were planning on going over this in discord, so it should continue to be worked on.

[BrainyLucario]

Files have been updated

[BrainyLucario]

I HAVE THE POWERRRRR -to bump this thread

[Maelstrom]

Can you update the .mus? There's a few suggestions I want to make, but I'd like to edit a .mus to see if they actual work.

[BrainyLucario]

Oops, i must have updated it with the wrong file. there you go

[Maelstrom]

1 - Formatting
You're missing an initial tempo mark
2 - Notes
This is where the bulk of the feedback will be. Please, please read this all and learn from it. That's why I'm doing this, and don't count on something this thorough again.
Let's start with the intro.
You have:

There's a few issues with this.
To begin - a tremolo doesn't belong here. Even if it did, there isn't a Gn for it, and it should start on the note it's based on; an F
Secondly, the Bb introduced in m2 is much higher than Bb2.
Changing those and beefing up the melody gives us this for the first 2 measures:

On to measure 3.
The ascending melody is Eb-Gn -Bb-C. By extrapolating from this and we can fill in the RH chords properly. Since the RH has this covered, the LH can just play octaves to emphasize the beat. The result looks like this:

The first note is the chord played, the next two just use the top 2 notes of the previous chords, and the 3rd adds the octave for emphasis and to ground it.
--A section
RH - I left this mostly alone. It could be beefed up more, but that would remove playability. I just added an F the final chord in m11.
LH - This is by biggest gripe with the entire arrangement. Let me explain. Right now, you have power, but you have absolutely no motion. You have this:

Consider this:

How did I get it? I added 8ths where the guitar re-strums in the original. This gives it a sense of motion and purpose. Try playing both on a piano and tell me which is more fun to play and sounds better.  Keeping this pattern gives us this for the next system:

Note that I followed the bass guitar for m6 and that the guitar does not strum again in beat 4 of measure 7
You had this for m11:

You got the octave wrong for the arpeggio. Both runs are actually in the same octave and played by the LH. Since the LH is unable to play a chord and transition to the run, I moved it to the LH and added the 4th that should be there.  I also added a parenthesis to the first note of the run rather than the chord so it's easier to play:

--B section
RH
Deleted the 2nd layer from m14-15 to make it easier to read, play, and to avoid collisions. 
I can't hear the 3rd on the triplets and they make the song much harder to play, so I took them out.

LH
The chord doesn't restrike on b4 of measure 12, so I swapped it for a quarter note and the staccato for a tenuto.
m14 has a similar issue, although the chord you put in was wrong. It's actually an Ebm chord. Again, swapped for quarter and tenuto.
I rewrote the last 1.5 beats of m16-17 so it didn't sound quite so awkward

3 - Theory and Performance
I added staccatos to m2 of m5 and 6.
I reworked the dynamics of the entire piece. Now it starts off quiet, crescendos into the main part, goes into the quieter 2nd part, cranks it up a bit for the final system, and then loops back to the powerful main part again.
The file

So, does this make sense? Do you disagree?
Oh, and despite everything I just said, it was a solid arrangement. 90% of what I commented on had to do with how it could be arranged better, and not about how notes were wrong.

[BrainyLucario]

Yeah, i wasn't feeling the tremolo either, I almost removed it tbh. I'll update the files in like an hour or 2

[Khunjund]

I feel like I have to apologize: most of your complaints are my mistakes, since I made quite a few edits to the arrangement BrainyLucario had originally posted, but overall I only worked about 10 minutes on this arrangement. My intent was to give BrainyLucario a few pointers in embellishing his arrangement, and have him continue to work on it from there, but it seems he just posted the version I gave him.

I agree with most of what you said, but there are nonetheless a few points with which I take issue:

• In the opening measures, the violins clearly play a G second line, and it's impractical to try and convey the build up in the original with static whole notes, which is why I put in a tremolo.
• For measures 4-10, I would stick with simple fifths for the accentuated beats, as opposed to fifths and octaves.
• I don't see why the second layer in measures 14-15 would be an issue; just remove the left hand Bbs in measure 15.
• I added the thirds to the triplet line to fill out the harmony, and they're not that hard to play. Though after listening to it another time, I think it's actually a sixteenth note line:
  
• I don't know what you're talking about when you say measure 14 is an Ebm chord.

[BrainyLucario]

I haven't had a chance to look at the file, but wouldn't a simple crescendo do the trick for the violin thingy at the beginning

Also you kind of confused me with that post about the project and whatnot, sorry about that

[Khunjund]

How do you intend to do a crescendo on whole notes with a piano? Sure, you'll play the second one louder, but the effect won't be the same at all.

[Maelstrom]

I feel like I have to apologize: most of your complaints are my mistakes, since I made quite a few edits to the arrangement BrainyLucario had originally posted, but overall I only worked about 10 minutes on this arrangement. My intent was to give BrainyLucario a few pointers in embellishing his arrangement, and have him continue to work on it from there, but it seems he just posted the version I gave him.

I agree with most of what you said, but there are nonetheless a few points with which I take issue:

• In the opening measures, the violins clearly play a G second line, and it's impractical to try and convey the build up in the original with static whole notes, which is why I put in a tremolo.
• For measures 4-10, I would stick with simple fifths for the accentuated beats, as opposed to fifths and octaves.
• I don't see why the second layer in measures 14-15 would be an issue; just remove the left hand Bbs in measure 15.
• I added the thirds to the triplet line to fill out the harmony, and they're not that hard to play. Though after listening to it another time, I think it's actually a sixteenth note line:
  
• I don't know what you're talking about when you say measure 14 is an Ebm chord.

1. The violins may play a G, but it's not clear nor is it an important note. It detracts from the feel of the song and sounds very off when you try to play it along with the original.
2. Oh, woops. I wrote that but didn't delete it. I didn't add them to the file
3. It doesn't add enough to justify the large increase in difficulty. In addition, it's inconsistent. You can't just have it for those measures only and call it fine. I am strongly against it. I'll invoke Occam's razor here as well.
4. Yep, you're right about the 16ths. It should be changed.
5. E flat minor. When writing out chords, the last letter will be capital (M) for major and lowercase (m) for minor.

ninja'd edit: I'm with d3ath. Just have a crescendo for the 3rd measure and that's fine.