[DELETED] [WiiU] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - "Lost Woods" by Olimar12345

[Olimar12345]

Try opening it now.

[mastersuperfan]

Yep, two pages now.

[Bespinben]

Honestly, if you're waiting for someone to endorse your notational choices, I don't think you're going to find it, at least, not within the circle of those who are conscientious of such things. I'm sure there's plenty here that are of a mindset that would acquiesce what you've presented for the sake of practicality, for the sake of NSM... and it is to those to whom I say go ahead and accept Olimar's sheet. Even after enduring criticism, he went further beyond and added precise time signatures to represent metric accents, painstakingly realigned note stems, and much more. Obviously the NSM standard has been met and exceeded manifold.

And yet... a polished terd is still a terd. But Ben isn't that a subjective judgement, based solely on personal aesthetics? Absolutely. However, if we can't agree on something as basic as recognizing that this is a highly functional, highly precise, highly academically informed piece of shit, then I'm afraid we have very little room to discuss much else in the realm of engraving, at least, as far as this composition is concerned.

You don't have to have 20/20 vision, years of experience as a player/composer/arranger/conductor, or collegiate training to notice the cramped the horizontal spacing that plagues this sheet. You don't have to have stacks of academic sources to see the un-intuitiveness of cross-staff backwards noteheads (as the definition of intuitive would dictate). Oh, but we're artists, so we can say that cramped spacing represents the claustrophobic mood of the piece, that it's some sort of daring, avant-garde non-traditional evolution of notation. No, it's not. It's just ugly.

Pushing the bounds of notation and conforming with public reception is always a balancing act. Sometimes you have to concede, sometimes you got to be a trailblazer, and sometimes (and by this I mean all the time) you have to just use common sense.

[Olimar12345]

Ben, you have this lovely gift in that you can create a well written post with the message either shrouded or not there. xD I think I've read it about six times now and I still am not sure what you're trying to say with it. Here's a response, but sorry if it sounds like it doesn't make sense to you:

It was not mentioned (because I didn't feel it was necessary), but I actually have been trying out the suggestions here. I still have some screenshots from a few of the last ones:

Spoiler

One big problem that arrises from these methods though, is the fact that the syncopated rhythms rely on empty space in order to convey rhythmic accuracy (especially something that is "plagued with cramped horizontal spacing"). There are other things, (no need to beat a dead horse) but the point here is that I wasn't just blowing off the suggestions posted here.

[close]

No method presented here exists without its consequences. The ideology I have been taught and will stand by is that when the going gets tough, sacrifice notational norms for the sake of the reader. The way I have chosen to notate this does this, I believe. You have great reasons for not liking some of the choices I've made. I have great reasons for the choices I've made. We disagree, and that's okay.

[Latios212]

I may as well leave my opinion here for what it's worth, as I just tried playing the sheet for the first time. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, but I don't think anyone's mentioned the last point I'm about to bring up.
~ Horizontal spacing - I've thought about it and I'm still not quite sure why you're complaining, Ben, haha.
~ Reverse stems - Counterintuitive, yes, but I can understand the reasoning behind it. Doesn't cause any problems reading the notes or rhythms, so I'm good with it.
~ Here's my only real gripe about this sheet - it's the amount of vertical space between the right hand and left hand parts on the page. I think it's nicer to visually put parts closer together where the hands are closer, but anyway the reason I bring this up is the amount of visual zig-zagging the performer needs to do in order to read the piece at any sort of tempo. Quickly switching between the top and bottom staffs for every sixteenth note seems a bit tiring, and that's the reason I prefer the above single-staff methods - they make it much easier to read the actual notes. In my opinion, the separation between staves impedes the ease of readability more than the odd rhythms and stems do. I don't think the single-staff solutions make interpreting the rhythm any more difficult - the measures are all short enough to easily tell what's going on. At least, that's what I think.

Oh, and there's a stray staccato in m. 7.

[Bespinben]

My complaints are purely aesthetic. As Latios' experiments show, the subject of my objections (namely, spacing and the entirety of the cross-staving scheme) are functional, something I fully admitted in my previous post. The results of said experiment do not necessarily negate my objections (Latios: "I don't see why you're complaining, Ben"), but it does show that what significantly bothers me visually may only be a minor nuisance to someone else. That said, I would expect that Olimar would be very open to consider Latios' newest point in favor of a one-staff solution, as it is an observation based on function, rather than "me no likey".

[cashwarrior1]

Seems good to me! 

[Olimar12345]

Thanks, Latios. I think I'm going to retire this for now, though. It'll come back on a future update.