[PC] Undertale - "Before the Story" by PlayfulPiano

[Zeta]

Submission Information:
Series: Other
Game: Undertale
Console: PC
Title: Before the Story
Instrumentation Solo Piano
Arranger: PlayfulPiano

[attachment deleted by admin]

[PlayfulPiano]

Here's a piece that not many even know of, mainly because it's exclusive to the Collector's Edition / Console versions, more or less.

There's been a bunch of arrangements of this over on musescore, but none here. Hopefully this isn't as problematic as Temporal Spire!
-Piano

[joeberryosponge]

I think the way you have the tempo notated, it has like a different feel. I think it would be better to halve the note values and have quarter note =65. That feels more "Calm."
There is a lot of collisions with notes, dynamics and repeat bars. It needs a lot of cleanup. The tempo change should help with the collisions in the left hand.
The left hand at measure 7 should stay in the bass clef. You have it correct in the rest of the piece.

[PlayfulPiano]

I think the way you have the tempo notated, it has like a different feel. I think it would be better to halve the note values and have quarter note =65. That feels more "Calm."
There is a lot of collisions with notes, dynamics and repeat bars. It needs a lot of cleanup. The tempo change should help with the collisions in the left hand.
The left hand at measure 7 should stay in the bass clef. You have it correct in the rest of the piece.

Will change!

Edit: Updated now, also changed the third/fourth chord progression after m8 a tiny bit. Last left hand note is fixed now.

[Bespinben]

This is how a MIDI synthesizer plays a melody:

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This is how a human plays a melody:

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If you want the slightly detached feeling that you hear in the original, the accurate *and* human way of writing that would be by using a chord roll marking, like so:

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[PlayfulPiano]

This is how a MIDI synthesizer plays a melody:

Spoiler

You cannot view this attachment.

[close]

This is how a human plays a melody:

Spoiler

You cannot view this attachment.

[close]

If you want the slightly detached feeling that you hear in the original, the accurate *and* human way of writing that would be by using a chord roll marking, like so:

Spoiler

You cannot view this attachment.

[close]

Yeah, I was using a rolled chord initially, until uh.. this happened during playback:



So I switched it to this afterwords.

[Olimar12345]

Use rolled chords. Below is a download link to a version of your arrangement with rolled chords applied (without that weird glitch).
Also edited was the title. It should be "Before the Story" with no capital "T". Other things include:

-The low A# whole note in measure 11 (LH) (as well as 15) should be a G#.
-The whole notes that go below the eighth notes throughout the sheet in the RH I would recommend raising up an octave. This not only preserves the bass voice as the correct note, but also corrects the voice leading that was lost in the move (A#-G# etc.). I also think it would be easier to read if the beams for layer 1 went down.
-The Piano marking at measure 9 is unnecessary and I recommend just removing it.


I also tinkered with other tiny things. Your finale version might not be able to open this newer version, so I would recommend opening it in notepad or viewing the pdf.
[MUS] [Midi] [PDF]

[PlayfulPiano]

Use rolled chords. Below is a download link to a version of your arrangement with rolled chords applied (without that weird glitch).
Also edited was the title. It should be "Before the Story" with no capital "T". Other things include:

-The low A# whole note in measure 11 (LH) (as well as 15) should be a G#.
-The whole notes that go below the eighth notes throughout the sheet in the RH I would recommend raising up an octave. This not only preserves the bass voice as the correct note, but also corrects the voice leading that was lost in the move (A#-G# etc.). I also think it would be easier to read if the beams for layer 1 went down.
-The Piano marking at measure 9 is unnecessary and I recommend just removing it.


I also tinkered with other tiny things. Your finale version might not be able to open this newer version, so I would recommend opening it in notepad or viewing the pdf.
[MUS] [Midi] [PDF]

In regards to your second point, I'm somewhat confused what you mean. Are you talking about the right hand melody, or as you showed in your sheet, the left hand lowest note? If the case is the latter then I would like to keep the positioning of the 2nd layer notes in m10/12 and m14/16, as I feel like it resonates better.

Also the beams were auto'd, so I'll fix them.

Removing the marking.

And no, can't open up the mus file on allegro. Once everything besides the rolled chords is dealt with though and if it is ready to be submitted, then could you change it to rolled chords at the end?

[Olimar12345]

Yes, I meant the LH. The octave switch down definitely doesn't sound better because now you're changing the inversion of the chord into something else other than the original. Again, the voice leading is also more awkward to play that way because it changes so drastically. When writing for piano you want to keep things like this as close to each other as possible so that the hand doesn't have to do weird things to play the music. It just so happens to be a double-win the way I had it because it also plays it like that in the original version.

[PlayfulPiano]

Yes, I meant the LH. The octave switch down definitely doesn't sound better because now you're changing the inversion of the chord into something else other than the original. Again, the voice leading is also more awkward to play that way because it changes so drastically. When writing for piano you want to keep things like this as close to each other as possible so that the hand doesn't have to do weird things to play the music. It just so happens to be a double-win the way I had it because it also plays it like that in the original version.

Well ok, besides that, is there any other issue with the piece that you can find?

[Maelstrom]

I just went through it and I have a few issues with dynamic placement in your arrangement, along with the 2nd layer chords in the 2nd half. However, Olimar's version fixes all those issues and I find no problem with that. If you have no problems with it, I'd be willing to accept it if you update the submission with the files he gave.
Tell me if I missed something you said in the thread.

[PlayfulPiano]

Yeah his update would be fine. The submission is updated as well.

[Maelstrom]

Great. Accepted.

[Zeta]

This submission has been accepted by Maelstrom.

~Zeta, your friendly NSM-Bot