~Hakurei Shrine~ > Alice's Art Atelier
[Music] GenericArrangements' Music: Track 3: Lonely Night ~ Illusionary Night
Mеа:
I do have a couple critiques and suggestions if you would like to see more interest in your works here.
My biggest critique, almost a complaint, is that there is nothing particularly distinguishing, interesting, or unique about this format of transcription 'arrangements'. I don't mean to be insulting about it if it comes across that way but I can't put it into nicer words while retaining my sincerity. You're most certainly inspired by the wrong type of piano arrangements here -- those awful, uninteresting, unambitious 'easy mode' touhou piano arrangements that saturated the 2009 youtubes.
Why do people listen to music? For different reasons surely, but most probably listen to music to get some kind of experience out of listening. If you can't convince the listener that your music offers any substantially different experience from any of those other 'easy mode' piano arrangements on youtube, then the listener will go elsewhere.
And it doesn't all come from the music being amazing (though that helps). People like to form emotional connections to music. The problem with bad transcriptions like the 'easy mode' youtube piano touhou arrangements is that they only serve to satisfy the most basic level of curiosity of 'oh, I wonder how this piece would sound like on a piano'. These transcriptions are so babelfish levels of bad, direct machine translations that it's impossible to form any sort of emotional attachment to these mechanical renditions. The emotional attachment comes from the original piece itself, the reduced piano version only provides a satisfaction to curiosity.
To begin with, that self-satisfying attitude towards transcription is entirely wrong. These are the people that would upload GXSCC '8-bit arrangements' just to satisfy the basic curiosity of 'oh I wonder how this would sound like in chiptune form'. Again, babelfish translations with no artistic or emotional value. The original point of even doing transcriptions were so that musicians could play pieces they liked on their own instrument. Here there is an actual personal element to the process and outcome. Musicians know the ins and outs of their instruments, they know how the instrument best expresses its music, and they know the limits and characteristics of their instrument. Transcribing music is simultaneously an art of reducing the original to be playable on another instrument while also exploring the music with the characteristics and limitations of the other instrument. Even though transcriptions tend to be literal, good transcriptions have their own unique touches of personality such that you could even appreciate the personality of the musician behind the transcription. This is why you can have multiple people doing their own transcriptions of the same music and come up with very different results that are each interesting.
Now I will provide you with something better. There's this one person I found whose touhou piano arrangements fall more towards transcription than arrangement, Mitty, that I really quite like. Here is a link to one of their videos of a piano version of the latter half of the music from DDC. Much different from those stock 'easy mode' transcriptions, no? You can hear the author's voice clearly through the multiple transcriptions they have in the same video. If you would like to gather more interest and, more importantly, grow as a musician, then I will strongly advise you against -- or even forbid you from -- ever referring to those awful stock 'easy mode' transcriptions and instead find inspiration from better sources such as that video I liked above. And this is only a starting point. Listening widely will give you much more, better ideas to use in your own arrangements.
(Oh, and as a further suggestion, I would suggest uploading actual music format files instead of midi files so that potential listeners don't have to go through the trouble of downloading the file and inserting it into some midi player application. Would you really want people to listen to the music you worked hard on with the default windows midi piano instrument sound?)
I wish you good luck.
GenericArrangements:
--- Quote from: Mеа on June 05, 2017, 02:04:40 PM ---<snip>
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I tried to write a paragraph, but it may not have gotten my message across correctly, so I didn't bother. Here's a list;
- I know what you're saying.
- I agree.
- I have plans associated with it (fancier individual pieces, medleys, etc.)
- Not right now, but soon.
- HRtP hasn't been cooperative.
- I'm sorry.
- I have reasons not to give music format-files (.mscz in my case), but I might release them anyway.
- I'm still busy.
Also I am the opposite of "inspired" by those Easy Mode sheets. I actually hate them. I'm more "inspired" by my year-and-a-half of making VGM arrangements similar to the originals (which is something I should probably throw away too, it just gets in the way), and it happens to sound similar enough. Making fancier arrangements would actually be easier for me, because that would mean less time spent trying to get every exact note and chord. I've wanted to look into it, and I really don't understand why I didn't when I joined this forum.
Actually the idea of having two threads - for each kind of arrangement - is an idea that floats around in my head from time to time, but I don't think it would be necessary. It might even be better to purge these older sheets when I feel like replacing them. Right now I'm letting what I'm familiar with block potential creativity, and that's not good.
Thank you for bringing this up. I'll be messing around for a bit, and combined with (a lot of) work, means that an extremely temporary hiatus will commence on this thread.
GenericArrangements:
Not a full change just yet, but I felt bad about going completely silent lol.
Touhou 1: Highly Responsive to Prayers:
- Iris: LINK
Nothing too flashy just yet, but I just wanted to get something out there. The arrangement has a few differences here and there, most notably at the start and end, but nothing extravagant. Also yeah, I decided to throw in that MSCZ file in there too.
I'm still trying to figure out what I should be doing with this place. I have so many things I want to be doing, but I keep hesitating. I have an idea to turn this thread into a whole music-posting-place for myself, but I need to find platforms for more complex audio. SoundCloud seemed good, but it is a paid service, and I have no money. YouTube is a video-sharing website, not a music site, but as long as I can make some kind of image it should be fine. The problem is making that image lol.
Also I'm trying to figure out how far off a Touhou song I can get without it flat-out not even being Touhou anymore. It's all interpretation work but it's very important.
It doesn't seem like this forum allows users to make polls on their own thread. Might not bother with that option.
Z_A:
Hi there.
First of all, thank you for your work! I downloaded a couple of your midis, as I prefer those to the actual music sheets with notes. Since I am not a real musician, I can't tell the notes apart only by ear, but I play the piano a little, being driven by the amazingness of touhou music in general. Really looking forward to you getting to MS and PoFW, those have some of the best pieces in the series, as for me.
Such transcriptions are probably not intended to be used like music files in the first place. It's more like a reference to musicians, as they try to play the piece on the actual instrument and maybe, yes, produce a more complex arrangement suitable for that instrument, piano or whatever. I enjoyed listening to Mitty's transcription, thanks Mea, but I would have probably enjoyed more if it was performed by hand, not by another of those machines. As for these transcriptions, I'm going to use them to improve my piano skill. They are fairly accurate, compared to the original composition, even if not exactly precise.
GenericArrangements:
So uh... I'm back (or something lol). Dunno how consistent I'll be (I've been trying to do a whole lot lately), but I'm here right now. Ideas are still being thrown around concerning what I'll be doing with this thread, but two main points are consistent: 1) This sheet music business will keep happening. 2) I may begin to post other content. Yes, that's right. OTHER CONTENT. Sounds like witchcraft, sure, but I am actually capable of more than sheet music. I'm just lazy. If I'm bothered enough, there'll be changes to the format of the main post. I'm gonna stop talking about that now lol. Here's a new sheet:
Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object:
- UFO Romance in the Night Sky: LINK
I like this song, so I tried a lot harder to make this arrangement good. Before you complain about the rather standard left hand movements, the song literally has that being played (by guitars) so I needed it for accuracy (also rhythm was important). I did, however, add an ending to it. I'll probably be doing this for all of these sheets from now on, just to make them a bit more unique, as well as to give performers an optional finish.
--- Quote from: Z_A on June 11, 2017, 03:51:59 PM ---Hi there.
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Hello. Sorry for the late reply.
--- Quote from: Z_A on June 11, 2017, 03:51:59 PM ---First of all, thank you for your work!
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You're welcome!
--- Quote from: Z_A on June 11, 2017, 03:51:59 PM ---I downloaded a couple of your midis, as I prefer those to the actual music sheets with notes. Since I am not a real musician, I can't tell the notes apart only by ear, but I play the piano a little, being driven by the amazingness of touhou music in general. Really looking forward to you getting to MS and PoFW, those have some of the best pieces in the series, as for me.
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You don't need to be able to read notes to be a "real musician". It's just vital for most things. Many people can perform without knowing how to read the notes.
Also MS and PoFV are pretty great, yeah, although I'm much less familiar with the former.
--- Quote from: Z_A on June 11, 2017, 03:51:59 PM ---Such transcriptions are probably not intended to be used like music files in the first place. It's more like a reference to musicians, as they try to play the piece on the actual instrument and maybe, yes, produce a more complex arrangement suitable for that instrument, piano or whatever. I enjoyed listening to Mitty's transcription, thanks Mea, but I would have probably enjoyed more if it was performed by hand, not by another of those machines.
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Well, that's exactly why they're there. I did like the idea of putting the notation software file in the folders, but honestly my reasons for not doing so before are starting to seem more important. Sheet music is meant to be performed, not read by software, so that's the purpose of midi files.
--- Quote from: Z_A on June 11, 2017, 03:51:59 PM ---As for these transcriptions, I'm going to use them to improve my piano skill. They are fairly accurate, compared to the original composition, even if not exactly precise.
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Oh hey that's great! It feels good knowing that what I do is worth something. That reminds me though... I should probably be putting a difficulty scale, as not all of my sheets are ridiculously hard nor ridiculously easy. Sometimes I can make a piece much harder than it should be, even though I like to keep within the realm of reasonable playability.
Also some songs are extremely difficult to translate onto piano, so accuracy tends to waffle here and there.