The following are the scores of the Ichigos End of Summer Transcribing Contest!!

1. Gotank - 93.33
2. Alpiso - 88.25
3. Sperion - 85.17
4. DunNotCome - 74.5
5. Hinamuffin - 66.75

Congratulations Gotank!!

THE WINNING ARRANGEMENT: MP3 (http://forums.ichigos.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=14193&d=1313895563) and PDF (http://forums.ichigos.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=14196&d=1313949144)

The above scores are all average scores between the three Judges, which includes Brncao, PorscheGTIII, and myself. Below are the comments regarding each entry. Before reading please remember that you may not agree with all comments written but they were all made with equality strongly in mind. The judges did not communicate comments between one another throughout the judging process. Myself was the only one that viewed the comments made by the other judges for consolidation purposes. Also, all comments made with reference to "I," are being made from my personal point of view. If the other judges comments referred to the same points as a comment that I had already written as part of my comment was not rewritten. Any comments that I had not mentioned were cited to its respective judges. If I had found that the other judges had phrased a comment better than I had, I replaced the judges`comments with mine but I did not cite them. All comments are being made in sequence to one another so you may find some of them to referre to another entry.

Common Errors:

There were several common errors between all the entries.

1. Use pedal markings, NOT WHOLE NOTES!!
2. DO NOT MIX RIGHT AND LEFT HAND.

Please referre to below if you do not understand why.

Finally, DunNotCome's comments are slightly longer compared to some of the other entries because it is the first and as such covers comments to which the others will be referred back to as well. For anyone who thinks we did this because we got lazy or it was due to bias...:death:...think harder.

A BIG thank you to all the participants. This concludes this competition. Feel free to discuss about the comments below.

Edit: Moderator please sticky this when you get the chance to. Thank you!

DunNotCome:

Creativity

Though several runs and harmonic changes were made, I believe that the basic mood of the music was kept the same. The melody was faithful to the original. Still, for creativity being within the original boundaries of the music I’d say this piece had done fairly well. I believe you could had done a lot better in the Major section of the piece as it became pretty static compared to the rest of the piece. Personally, I did not like the Moonlight Sonata ending. This may be a personal taste matter as well as due to a computer generated audio experience matter but I thought it was too over the top. I think even if you had put the progression in the left hand with the right hand simply repeating the final chord in a similar fashion to m.19-23, it would had fit better.

Notation

In all honesty, the notation was not great at all. I will break down some of the major mistakes and pick out some of the finer ones as an example, but there was quite a bit throughout the piece.
To start with, you should not mix right hand and left hand in the same staff without noting what should be played by the left and what should be played by the right. As a rule of thumb, the top staff is for the right and bottom is for the left. Usually a “ ]R.H.” is used if they were to mix on the same staff. However, your opening G for the right hand is still fully within the boundaries of writing it into the treble clef using ledger lines. I would say you could go to the E below the middle C using ledger lines in treble clef. Any lower and I would switch to a base clef much like how you did later on in the piece but I would still try not to mix the two staffs into one. Also, the opening key should be set to g-minor rather than G-Major and switch keys after 4 measures. You should also never use a whole note to suggest a pedal since you do have the pedal markers available to you. I don’t know of any notation software that does not have one actually. These are a major problem because notations much like what you have in measure 6 are created when ignored. I can see how one should play this but it looks very messy.

Two dotted quarter notes followed by a quarter note is something I’ve seen very often. The correct way to notate this is a dotted quarter note, 8th note tied to a quarter note, then a quarter note in that order. Similar with two dotted 8ths and an 8th. Marker 07 is in the key of F Lydian (using your starting key D minor). F Lydian has no accidentals so it’s like playing the F scale without the Bb.
Regarding to the dotted line connecting the A to the G in measure 12; I have no idea what that is for. Such lines are used for two reasons. The first is that it signifies that the two notes are to be played by the same hand. In this case, the left hand would play the A then the opening chord of 13 up high while the right hand plays the runs at the bottom. I do not believe that is what you wanted here. The second, more common in orchestral writing, is to signify a glissando on the scale of the piece (g-minor scale glissando from the A to the G chord in this case) and I do not believe this was the case here either. I still don’t know what that line means so please clarify for me.
Porsche had stated, “Starting at measure 40, the notes in the bottom staff are too close together for that register. You should never have anything closer than a P4 playing together in that part of the register.” Although I don’t necessarily fully agree with this note as this seems more of a personal taste matter, I will agree in that when you have such low notes, having them more spread apart will give a much cleaner feeling while keeping them close will often give a roaring effect. This effect however will become hard to tell as the harmony the denser the notes are set and thus are used more for a purpose of an “effect” than actual harmonization of melody.

The stem of a note is always in relation to the farthest note from the 3rd line in the staff. This will help you clear up some of the clutter you have in the middle of the grand staff in certain areas. Also, in a fast paced piece such as this especially, you should avoid using an 8ve sign if it is only on one note in the middle of a piece. It is actually clearer to write it with the 6/7 ledger lines so that it is not missed or over looked. For instance, in measure 24, you have a bass pedal happening where only the first note is an octave below and the pattern is repeated for several bars while the octave below happens only in the first series.

Measure 29, the grace note should be written with the first note of measure 30. Also, a key signature change should have been made during the soft major section of the piece. I will move on to the next part with this.

This covers most of the problems I saw with respect to your notation.

Playability

There were numerous areas where I deemed the piece to be unplayable. Most of these are due to the fact that most people in the world cannot reach a 10th interval. In fact, even a 9th is a fairly difficult reach simply due to hand size. If you want to keep such intervals, I recommend putting a glissando on the chord. I liked how you made the octave note in measure 24 an eighth note rather than a 16th to provide more time. Personally, I would have even considered a quarter note to make it more beginner friendly. I also deducted points on using whole notes as pedals as it does make the 16th pattern above the sustained note unnecessarily difficult or impossible if it was taken literally. (Some people WILL take it literally, trust me.)

Accuracy

As I put it before, the piece was accurate to the original piece. The main melody persisted more or less note for note with the original. Not much to say here. Brncao had a very lengthy comment regarding your accuracy for which I have included as the attached PDF to save space as I could not incorporate it into mine as easy as the other ones due the sheer amount of content he had written.

Creativity – 20.50
Notation – 22.83
Playability – 24.5
Accuracy – 6.67

Total: 74.5/100

Sperion

Creativity

I will start off by saying, had you submitted your variation 3 as your main, I would had given you 100% in creativity. I was hoping that people would be more creative in that sense then what they can do with the original. I was, at one point, very tempted to message you to change your variation 3 as your main entry.

Regarding to this piece, I thought you did fairly well of exploring the piano. The trills at measure 55-56, though I thought you had over done it by putting it on all of the notes there, was a nice touch. I would leave out the trills on F and E in measure 56. Measure 63 left hand pattern was wonderful. I think its Chopin right? I would had preferred you to follow the pattern rather than stopping it on the half notes (65) and dropping the melody by an octave as well to keep that dense and heavy feeling. Finishing the piece via the Major section was nice as well.
This arrangement has a good balance between transcription (Accuracy) and arrangement (creativity)

Notation

Some beaming issues but overall, a very clean and tidy score. You should have either a E minor key signature or a G minor key signature from the start of your music. Both would work but E minor is probably a better choice as you are using E naturals in your passages. Similar to DunNotCome, pedal markings should be used rather than sustain via whole notes. I did note that you had split your score into voices so that the beaming of certain notes were forced downward but this is also why you should not use whole notes to represent a pedal. Also, similar to DunNotCome, do not mix left and right hand in a single staff! Pianists will hate you for it. I encourage the use of more dynamics. Freedom for the player does not necessarily mean no dynamic markings. Brncao mentioned, “If I receive a piece like this without having heard the song, the first question I would ask is “how does it go?” Dynamics helps establish the feel of the song (I usually don’t see it as volume alone). Expressions like Con Brio, Expressivo , Dolce, and even ad libitum helps the sight-reader.” I believe this to be very true for this piece.
Measure 67 last note for instance, it would take 2 glance to realize that the entire chord is not meant to be played by right hand and the bottom 2 should be for the left hand. The confusion rating is higher for this measure in particular because the bottom 2 notes are in the same range as the previous notes played by the right hand.

Playability

I consider your piece to be more of an unnecessarily hard piece to play than impossibility of play. Using measure 67 as an example again, you have your left hand jump up after a 16th note run into the right hand and also your right hand has an octave jump (more or less) in such fast tempo. I would consider moving the right hand’s 2*16th note and the triplet up an octave so that it is not jumping back and forth. Also for the opening where you had 9 triplets repeating on the same note – this is not something that is impossible but provided the tempo I think would get tiring for less experienced pianists. If you had gotten rid of the 5th triplet note and put an 8th rest there, it would not change the overall feel of the passage and make the entire passage a lot more easier to play. Also, some fingering on the notes might help as well. There is a grey area as to what an intermediate pianist will be able to easily play and the 16th note runs you have at measure 63 is definitely one of them. I have been playing the piano for many years so I didn’t even think that what you had there was difficult but Brncao had raised a point in that it would be difficult to learn in under a month for an intermediate, CASUAL, pianist. I believe this might be true upon reflection.

Accuracy

Nothing much to say, it sounds like the original. There were deviations from it such as the opening intro so I took some off but I gave more in creativity to make up for it based on the whole piece.

Creativity – 23.67
Notation – 24.67
Playability – 27
Accuracy – 9.83

Total – 85.16

Hinamuffin

Creativity

You tried your best and it was a good arrangement. That being said…arpeggios are cool but they start to sound very stale if over used. You should consider adding some variations in your arpeggios as well, especially during the Major section. The opening was a bit too straightforward, sounded like a military march or something. If this was a woodwinds orchestra or something I think this sheet music would had been a very nice reduction of the score. However for piano writing it’s a bit dull.

Notation

Very nice point by Porsche, “You use the triplet a lot. Why not notate it in 12/8 then?”
Whole note pedals!! Same comment as the others, this is not a good way to represent a pedal. Most of your mistakes are from the second half when you tried to make your music a bit more complex. The first half was nice and nothing major aside from the whole note pedals. I can tell that you did pay attention to the hand crossings as well. I just wish these efforts had continued in the second half as well.
Beams for the right and left hand should never intersect. Also, your notes should never be overlapped by the beam of another. Notation software usually has a function for you to manually change the direction of your beam. Also, your beaming for the voices can never intersect either (measure 65). Having the left hand notes go into the upper staff are seldom done and if there are right hand notes in the upper staff already you should never do it. Toward the end of your piece, I have no idea which hand I’m supposed to use to play those chords. If this was an orchestral reduction, each instrument would have a separate player so for condensed scoring, this method is fine but for piano, this should not be done.
Finally, for a piano score, if there is only one voice actively at play, you do not have to write rests for the other voices. You should either hide the rests for the other voices from your final score or, more easier, not write them in to begin with.

Playability

Even if I was to put the whole note chords as a quarter with a pedal, the fact that the right hand would have to jump more than an octave in the time of 1/3 of the beat at 120 is difficult and hard to get accurate even with practice. The general clutter that occurs in the latter half of the piece definitely worked against the points in this category for the piece. I believe, including figuring out the arranger’s intentions, playing the piece perfectly as intended by the arranger would take quite a long time with this piece. Triplet arpeggios going up and down would be very intimidating for some players but not as bad as 16th notes.

Accuracy

Faithful to the original, it is what it is.

Measure 38: incorrect melody.
On measure 46, my judgment is telling me you were trying to transcribe the chord accurately to the original song (Deducing from your arrangement, you were aiming for accuracy than creativity). I believe you meant F major, not F minor.
In measure 51, the original melody ends with a C (you ended it with A), but A was also there in the song (third below C) so I’ll let it slide.
Marker 08: wrong key.

Creativity –18.42
Notation –17.17
Playability –22.16
Accuracy – 9

Total – 66.75

Alpiso

Creativity

This is the type of creativity that I love. Though the pattern did get boring because no variation was done it on it throughout the entire first section, I believe this piece deserves merit in that it took up a completely different stylistic from the original. It feels a little bit Latin to me. I would even drop the left hand an octave lower for the final chord for an added hit. This piece was very enjoyable and fun. The contrast worked great with the Major section as well and an overall nice work on the variations. Great job!!

Notation

Very clean and easy to read score. The fact that this is a simpler piece probably helped it look cleaner as well. You do not and should not add dynamics under your left hand, especially if both of them are the same. Having pianissimo in the middle of the grand staff is sufficient for the pianist. The mp in measure 4 should be written in measure 5 unless you wish to have that first note in measure 5 to be in a softer volume then mp. Regarding your sustained notes whole notes starting around measure 14; you should not have it held to an overlapping note (the g in measure 15). Also, I don’t think audibly you would hear a difference between having the dotted half note D in measure 17 or just putting it as a whole note with the rest of the chord. This sheet appears to be written more for differing voices than for a piano player in this section. Flip the bottom G note stem in the treble clef downwards in measure 5. This note is impossible to play by the right hand, but it’s within an octave’s reach with the left. Secondly they are different voices.
Wrong key signature at marker 07 (suppose to be Db Lydian [4 flats]).
During your contrasting section, you introduced the pedal (THANK YOU!!). However, I don’t know why you would still write a sustaining whole note if you already have a pedal. It is redundant and when your interval splits farther than an octave, it becomes not practical. It also creates more work for arrangers because I can see you are tie-ing the notes to represent that it is being pedaled but this is not necessary.

With respect to the run in Measure 54, I believe you should have the quarter notes in the right hand just as a triplet. You already have the quarter notes in your left hand as staccato so having those quarter notes in the right hand seems to defeat the purpose of the passage. In measure 37, the dotted-quarter + dotted-quarter + quarter in common time should be written as dotted-quarter + eighth tied to a quarter + quarter. This is much easier to site-read and count. Though I do it the same way as you to save time, strictly speaking it is not correct notation.

Playability

I would say this piece is very playable. I took points off for the awkward sustained whole notes and certain passages I believe could had been done simpler without affecting the end result but aside from that, I believe this is a nice, easy, and fun piece to play. This arrangement caters well to the level 4-6 RCM pianists.

Accuracy

When you are creative, obviously there are deviations from the original but I recognized every part except maybe one or two bars such as 26-27. I reflected these in your creativity marks though.

Creativity –23.42
Notation –24.33
Playability – 32.67
Accuracy – 7.83

Total – 88.25

Gotank

Creativity

Beautiful! Just Beautiful! I don’t know how many times I’ve listened to this piece. When I picked this original, I was waiting for someone to make a sad arrangement of it because the melody fit perfectly for one. When you asked me if you could enter yours, I was not expecting a piece like this one since most of the others more or less stayed true to the original “epic” mood. I’m very glad you still decided to join the competition. This was a truly wonderful arrangement!

Notation

Very detailed and clean. Slurs on the piano are usually more to show phrasing than actual slurs. Whole notes are not needed if you have “add pedal” at the front. As I have said with all other entries, pianists never use whole notes in place of pedal markings. I’m not too sure about where this started but it is incorrect for piano writing! In measure 23, you have “R.H.” in your bottom staff but I don’t see any reason for that to be played by the right hand. I decided to state this in the notation section rather than playability section because I believe this is most likely a typo? If it is not a typo, then you must state what note the L.H. is to play as well. This one particular bar is very confusing and I actually had to go on my keyboard to figure out what was happening. I tried to play it as written in the score but it did not make sense to me. I would just have the right hand play the A and the E together while the left hand prepares to play the upcoming D. Also, there were some very awkward beaming (38/39).

Playability

This is a very easy piece to play. Most of the materials here can be sight read. However the crossing between the right and left hand during your Major section could be cleaned up more such that the fingers don’t have to fight over the keys so much. There is a pedal so the notes will be sustained regardless of the value written. Brcao says, “I can imagine youtube videos of this!”

Accuracy

A wonderful portrayal of the piece. I think the first section should had been given a brief repetition, not a full, a short brief one. It just feels too short for me the way it is right now. I loved this piece, it was great. Great job again!!

Creativity – 25
Notation – 26.33
Playability – 32.5
Accuracy – 9.5

Total – 93.33

It would have been extremely helpful if you guys had label your scores with markers. That way it's easier for us judges (or just me) and other participants to refer to the sections on the sheet music when commenting. So right now, use the list below when you're trying to comment a section so we know what you're referring to.

Chords
Marker 01 (Intro): E minor Em...

Marker 02 (first 2 phrases, main melody): G minor Gm, Gm, Eb, Bb, F, F, Eb, F

Marker 03 (second 2 phrases, main melody): Gm, Gm, Eb, Bb, F, F

Marker 04 (transition): Gm, Eb, F, Gm, Eb, F, Gm, Eb, F, Gm, Eb, F

Marker 05 (first 2 phrases, main melody): Bb minor Bbm, Bbm, Gb, Db, Ab, Ab, Gb, Ab

Marker 06 (second 2 phrases, main melody): Bbm, Bbm, Gb, Db, Ab, Ab, Bbm

Marker 07 (The calm part): Db Lydian Db, Eb, F, F-Bb*, F, F-Bb*, F, F, Db, Eb, Db, Eb, F...

Marker 08 (first 2 phrases, main melody): Bb minor Bbm, Bbm, Gb, Db, Ab, Ab, Gb, Ab

Marker 09 (second 2 phrases, main melody): Bbm, Bbm, Gb, Db, Ab, Ab, Bbm

*one chord plays half the measure

haha, I noticed KK copied everything from my accuracy comments for Dunnotcome on the 2nd page. Just ignore the red text at the bottom. I had a lot of trouble grading this (hence the delay) due to having too much bias. It's a systematic objective grading guideline I created to systematically grade everyone equally without too much bias. It actually worked out, and surprisingly aligns with the final scores.
My comments might sound "harsh" and "vague" because I was pressed on time and couldn't elaborate on it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Everyone deserves an award for having their own unique arranging styles.

Sperion
Best balance between creativity and accuracy; Best transcription. Sperion was the only one who got the Db Lydian correct! If players wanted an arrangement that was most purest (closest to the original song), this wins hands-down.

Gotanks
Best arrangement for creativity. This also wins the playability award. If beginners wanted one that is easy to play, but not one that lacks emotion or "sounds too simple", Gotank's arrangement is my top pick.

Hinamuffin
Wins the Challenge award. It's an arrangement for those looking for the hardest, most-challenging arrangement to play.

DunNotCome
Best vigor award. This arrangement is suited for players looking for a lot of vigor. It is well-suited for players who have higher stamina. If you gotta evoke the feelings of epicness and energy, this arrangement wins in that regard.

Alpiso
Wins the intermediate award. This fulfills KK's guideline of having level 4-6 RCM (intermediate level). It is best-suited for players who don't want something too hard nor too easy to play. And if you love the tango he added in there, then you'll love this arrangement.

First, thanks to the judges, for their work. I'm very pleased to have such feedback, I'm learning a lot !!!

I'd like to ask for something and give some precision about my work too :)

First, I don't understand when Brncao say, about DunNotCome's score, that at measure 35, the Fm and Ab chords are conflicting. There is some dissonance, maybe the voicing should be better, but I can understand this chord as a Ab6 split chord, or a Fm7 chord, no ?
Also, the Cdim (with the Fm at L.H.) give a good effect.
Are you talking about strict writing notions ? Or forbidden dissonances ? (or maybe a not so good conduction of the harmonic progression ?)

Considering my work, yes, the first part can be a little boring : my rhythmic progression is maybe too slow (but, it should shorten the piece which is already .... short :P)
Comments about Dynamics and dotted note on the first part (marker 2&3) are mistakes I did by inattention. Previous versions was correct :P
The G note at m5 (marker 2) was a good interrogation mark.... As I have large hands it's not difficult for me and it was thought like this : the Bb note finish the melody of the introduction part, and the G begin the melody of the theme. Also, it was for splitting the rhythmic part (L.H.) and the melody part (R.H.).
Considering the marker 7, I was always wondering about how to transcribe my playing. That's why you get this... Not really nice, of course. Moreover that the 8ths at m31 & m33 are played by my Right Hand :heh:
About the m54 (marker 9), in the end, I had the quarter notes on the right hand because I found that it sounded so empty without them...

Voilà :)

I'm not giving justifications, just telling what was my thought and taking note that what I did it wasn't so efficient : there are better ways. I really thanks all of you about what I learned !!

So -_-, my next step is to study modes scale, because, I really do not understand the Db Lydian :lol:

Congratulations to Gotank! I also like his arrangement best. ^_^

I would also like to thank the judges for putting a lot of effort into analysing the entries. I will have to read the comments in detail soon. (Looks like there is a lot of useful stuff!)

Finally, well done to all the participants. Good to hear some different arrangements of the same theme. Cheers~


Edit: In hindsight, "transcribing and arranging contest" may be a more suitable title than "transcribing contest". Just a thought.

o.O looks like people's taste moved from the old classicals to new ones, next one i will probably write one in New Age/Impressionist style, i might post it here soon haha, its a secret transcription i did (But when Gotank released his/her version, it felt somewhat similar) after my competition submission b4 anyone else did one.

Notational wise, i followed Debussy's and Beethoven's method, which is what i based on in my musical life. Whole notes coupled with 'unreachable' notes tend to mean pedal, whether its reachable or not. A 10th note is possible (Check Liszt La Campanella, it has even worse ones 15th jumps), even for a short hand with a little pedal. Looks like i will have to make it more explicit in future competitions despite it being implied by current notations :-)

Well i actually sight read my piece, just played it just now, i didnt find any problem playing it, might be that most people do not really have extremely long fingers and might haf difficulty reaching the 10ths.

I notice quite a lot of problems with chord seem to occurred in my arrangement, probably because of my hard-pressed time which i haf to juggle a ever- increasing amount of homework, my job and this, so i have to sacrifice my time for this, which i dun haf time to align the chords, i noe that the chord of the main melody is I-I-V-III-IV-IV-VI-V, counted every 4 beat of the bar, but when i realized this, the arrangement is already made, and i didnt have the time to align the chords, so too bad for me......

As for the Lydian Chord, I didnt think it is a Lydian Chord at all, it sounded more like a Myxolydian mode to me, as the tune revolved around the picardy third quite a lot. I may have to analyse the tune again to make a more accurate gauge to the mode it is.

I'm glad my simple arrangement was enjoyed!

I especially appreciate all the detailed comments left by fellow contestants and especially the judges. This was a great learning experience for me, especially concerning piano notation.

Thank you to everyone for organizing and participating in this fun event. It was fascinating to experience so many different arrangements, each with their own merit.


Edit:

I think the first section should had been given a brief repetition, not a full, a short brief one. It just feels too short for me the way it is right now.
I definitely agree. In fact, it was my original intent to use the restatement of the theme I have right now at the end as an immediate repetition after the first pass through the melody. Due to time constraints, I had to reorganize things a tad.

Well, if it's a "première", that is really a good "première", congratulations !

By the way, is there any promotion that will be done ? Special highlighting in the "sheet score" of the main site. I saw there was an official youtube channel also... :think:

About Hinamuffin:

Very nice point by Porsche, “You use the triplet a lot. Why not notate it in 12/8 then?”

Is there a method to make a good choice ?
When I read lot of triplets in a 4/4 signature, and the "same thing" in 12/8, I can't perform (I don't feel) the rhythmic in the same way for both of them. One is binary and the other ternary. I may play the one in 4/4 in a jazz style when I will play the other in 12/8 in a "slow" style...

Here with a such score, maybe a simple annotation "simile" should ease the notation ?

Are you talking about strict writing notions ? Or forbidden dissonances ? (or maybe a not so good conduction of the harmonic progression ?)
I had made a comment on that on my guidelines (which isn't posted here). Dissonance isn't wrong per se. It depends on the mood of what you're trying to establish. If the arrangement calls for something ominous, then dissonance is expected. I had to listen to the arrangement as a whole to deduce what emotion/mood you were trying to evoke. From there I can tell if something was intentional, unintentional, or incorrectly used. Marker 07 evoked calamity and tranquility from what I deduced from the arrangement. You should not evoke dissonance in this situation imo. If people were to hear this on Youtube, you get the idea.

In regards to chords. First, when I see two different chords like Fm and Ab, I combine them together to form Fm7. From there I take other factors into consideration (does the chord progression make sense? Does the effect it evokes makes sense? etc.).

Be careful not to contradict your overall theme and mood of your arrangement. Music theory is just theory. You can do whatever you want to it, but understand music is a form of communication, so bear in mind who your audience is. If you want to get really experimental and challenge the norm, then go ahead. If dissonance or composing with complete disregard to chord progression is what you want to do, that's fine. No one is stopping you. But it will take a really long time before it becomes a norm (think jazz, etc.) if it's possible.

I wasn't sure where some of you guys' comments were referring to in your transcription so I will reply in a more general manner and based solely on how I was marking the entries as I don't know how the other judges came to their scores.

Though it is true that a whole note pedal is often seen as a cue to add a pedal, this is most DEFINATELY NOT the correct way for notation. Also, I deducted points in notation when I found it to be more like a reduced score than a piano sheet. Certain "correct," orchestral notation/reduction does not work for a pianist...for obvious reasons. If there were clutter where the right hand notes were written in the bottom staff where I thought was unnecessary, I made deduction in both playability and notation. Notation for obvious reasons but I deducted from playability as well because clutter makes a score harder to read. If I found the piece to be too difficult I deducted "ONE" mark off of playability. Most of the deductions I made in playability was due to notation that would confuse the player when sight reading, and notation that cause unnecessary clutter.

I agree with Brncao in that even though saying a dissonance does not belong somewhere can be argued as a biased response, I do believe a line must be drawn between creativity and voice leading errors. I may have misinterpretted DunNotCome's phrasing but I did not give any bonus points because someone harmonized with a classical style or "new ones." In fact, the creativity marks I assigned were based only on the audio. I don't think I was biased by the audio production as I believe I've been playing the piano long enough for me to know what kind of potential a piece has when played live from listening to its midi. To me, if it sounded like a straight transcription of the original, I did not give it more than 20 points. If I felt laziness on the arranger's part, I deducted some more marks but nothing too big.

If you would like for me to raise specific examples in your entry that you felt to be unfairly deducted or just confused to what the comment meant, I will be more than happy to explain things further for you.

eh actually, its a MP3 output from Finale 2011 with original samples, not a original playing, i can play a original playing but my piano is out of tune lols


Update 8 Sep..:
I found it valid to do cross beaming. In hard pieces (Like chopin's ocean), the cross beaming represents not a switch of hands, but rather a different sight-reading method, to read from the top stave instead of the bottom. The truth is that below A in the treble clef and above D in the bass clefs, either you can switch the clefs, or do cross beaming (This is by experience). In Clair De Lune, no pedal sign was give, but whole notes were implied as pedal. I've studied piano scores for many years and have become very adept in music engraving standards, in piano (which i haf more experience on), and in orchestral, and i dun see y notation was marked down despite other pieces composed having these devices. Cross-beaming is not a switch of hands, and whole notes followed by another note, reachable or not, tend to mean pedal, regardless if the pedal sign was given or not, unless otherwise stated or the period does not allow for it. In La Campanella (By Liszt, Etude III), the ending of the triplet repetitive parts has a 15th left hand with 4 notes, without a glissando at all. Maybe i should provide a link to all the examples i stated:

Debussy, Clair de Lune: http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/a/ab/IMSLP46697-PMLP02397-Debussy_Suite_Bergamasque_Peters_12420b_Urtext.pdf
Franz Liszt, La Campanella, Etude III: http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e8/IMSLP29890-PMLP02569-SIBLEY1802.6641.17301.8314-39087009888654.pdf
Chopin Ocean Etude (Op.25 No.12): http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e8/IMSLP29890-PMLP02569-SIBLEY1802.6641.17301.8314-39087009888654.pdf

These are Diploma Pieces, which i play for fun, La campanella is a DliplomaLT piece, Ocean Etude is a DiplomaFT piece, while Clair De Lune is just a Grade 7 piece...
Didn't want to elaborate too much....

If I understand well, you say that music is like a speech.
You're going from A to B by a development which can contain steps. Both the development and the steps can be whatever you want with the condition that they go by the general idea of the speech.
It must be coherent and well conducted.

So that's why some chords or arrangements are "good" considering the fact of the theory, but bad regarding the main idea of the whole piece...

Thanks for these precisions !

Jesuchrist! I never saw so many sexual spams in a thread! This is insane!

ANYWAY

Contragulation to Gotank! It is a very well done arrange. It speaks professionalism. Alpiso would have won in my liking if he just did not stopped where he did. You were very creative with your arrange but you left me wanting more... and that more never happened. Too short for its potential.

Also, I would like to know why everyone selected the same track? '_'

you left me wanting more

I know, I know :P
You're not the only one, but:


does it still hold the interest of the listener/player if the piece was played 3times consecutively

So, I also win the "I want more" award :heh:


Seriously : As for others, time missed me. After writing the last part of my arrangement, I was excited, I felt great feelings. I thought I had to continue in this way ...
But, it's done !

I choose this one, because it "speak" to me. I see that the piece have a potential to be arranged in many way. And quickly the mood of the tango came to me ;)

Pleased to see you like it ^_^

Thanks Nyu!

I picked this one because the other two seemed less adaptable into a piano arrangement of a style I was looking for.

I wanted to arrange something which would deviate from the original in terms of mood, yet still remaining recognizable and pleasant. K-ON's melody wasn't one which I could easily imagine a rearrangement for, while the Night at the Museum theme progressed into a development section which is difficult to convincingly express on a piano in my opinion. So for the latter I would have had to omit a big portion of the melodic content and mostly focus on the initial theme.

In the end, the Gundam piece seemed most ideal.

Hi~~ =) Congratulations to everyone, it was a pleasure entering this contest :D
Thanks a lot for the critique too, it really helped me to improve :)

Hello everybody !

At last I found time to make some corrections, regarding all comments.
So here is (http://www.box.net/shared/oxbx3qsxbetd8bq79bug) the new sheet music.
If you want the source, you can find it here (http://www.box.net/shared/hc32ai45mdctzl7h76zm).

I had ornaments to notes, to give more precision to the player.
About the final chord, I prefer to keep the left hand to the same octave (it's more about taste :P).