Steben
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Posts posted by Steben
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Rainman DX is the coolest guy on OCR.
I've been running my local NYLT course (Boy Scout leadership training camp) the past week, so I just now had decent internet access (aka better than using my cell phone as a modem).
Once I get my own computer hooked back up I'll look at the parts more indepth, but they look sweet. The plan is to send my director whatever I can asap so I'll know the chances of AU playing this on the field. Either way, I think I'm going to bite the bullet and get a student copy of Finale, so I'll be caught up with the times. That way I'll also be able to directly use your drumline parts.
More details as they become available! Thanks again, Rainman. I'll send you a PM if I have any questions. You've been great to work with - maybe we should do it again sometime?
Let me know if there's something you're interested in collaborating on. -
They had all disappeared by the time I went back to Target.
I bet they're all here.
:(On second thought, that's what I should have done. I had enough expendable money to buy a few of them... that's an easy $100 right there. Oh well.
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Dunno if you heard, but the Nintendo DS Lite release date was broken. I was at Target earlier today (in Huntsville, AL), and they had them up for sale. I didn't buy one, but I'm considering going back tonight.
I already have Feel the Magic (found it for $8 somewhere), but I'm thinking I'll want to get a WiFi game to go with the DS Lite. Which one would you guys suggest? (I'd get New SMB even though it's not WiFi, but my brother got it recently, so I've already played through a lot of it on his copy.)
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I found a tutorial on how to make windchimes that might be of use.
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Arena- Tetris field. Fight while dodgeing the blocks. If a line is made jump off before u fall
Haha, unless the L-block is a hidden character, I doubt we'll get Tetris stages.
I could imagine having the Tetriminos as items.
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SSB:DS FTW
I think we'll have to wait for a Game Boy with an analog stick. Super Smash Bros. isn't anything without the smashing.
Double-tap. Press on the D-pad once for regular, double-tap for smash. Kirby Super Star and Castlevania: CotM used it rather well (only for dashing, though), so I don't see how or why it wouldn't be used in a SSB game for DS.
Point conceded. I did like how the double-tap worked for dashing in Super Star.
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SSB:DS FTW
I think we'll have to wait for a Game Boy with an analog stick. Super Smash Bros. isn't anything without the smashing.
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'Sup Steben?
I told you I'm on the drumline at Georgia Tech, right? I have the original on my computer already, and Finale Notepad 2006 - I'd be pleased to arrange for you a percussion part. Let me know if that's satisfactory - a PM would do just fine. I'll get started on it right away.
BTW, good luck on finals.
Rainman DX is working on the drumline stuff. Double high fives to him!
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It's awesome to see someone doing this. I'm completely looking forward to this and I pray that you finish it. The one problem that people or stupid 8th graders not completely unlike myself will run in to is many people in marching band use mellophones insted of F.horns. If you could knock the horn stuff up to Bb, that would be awesome.
That shouldn't be a problem.
Finals are coming up, but I'm hoping to find time to wrap this up before summer starts - I have a few other arrangement projects in mind (not vg-related, mostly) that I want to feel free to work on.
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Hey! I was thinking of arranging this or the samba one for my band! This is so cool that someone else had the same idea. Our band is a marching band, and it's pretty good. We're a high school band, but, we've played in some fairly big events. And Everyone would love this... we always play music from movies, T.V., random stuff; game music would be fine.
May I download the score and can we play it?
The plan is to have individual parts available to whomever wants to use it for their high school band, once it's finished. (It'll probably only be available by request, since I'd like an idea of who's playing my stuff. But I can't imagine turning anyone down.)
I'll try to remember to send you a PM when it's done.
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School's kept me busy for the past month, but I'm almost done with this, I think!
Latest score: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/wip/kotraumb.pdf
EDIT: seems I'm retarded and forgot to change the keys from concert to written... just ignore that! D:
Latest sound: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/wip/kotraumb.mp3
I've added in all the articulations that I wanted to do. (Note that the recording reflects this, although not realistically.) I've tweaked the instrumentation a bit more to my liking. With the exception of percussion parts, I think I'm done here.
Speaking of which. Anybody out there know how to arrange for a drumline? It looks like I'm going to have to do it myself otherwise, but I'd prefer someone who actually plays percussion to do it. Send me a PM or reply here if you're interested, thanks!
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He totally hinted that our band may possibly play this on the field, in the same show as our arrangement of "Tank!" (of Cowboy Bebop fame). Glee!
I hope you put up a recording of your show!
Also, it's hard to get high school marching bands (At least in Arizona) to play video game music. I saw one band last year do FF6 but for the most part the judges like that artsy crap. The bands who know they don't stand a chance are the ones who play the fun stuff.
EDIT: Also, I just realized I have the AU recording of "Hey Baby!" Great sounding band! My high school marching band played it too but didn't sound as good.
I've only heard one school do a video game based show at a competition, in 2004. It was called Play On! and featured every gimmick you could imagine, including an electric saxophone. It overall was kind of boring... straight covers of stuff from the Smashing Live! CD pretty much. Then again, maybe I was just jealous because I wanted to be the first one to seriously arrange video game music for marching band.
Thanks for the good words about AU's band.
If it makes you feel any better, I bet if my old high school played "Hey Baby!" it wouldn't sound that good either. EDIT: If Auburn actually ends up playing my arrangement, I'll certainly look into getting a recording. If possible I'd like to submit it to OCR, although getting permission for that might be a little difficult. Also, we only usually record our standard stands tunes, and the show tunes.
So you might see it here someday... on the offchance we play Katamari on the March in a show, on the offchance it gets chosen for recording, on the offchance I get permission to submit it here, and on the offchance the judges think there's enough arrangement in the piece. And that'll probabaly be a year from now at the earliest! D: But I can dream.
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Tenor sax unisons are not so great, but I can see that there's some craziness with all those homophonic rhythms. If you could come up with a second rhythmic line, counterpoint if you will, that contrasts the rhythms here, imitates them, offsets them, and moves in contrary motion, you could put it in the lower second voices (of the saxes and clarinets) and it would sound great. Also lots of unison at C and D.
I've actually reduced it to a single tenor sax part. I've been told there's a chance my school could play it on the field next year, so I'm arranging it with our instrumentation in mind.
Trombones in octaves for those long whole notes is good for pedal points, but at times you can just move the first trombone down so it plays the third or fifth of the chord, and it would sound better (like it would for bassoons.)The original song has the synth bass playing a single note. I'm not really going for the sound of a complete chord. My reasoning for the octaves (instead of unisons) was that it'd be easier to hear in the stands.
I don't full understand the piccolo/flute line since it's going to sound like they're playing in 10ths (piccolos sound an octave higher than written.) Piccolos are great for octave doublings over the flutes, or even bass line instruments. For example, the flute can continue what it's doing at E, but the piccolo would sound more interesting if it was playing 2 octaves above the trumpet line.I was confused about this at first, but then I realized what you meant. The flute/piccolo line was meant to be played by either two parts of piccolos, or two parts of flutes, not both. However, I've also since axed the second flute/piccolo part, so it's not really an issue I guess.
Speaking of brass, the trumpet and trombone lines starting at D and E aren't too pretty in their doublings and could be spread out over their individual octaves. The trumpet part maybe could be raised by an octave entirely and the lower line could play in 6ths below that instead of 8vas so it doesn't have to go so low.Again, I'm trying to stick with the original here. A tenor voice solo has that melody in Katamari on the Rocks, so I don't want any harmony there. That's also why the trumpets only play for a few measures at E - I didn't want to make the trombones play high A flats while marching. Range issues bar me from putting the 2nd trombones an octave below - they could do it, but it'd sound really muddy on a marching field.
At F I don't know what that will sound like, but I like the contrasting rhythms at 56 and 60. Again at 64 consider using thirds, or more chordal textures instead of unisons. At G, I don't know why you still have the tenor saxes up so high. If you wanted, you could put the seconds doubling the bass line in the trombones, which would sound more spread out. At H the trombones look like they should be playing in octaves here. It might clash with the third trombone voice, so yeah, it will be tough to make it work. This is why writing things like fugues is so hard.Again, I'm just really not going for the sound of a full chord here. Octaves are something to consider though. If anything, I may put in some 5ths... maybe I can plug that in and see how it sounds.
The higher wind parts actually look really good with lots of intervals. I just don't know if the piccolo/flute combo are doing what you think they're doing. I'd actually suggest having that line be two flutes, and then you can start a new staff and put a piccolo line to double in octaves the most important melodic content throughout the piece (or play typical Sousa-like trills and runs contrasting various rhythms.)I covered the confusion with the flute/piccolo line. At Auburn, we recently switched from flutes to piccolos, so I'm writing just for that instrument. However, I wrote flutes/piccolos since alternately, a flute line could cover the part.
Thanks for the input, Sil.
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I'm not sure weather you are referring to the chords or the range of the tenors at G, but everything in here is easily in a tenor's range, especially a high school tenor.Also, I don't know if this has been addressed yet, but although it might not be a traditiona marching band setup (I thought it was, but I guess I was mistaken), but a lot of marching bands have bari saxes. It would be better if you wrote them a line, especially because if a school has some bari's (which they should), they'd have to either write their own part from the tubas, or play the only other thing in Eb (alto).
Also, I do partially agree with the tenor sax unison thing. as a tenor saxophoneist myself, I find that tenors are best for harmonies and countermelodies. But that's just my opinion.
As mentioned above, I'm writing with AU's band in mind at the moment. When I officially release the score for people to download and use in their own marching bands, I'll definitely consider throwing in parts for a bari sax, and maybe a few other things. However, they'll probably only be doubling parts already written here.
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Anyway, tonight was the rehersal for AU's pep band before they go to the SEC women's basketball tournament. I brought my WIP for them to try out playing. Only one person there had even heard of Katamari Damacy (when I said it was a Playstation game, someone blurted "oh, well, I have X-Box."), so they had a bit of trouble figuring out the tune at first. However, they seemed to get the hang of it after a couple run-throughs.
So yeah, if you're watching Auburn women's basketball in the SEC tourney this week (God knows why you'd actually want to, though... our team kind of sucks), keep an ear out for the pep band. You might hear some Katamari on the Rocks.
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links not working?
Y'know, it'd certainly help that if I were to move the files on my webspace, to update the links that lead to them, eh?
They're almost at the same place, just in a subfolder called wip/ now. I've updated the links to the latest versions of the score and recording. Thanks for the heads-up.
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Yeah this sounds awesome. Just throw any fast paced marching drumline beat in and it will sound twice as good.
Working on this today, hopefully. My percussion guy said he'd be all for it if he "isn't hungover".
So maybe tomorrow! >_<
You mentioned something about haveing trouble getting a recording....it shouldn't really be that hard, you arranged the music, just ask if you can have a copy of it being played by a band. That's what the guy that arranged music for the band I was in did. (Granted we had to pay for his services)It doesn't hurt to ask.
I'm sure I could get a recording. I was more curious as to whether I could get a recording good enough for OCR submission, or at least to post on VGMix.
Wow, what's going on with your tied notes? The slurs are sometimes facing the opposite directions they should be.Also, if two parts are playing the same line, don't write two stems on the one note. Write "a2" instead. This especially makes sense for the 16th notes in the winds at G. You often resort to unison doublings when octave doublings would work just as well.
Problem with using $40 notation software is that sometimes you just can't always get what you want. The layering system (which I discovered between writing the 4th and 5th draft) is kind of clunky. What I do, is write each part on a sepearte staff, and then layer the staffs over each other. Which means I don't really get the choice of only having one stem on unisons. On the bright side, now that I have the parts written on seperate staves, I can print out individual parts easily. For an amatuer effort, I think a little bit of clunkiness in the conductor's score is acceptable as long as the individual parts are good.
As for octave doublings, I could see a few instruments I could do that with at F. Other than that, I'm not sure there are any other places where I'd want to put any unisons in octaves, considering range issues and just the sound of the notes an octave up and down. Do you have any suggestions? Note that I'm planning on scrapping the second flute and tenor sax parts once I figure out how to cover their notes, so as to match a more traditional marching band instrumentation. (1 flute, 2 clarinets, 2 altos, 1 tenor, 3 trumpets, 2 f horns, 3 trombones, 1 baritone, 1 tuba)
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Latest score: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/wip/katamarimarch5.pdf
Latest sound: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/wip/katamarimarch5.mp3
After talking to the head of bands here at Auburn, I got a bajillion suggestions on how to improve the piece. I'm not done, but this is a major improvement from my previous drafts. Instrumentation is tweaked as to sound good on a marching field or in the stands, score order is corrected, the ranges of a few of the instruments have been adapted so as to be less taxing, and a few other things.
I still need articulations and percussion. I'm going with Daniel up to the band room tomorrow to try a few things out, hopefully. Percussion should really help flesh out this piece, particularly the beginning.
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Latest score: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/katamarimarch4.pdf
Latest sound: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/katamarimarch4.mp3
Fixed some range issues for the piccolo. Also, I changed up rehearsal F to bring in the "nah nah" background earlier, so I could squeeze in Auburn's fight song in the background on the next phrase. Incredibly cheesy, which makes it perfectly fitting for the song, if you ask me.
Also, piccolos and clarinets don't change up the "doo-doo-doodoo" part at B until C.
Aaaanyway. Updates will probably slow down now. I only made this one because I wanted to show the head director of bands here at AU the latest revision, so I went ahead and posted it here too. Once Daniel does the percussion, I'll put it here for the world to see.
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Just got back from talking to Dr. Good -- instead of my applied lesson we mainly listened to and looked over my piece, which is just as well considering I've been working on this instead of practicing! D:
He totally hinted that our band may possibly play this on the field, in the same show as our arrangement of "Tank!" (of Cowboy Bebop fame). Glee!
If it's in one of the shows, there's a good chance that it could be recorded for the band's CD. Legality issues aside (I'm not very hopeful that I could convince the powers that be to let me submit such a recording here), I wonder if such an arrangement would be accepted here? Any judges want to chime in?
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Horn parts not having key signatures is a long-standing tradition of scoring since horns used to be adjustable based on what key they were playing in. While it is acceptable to give them key signatures, and any good horn player should know them as any other instrument, you'll find most experienced (or should I say "well-informed") composers/orchestrators know that horn players generally perform better with no key-signature attached, but accidentals written instead. Why? Because most classical repertoire is written that way, even up to this day, so it’s no wonder they’d be used to no key signatures. Yes, this means writing in a ton of accidentals, but the way modern music is written calls for all instruments to no longer have key signatures anyway.
Also, it might be a little pretentious to say this, but it makes the score look more "professional." I see a horn part with a key signature, and I immediately think the guy didn’t do his research.
Maybe someone else could chime in, but I don't believe there's a large precedent to do this in marching band charts. Also, my target audience doesn't exactly have much experience with "classical literature" - we're talking high school kids and non-music-major football marching band. But I have zero experience reading horn music, so what do I know?
It's no trouble to force accidentals, so I can change it up no problem. I'm actually writing everything in concert pitch anyway, and converting it to written pitch before making these pdf scores.
In any case, it may be a moot point. I might be changing it from a horn part to a melophone part in the near future - that'll put it in B-flat. Depends on whether or not Auburn's replacing the horn section with melos next year.
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Get rid of the key signature on the horn part. Write out the accidentals instead.
It was my understanding that marching french horn parts are written in F... why get rid of the key signature?
Your clarinet part, except for rehearsal G, is too easy. You really should give the first clarinet octave doublings over the second clarinet (assuming what you have now is mainly second clarinet), or unison doublings with the flutes when they're playing low.I've fleshed out the clarinets and gave them two parts for most of it in the latest draft. Thanks for the heads up.
Consider using divisi to separate staves when parts are being played in unison (such as clarinets 1 and 2.) If you don't want to do that, write divisi when they split, "a2" when they play in usion, "a1" when it is solo.All the part switching is pretty much implied, but I'll definitely pretty up the arrangement before giving it to people to play. I'll probably just write out each part individually, rather than force people to read with both parts on the staff.
Other markings you still need to add include slurs on pretty much every part (especially those 16th runs), and crescendos wherever they might fit. Since this is a march, I bet you could find lots of places for accented notes.Yeah, I haven't gotten around to the articulations and such yet. Part of the problem is that the current version of the notation software I use, Noteworthy Composer 1.75b, lacks a symbolic cresendo, a symbolic diminuindo, and a rooftop accent, which I'd prefer to use over a regular accent and staccato. I plan on joining in on the public beta of 2.0 soon, so hopefully that will fix that problem.
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Also, I've uploaded the latest draft of the score and sound. I'm printing this out to show to my band director (slash applied teacher) tomorrow during my lesson, so hopefully I'll get some good pointers from that.
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Latest score: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/katamarimarch2.pdf
Latest sound: http://steben.noplaceforatoaster.com/katamarimarch2.mp3
Agghh... the sound is really grating. But it should give you the idea of how the score sounds.
Changes I've made since the first draft:
- Fixed ranges in the flute/piccolo and saxes
- Fixed the key for the F Horn
- Added new parts for the flute/piccolo and clarinets at rehearsal letters B-D and G.
- Added trills for the woodwind parts (not heard in the sound)
- Put in some placeholder percussion in the sound file (just a woodblock, not in the score, and pretty bland)
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Needs more percussion. Lots more percussion.Instrumentation is thus: two flute/piccolo parts, two clarinet parts, two trumpet parts, two F Horn parts, two alto sax parts, two tenor sax parts, two baritone parts, two trombone parts, and a tuba part. I have a friend who's going to arrange the drumline parts for me, and I haven't begun on the auxilary percussion yet.
You're totally right, but I'm on it, dude.
If Daniel (my friend) doesn't come through, though, I may be looking for someone 'round these parts who can arrange for a drumline, and maybe even the auxilary too. I played a bit of the keyboard instruments in high school with our percussion ensemble, but I was never really good. So if someone more familiar with the auxilary wanted to arrange it, I wouldn't make a fuss.So yeah. Post or PM me if anyone's interested in the drum parts.
Depending on your experience and how soon you can have something arranged, I may go with you instead. -
Variety in the parts is good on occasion, but adding doublings, especially octave doublings, is actually the most effective kind of orchestration there is.
Some other things to consider:
-flutes play up higher
-clarinets playing in octaves (so add a higher part)
-a bass line at rehearsal D that is not rhythmically interfering with the rest of the piece, but instead playing something more idiomatic such as 1 5 1 5 as per a usual march
I've definitely raised the flutes up an octave. Having the clarinets play in octaves might be something to look into, since often I have them only on one part...
The bassline at D comes directly from the original song. It's actually one of my favorite parts, so it stays. I should note that "Katamari on the March" is kind of a misnomer -- I'm only using it since it'll be played by a marching band. I'm not necessarally interested in making it fit the style of a march.
Thanks again to all of you who've given your input thus far. I'll hopefully have a revised copy up sometime early this week for you guys to see.
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I approve of the PDF score (always nice to see scores in progress).
Regarding the Alto Sax part... they are all in the lowest register of the alto. A few times you hit low Bb with the 2nd Alto part, which is literally the lowest note on the Alto unless you put your foot in the bell. (Then you can get an A, but it's a useless talent).
I would recommend bumping both parts up an octave (or 2), as it will provide a much nicer sounding Alto section. (Instead of Altos trying to be Trombones). The same is roughly true with the Tenor. Bump it up an octave if it's hitting middle C on the score. Saxophones can ALWAYS go higher, but when you go low, there isn't much room to go.
The other thing that I would bring to your attention is the fact that most of the parts are incredibly similar. The simplicity of the piece is definitely a bonus for it being a High School Marching band piece, but don't oversimplify. When the Flutes, Saxes, and Clarinets are playing the exact same lines, you are really limiting yourself and actually hindering the music. I would recommend looking at those lines (Flutes, Alto & Tenor Sax, Clarinet) and figuring out where you can single out a specific instrument. For example, in the higher parts of the song, have the flutes play (and maybe add your trills like you wanted), while the Saxes are hitting half notes. This will add a much greater dynamic to the piece, and gives the musicians some ownership of their specific parts.
You did a great job on the low brass section of the score, and the piece could really benefit from that attention to detail with the woodwinds.
Looks like it's off to a really good start though. Good luck!
Awesome advice - I'll look into it now. Thanks a bunch.
Katamari Damacy: 'Katamari on the Rocks' (marching band) DONE!
in Post Your Game ReMixes!
Posted
My plan is to order Finale Academic, and redo the music I did in Noteworthy in Finale, then combine that with the drumline stuff that Rainman DX was awesome enough to arrange. Once I've done that and have a final version, I'll definitely send you a MIDI if you want to make a good sounding version. I'll send you a PM. (Hopefully I'll have it done by mid July... depends how long it takes me to get Finale I guess.)