*NO* Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 'Ocarina Medley for Piano'

[Liontamer]

ReMixer Name: Setu_Firestorm

Real Name: George R. Powell

E-Mail: setu_firestorm@hotmail.com

ReMix name: Legend of Zelda - Ocarina Medley for Piano

Just as the name says, it's a piano performance by me of the ocarina songs arranged in a medley. Whether or not it's accepted doesn't really matter; I'm just taking a crack, but the way I see it, you'll have a harder time shredding it based on sound "quality".

[Jillian Aversa]

...Wow! Judging by the title of this piece, I was preparing myself for the worst, but now I'm biting my tongue. This is actually pretty darn good. In my mind, the arrangement is successful because a) each theme has been individually altered and embellished, and they all flow from one to the next in a natural way. Saria's Song could have used a bit more personalization and a smoother transition, but I thought all the others were set effectively.

Production is in very good shape, as far as I can tell. I did a sort of cross-check with some of the other recent solo piano mixes on the site, and this is easily on par. Similar sound to some of Dhsu's work, I thought. Nice high and low ends, and tasteful reverb.

My only reason to hesitate before passing this is that as someone who is very familar with the Ocarina of Time soundtrack, I have trouble separating myself from it and seeing this as one, cohesive work. I can easily identify all the different themes, so I'd like to hear from some other judges who are perhaps less familar, in order to hear an unbiased view of the overall shape.

Here are the themes and their respective times, for anyone who's interested:

0:00-0:49 = Zelda's Lullaby

0:50-1:27 = Epona's Song

1:28-2:10 = Saria's Song

2:11-2:37 = Song of Time

2:38-3:09 = Song of Storms

3:10-3:30 = Sun's Song

And back into Zelda's Lullaby for the end

Nice work! Would you be willing to come up with a more creative title, though? ^_~

YES

[Liontamer]

http://www.zophar.net/usf/lozusf.rar - 26 "Zelda's Theme", 28 "Lon Lon Ranch", 35 "Lost Woods", 44 "Temple of Time", 57 "Windmill Hut" & 32 "Hyrule Field Morning Theme"

Thanks to pixietricks for the source breakdown. In the context of judging loads of OoT submissions, I've grown to know the tracks very well. I'm trying to read Vigilante's mind and guessing he'd think it suffers too greatly from medleyitis, but that's all it is - a guess. I'm certainly interested in his take. I think the trackname, while bland, is fine. I mean, it says what it is.

Some of the theme transitions definitely felt jumpy and undeveloped (e.g. 1:27, 2:37), but the majority of them felt very natural and seamless. The hanging note at 1:36 seemed like a mistake, but it's negligible. Overall smooth playing and a nice atmosphere, which is all you can ask for with a solo piano arrangement. On that most basic level, it clearly brings the goods.

I don't think it's a question at all as to how passable this is, only how far above the bar it is. With that said, this is enough over the bar to me where it's not quite a borderline vote. I wish each of the themes had more breathing room for expanded interpretation and personalization. After all, it's something we like to stress admist the lure of the mega-medley. But like pixietricks, I agree that the themes were all individually altered and embellished, which makes an up vote all the more comfortable. Welcome aboard, George.

YES

[Vig]

production first: there's some resonance in the mid-low range that gets distracting. It would be good to fix this.

Arrangement. Larry, you managed to know what I would think, and still failed to benefit from my hypothetical judgement. This song has TERRIBLE medley-tits. There is NO direction at all! skip around the track, it's the same everywhere. As far as piano arrangements go, each interpretation is completely predictable, and to make it worse, none of them are developed at all, and the overall dynamic line of the track is completely flat.

This is not OCR quality.

NO

to the remixer: i'm being overly harsh so the judges will see the error of their ways. what you've done isnt that bad, but you really ought to pick the melodies you really like and develop them, rather than doing the same interpretation over and over again on different melodies.

[JJT]

I have to reluctantly side with Jesse on this one.

Gave this a couple listens, and then jumped around to different places in the arrangement at random. i have to agree with the assesment that you're simply taking a couple themes and running them through the same filter, one after the other. The song hangs at pretty much the same volume and tempo the entire way through, save for the occasional/not-so-occasional ritard.

This is very pretty, and it sounds great. However, i think more thought needs to be put into the shape of the arrangement before I'm willing to pass this. There are others who do and probably will disagree with me, but I'm sticking to my guns.

NO, RESUBMIT

[Liontamer]

I've got no issue with the NO votes. But I did want to iterate in light of the criticisms that I'm still solid with a YES on this one. A medley format can restrict developement of the individual sources, and most medley submissions we receive are unable to coherently weave the themes together. But there was a reasonable degree of personalization in the performance and the themes were skillfully pieced together, enough so that I remain firmly ok with the YES.

[zircon]

As piano arrangements go, this isn't particularly deep or complex. As Jon pointed out it does seem like the same rhythmic motifs and performance elements are being applied to all the themes. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing as it helps the cohesion of the track. If the arranger simply jumped to different styles with every new theme it would be jarring. Plus, the performance itself is quite solid as is the recording.

That being said... the motifs here are very basic. Simple chord arpeggiations in the left hand, (usually) monophonic melody in the right hand. No major variations in rhythm, no modulation, no time signature changes, just a flat dynamic line all across. Don't get me wrong; I can appreciate a soft, soothing piano piece as much as anyone else, but even those tend to have more variation in the rhythms and voicing than this mix does. Combined with rather minimal interpretation, I don't think this is passable. I suggest reworking at least the left hand throughout the track and, as Jon said, revisiting the "shape" of the arrangement.

NO, RESUBMIT

[big giant circles]

Meh, I see the backing for both the YES and NO votes--and I guess I have to make my stand on the latter for now. Very soothing and pretty, yes. However, this is hardly captivating, and I don't mean that to sound harsh or overly critical. But this is just a little too dry to bear any OCR-sheen. The left hand is downright dull for the most part. There's very slight dynamic variation, but hardly enough to bring forth any significant energy in the track. And I usually don't feel so picky when it comes to medleys, but Vig is absolutely right. Each particular section just simply doesn't develop in the track. I understand that you can't just change from black to white in terms of style, or when there's a switchup in melody, but it really should go SOMEWHERE.

I think this is a good foundation, but I'd like to hear a little more energy/emotion seeping through.

NO, RESUBMIT

[Malcos]

I can see both sides of the vote. Out of all of the medleys that we have received this has one of the smoothest 'transition rates', although the gap at 1.36 was very noticeable. The similar left hand movement is what kept the medley sounding smooth, and this is a very nice arrangement. However I do think that the performance was quite flat, this could have had more expression, more dynamics. Ultimately, even though this is a medley, some attention should have been paid to the fact that is a piece on it's own, and so should have had some kind of build up to a climax. I'd definitely like to see a resub of this, I think the remixer can take this to a higher level of expression.

NO(Resub plz)