Katawa Shoujo Forums

Breathlessly is fairly easy once you get the pattern down, it was the first one I decided to try. Innocence isn't too hard either, I'd suggest trying Friendship too

I would definitely suggest breathlessly but I disagree with wiosna. It has an easy rhythm sure, but I think if you want something easy to read, start out with a key that has few sharps/flats.

Try something like innocence and letting my heart speak, fairly slow and simple rhythms

See how well you go!

When you feel confident move onto something different and when you get a touch sensitive piano... you will hear such an amazing difference

Thank you all for the suggestions. I really do appreciate it.

I've never had any professional lessons but what I've taught myself so far with my cruddy keyboard has been pretty decent so far. I'm really excited to eventually get a "real" (see: electronic) piano. Would any of you have any suggestions for a decent quality and, more importantly, cheap digital piano? Been looking into Clavinovas but those seem to range around the $1000-$1200 range. I would prefer to find something closer to maybe $500...

I've got an upright piano myself not a keyboard so sorry, can't help you with that

Lolzster wrote:I've got an upright piano myself not a keyboard so sorry, can't help you with that

As much as I'd love to have one eventually, unfortunately my living arrangements simply won't allow it. I'm apartment living right now, and beyond taking up a ridiculous amount of room, pianos are nearly impossible to get into upper units. =(

ah so keyboard is your only option then.

Get a good one where you have a pedal... you absolutely need pedal to play the more beautiful pieces in future: e.g. Painful History and Moment of Decision

2 of my favs behind PARITY!!!

Finally got Painful History recorded and uploaded. It only took 24 recordings T~T

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAt18iss8pg

Please give me your thoughts good and bad and leave a comment.

Gandara wrote:I'm curious if anyone could throw me a bit of advice on the music from KS. With the sheet music we've had provided so far in this thread, what would you say is the best piece (or few pieces) to start out with, for practice? Knowing my limitations, I won't be able to do much justice to a piece requiring a lot of emotion, so beyond simply learning the notes I can't really do much. Also, easier sheet music is a plus as I'm still learning... some of the stuff posted in here is extremely complicated-looking... =/

Any advice would be appreciated! I really, really love the music from this game and hopefully soon I can play along with some of the songs I listen to so much!

I started playing after finishing KS myself, got me a cheapass keyboard (Yamaha YPT-220) and started screwing around with row row row your boat and such for a few weeks before I considered any of the sheet music in this thread. I wanted to play Moment of Decision and Painful History, but when I tried for the first time I thought "No way in hell!". I then practiced Friendship for weeks and now I can play it (right handed only) pretty well. 2 handed is still a big hurdle though, but I expect it's just a lack of practice. Anyway what I did was learn to read notes a bit and then write the letters above the notes on the sheets. I also wrote the letters C and F on my keyboard on every C and F key so I could more easily/quickly find them while playing.

I'm currently practicing Moment of Decision (the first part, up to the "insane" ladder thingy) trying to play 2 handed but going really slow. Hopefully in a month or so I'll be able to play at a reasonable pace. I don't have pedals or touch sensitivity and if I'm really not able to play something I just simplify it (like leaving out some grace notes), but I AM playing what I want to play instead of what some teacher forces me to play, which is very motivating even though progress is pretty slow.

My advice is to play music you like and simplify it a bit if you have to, without making it sound like crap. Once you get better you can unsimplify it again. If a piece is too hard for you to even try, just practice on something easier. When I first tried MoD I felt like a retard, but a few months of practice on Friendship later and it doesn't look so hopeless anymore. If something seems unplayable you might be using the wrong fingers for the keys, experiment until it seems like it would at least be possible with practice.

Good luck and have fun!

So I got this sheet for Nocturne, I loved every momentof practising it and it replaced the Jay Chou's famous piece from the movie Secret as my new make Asian parents feel proud song. http://puu.sh/CV3v
However I've been listening to the mp3 to get a feel of the dynamics, and I swear the sheet leaves a few chords from the left hand in favor of single notes here and there. Unfortunately I'm too poor a musician to transcribe the piece nor even be sure that the notes aRE missing.
Could anyone varify this please?

Gandara wrote:Thank you all for the suggestions. I really do appreciate it.

I've never had any professional lessons but what I've taught myself so far with my cruddy keyboard has been pretty decent so far. I'm really excited to eventually get a "real" (see: electronic) piano. Would any of you have any suggestions for a decent quality and, more importantly, cheap digital piano? Been looking into Clavinovas but those seem to range around the $1000-$1200 range. I would prefer to find something closer to maybe $500...

I myself have got a Yamaha YDP 141 piano, which was about £590 (about $1150 i think). If you're serious about learninig the piano I would suggest investing in a good model early as possible since pianos only get more expensive as time goes on, unless of course you're getting one second-hand
While I love my piano, sometimes I wish I spent a couple more months saving up for a Clavinova....
Try and go for a Yamaha piano since you can't really go wrong with them, though if you can't afford them, then go for a casio maybe?
Sorry if I haven't been much help! >.<

inquisitivenegro wrote:So I got this sheet for Nocturne, I loved every momentof practising it and it replaced the Jay Chou's famous piece from the movie Secret as my new make Asian parents feel proud song. http://puu.sh/CV3v
However I've been listening to the mp3 to get a feel of the dynamics, and I swear the sheet leaves a few chords from the left hand in favor of single notes here and there. Unfortunately I'm too poor a musician to transcribe the piece nor even be sure that the notes aRE missing.
Could anyone varify this please?

I tried, but the texture was too dense for me to isolate lines enough to know whether it was a chord or the same as the notation I was reading. Except for the second note - those two Bb's; that one sounds like a Bb7 chord; I replace the right hand with a roll through F-Ab-D, immediately followed by the Bb written, but it ends up sloppy too often for my liking when I try that. Oh well, thanks for sharing the link; I found the tuplets in Nicol's solo version unreadable.

dwarduk wrote:

inquisitivenegro wrote:So I got this sheet for Nocturne, I loved every momentof practising it and it replaced the Jay Chou's famous piece from the movie Secret as my new make Asian parents feel proud song. http://puu.sh/CV3v
However I've been listening to the mp3 to get a feel of the dynamics, and I swear the sheet leaves a few chords from the left hand in favor of single notes here and there. Unfortunately I'm too poor a musician to transcribe the piece nor even be sure that the notes aRE missing.
Could anyone varify this please?

I tried, but the texture was too dense for me to isolate lines enough to know whether it was a chord or the same as the notation I was reading. Except for the second note - those two Bb's; that one sounds like a Bb7 chord; I replace the right hand with a roll through F-Ab-D, immediately followed by the Bb written, but it ends up sloppy too often for my liking when I try that. Oh well, thanks for sharing the link; I found the tuplets in Nicol's solo version unreadable.

Hmmm I've devoted some time looking into it and it looks like the transcriber actually moved some of the notes up an octave and incorporated them into the uper hand, while removing some notes altogether. The result is a solid piece of music actually; all the notes are left out for a reason. In the end I only made a few minor, personal tweaks to it.

Still at loss to what the best substitute for the Bbs would be though, I don't like playing the bottom Bb as on my piano it sounds too baroque

inquisitivenegro wrote:So I got this sheet for Nocturne, I loved every momentof practising it and it replaced the Jay Chou's famous piece from the movie Secret as my new make Asian parents feel proud song. http://puu.sh/CV3v
However I've been listening to the mp3 to get a feel of the dynamics, and I swear the sheet leaves a few chords from the left hand in favor of single notes here and there. Unfortunately I'm too poor a musician to transcribe the piece nor even be sure that the notes aRE missing.
Could anyone varify this please?

I did not intentionally leave out any notes that I could definitely identify as being present in the OST version. It's often difficult to tell the difference between played notes and reverb in the left hand part. Pianos in general tend to reverberate a lot, and Finale (the program which NicolArmarfi used to make all the OST recordings) has settings that allow you to reproduce that reverberation. When I was originally transcribing the piece, it sounded rather sparse and hollow until I turned up the reverb settings on my copy of Finale, at which point the left hand part sounded much richer, and closer to the OST version. Long story short; although I won't say for sure that I didn't miss any notes in my transcription, I suspect a lot of the notes that might sound like they are missing are just due to auditory illusions created by different amounts of reverb.

Of course, for the purposes of creating a solo piano arrangement, I had to incorporate the string bass part into the left hand of the piano, and that did involve moving some of those notes up an octave. I don't recall moving any notes from the left hand part to the right hand part, but that may have happened as well.

dwarduk wrote:I tried, but the texture was too dense for me to isolate lines enough to know whether it was a chord or the same as the notation I was reading. Except for the second note - those two Bb's; that one sounds like a Bb7 chord; I replace the right hand with a roll through F-Ab-D, immediately followed by the Bb written, but it ends up sloppy too often for my liking when I try that.

I never did get the second note/chord to sound exactly analogous to the OST, but 2 Bb's ended up sounding better than any of the chords I tried. It might be a case of dynamics, where the OST track has additional notes in the chord but played at a much lower volume.

dwarduk wrote:Oh well, thanks for sharing the link; I found the tuplets in Nicol's solo version unreadable.

Here's the original link that I on this thread posted several pages back. Dunno why inquisitivenegro would re-upload it *shrug*.

I also did a more creative minor key version of the song.

Haha, 6 flats is a pain to read. If I get bored enough I might try it, but it seriously takes me forever to sight read one bar in a key signature like that. I'm enjoying listening to the piano mp3 though; there are moments that sound like they could be absolutely brilliant for a bad ending CG, such as the beginning of page 2 in the pdf. I might have to crack out my old copy of Sibelius 4 (:P) and see about finishing off some of my old half-done pieces.

Mirrormn wrote:

inquisitivenegro wrote:So I got this sheet for Nocturne, I loved every momentof practising it and it replaced the Jay Chou's famous piece from the movie Secret as my new make Asian parents feel proud song. http://puu.sh/CV3v
However I've been listening to the mp3 to get a feel of the dynamics, and I swear the sheet leaves a few chords from the left hand in favor of single notes here and there. Unfortunately I'm too poor a musician to transcribe the piece nor even be sure that the notes aRE missing.
Could anyone varify this please?

I did not intentionally leave out any notes that I could definitely identify as being present in the OST version. It's often difficult to tell the difference between played notes and reverb in the left hand part. Pianos in general tend to reverberate a lot, and Finale (the program which NicolArmarfi used to make all the OST recordings) has settings that allow you to reproduce that reverberation. When I was originally transcribing the piece, it sounded rather sparse and hollow until I turned up the reverb settings on my copy of Finale, at which point the left hand part sounded much richer, and closer to the OST version. Long story short; although I won't say for sure that I didn't miss any notes in my transcription, I suspect a lot of the notes that might sound like they are missing are just due to auditory illusions created by different amounts of reverb.

Of course, for the purposes of creating a solo piano arrangement, I had to incorporate the string bass part into the left hand of the piano, and that did involve moving some of those notes up an octave. I don't recall moving any notes from the left hand part to the right hand part, but that may have happened as well.

dwarduk wrote:I tried, but the texture was too dense for me to isolate lines enough to know whether it was a chord or the same as the notation I was reading. Except for the second note - those two Bb's; that one sounds like a Bb7 chord; I replace the right hand with a roll through F-Ab-D, immediately followed by the Bb written, but it ends up sloppy too often for my liking when I try that.

I never did get the second note/chord to sound exactly analogous to the OST, but 2 Bb's ended up sounding better than any of the chords I tried. It might be a case of dynamics, where the OST track has additional notes in the chord but played at a much lower volume.

dwarduk wrote:Oh well, thanks for sharing the link; I found the tuplets in Nicol's solo version unreadable.

Here's the original link that I on this thread posted several pages back. Dunno why inquisitivenegro would re-upload it *shrug*.

I also did a more creative minor key version of the song.

Yeah I found your arrangement was a lot better than when I tried adding in all the notes, because everything became too heavy and baroqish, furthermore the left hand was starting to drown out the right hand (although that just could've been my poor control). I found that it's actually a really good piece for when you have to play for someone that dont play the piano themselves; its beautiful but relatively easy (lowering possibility of mistakes) and there's plenty of room to fit emotion in.

btw I reuploaded it because I'm terrible at navigating through threads, nor could I locate the link in my history D: