Animal Crossing: "Town Tunes" as Fan Notation
This video that shows the player playing the "default" town tune from Animal Crossing: City Folk shows how the process works:
The player must approach one of the two pelicans who works at the post office (the cheery Pelly during the day, and the grumpy Phyllis at night) to change the tune. The "notation" is a bunch of colorful frogs that represent different notes, focusing on the "white keys" on a piano--the notes without flats and sharps. There are three other options: a silent frog for a rest, one with a line that extends the previous note, and a "?" frog that plays a random note. (Some people think it's fun to give the tune all random notes, and see what happens.)
The fact that it does not include any notes with sharps or flats means that players generally need to stick to C major, A minor, or G Mixolydian if their tune is tonal (as is usually the case when they are adapting existing music). Interestingly enough, the system spans two octaves starting and ending on G, not C, seeming to make it easiest for those writing in G Mixolydian. This is despite the fact that the "default" town tunes for each game, like the one shown above, are usually in C major. This particular mix favors fans who know a little bit of how to read music, and therefore, are aware of the tonal limitations of Animal Crossing's system. Luckily, the Internet is there to help people who don't know how.
All over YouTube, one can find "fan tutorials" for how to write various songs as the Animal Crossing town tune. They range from video game and movie soundtracks, to rock songs, to famous classical works, to even Christmas songs. This particular tutorial shows fans how to write various Christmas carols in Animal Crossing: City Folk:
Helpfully, this person, user "MrTobytiger23," also shows them interacting with different townspeople after they set each town tune. This shows how the presentation of it varies among characters, depending on their personalities and tastes. For example, more cheerful villagers tend to play the town tune altered; grumpier ones often alter the tonality, such as putting it in minor if it's in major. Some male villagers just have the melody represented as percussive rhythms, without any actual "melody" at all. The character also plays the musical instruments found in villagers' houses, which also play the town tune when players stand near and press the "A" button. MrTobytiger23 probably just intends these to show viewers that the town tunes worked as intended, so people watching can trust him/her and write the town tunes as intended. However, they also help in showing people unfamiliar with Animal Crossing how the feature works in the game, and why it would be so important to fans to want to get them right.
It also demonstrates some of the limitations of the "town tune" as fan notation. The limited range available means that fans often need to move certain notes "down the octave," as MrTobyTiger23 does with the first G in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The maximum duration is short, so players can often only write the first musical phrase of a familiar tune. There are only so many possible rhythms, so players often have to tweak those slightly in order to fit, while still keeping them familiar enough as to be recognizable. This is especially problematic with tunes in triple or non-standard time signatures (as with "O Christmas Tree," which is in 3/4).
The tonality problems crop up in other fan notations. Consider this one, which includes Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring":
The player decides to keep the tune in the G major key of the original piece. The problem is that "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" includes many leading tones, and the lack of F# puts the key into G Mixolydian, making the piece sound "off." It would have been better for the player to put it in C major -- but that might be tricky given the necessary range. Perhaps the fan just did not know enough about music to notice this was a problem, or cared more about keeping it in G than keeping it in major vs. Mixolydian. Perhaps because of the way that the tune changes with each character, they figured this was not a problem.
While looking for town tunes on YouTube, one can find many focused on recreating music from other video games. This video lists "town tunes" for the Legend of Zelda franchise:
This one includes music from the 2015 video game Undertale, which is a throwback to classic Nintendo RPGs like Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda:
This shows players two different ways to write the "Pokemon Center" theme from the Pokemon games. One emphasizes more accurate rhythms, but is only able to fit in the first phrase of the theme. The second dispatches with rhythmic accuracy in order to fit in more notes:
Overall, these show the various limitations of Animal Crossing's form of "fan transcription," but also why it appeals so powerfully to fans. While it may allow them less freedom and require more departures than writing it on more traditional notation, it allows them to experience it within the world of another video game. It draws the fan activity into the video game itself, bringing the exchange between creators and fans full circle.