VG Music Analysis (Come on down! Discuss Theory!!)

[prophetik music]

ahhhh, theory discussions. gotta love it.

[danb]

Whoa, theory attack!

I wanted to comment on one thing:

You see, I don't see any real chord changes throughout the motion - it's all just a big statement of the tonic, in the end.

I think you have a more Schenkerian view towards analysis than I do, Gario. I'm personally interested in pulling out all those vertical chords, as opposed to collapsing harmony into functional chunks. I find it too reductive to gloss over harmonic subtlety in favor of a broader analysis -- those intermediate chords are where all the fun is for me! If I lose some of the big-picture harmonic schematic in the process, I'm okay with that; I much prefer to drill down to the details.

Hopefully that explains a bit more of where I'm coming from with these. Thanks again for the comments!

[Gario]

Yup, you got me - I'm pretty much a Schenkerian bastard child. I understand your looking at things from a different perspective, so I can't say I'm attacking you... I'm just offering my differing views on the whole thing . I understand your viewpoint, too - my ears just developed in a very Schenkerian sort of way, so I hear things differently. I'm merely expressing what I hear and why - after all, isn't that what theory is all about? I'm sure you'll understand my next statement, then, if you know of the Schenkerian views I hold...

Aurally speaking, Moseph, the strings are holding the functional bass note (I hear the music at in the tonic, not the subdominant, due to the harmonization in the 'higher' strings) - the harp is more decorative, in function. Perhaps the notes themselves are lower for the harp, but in terms of functionality I hear the strings really holding the harmonic basis. The differences in timbre allow this to happen, as the upper partials are more dominant in the harp than in the strings (meaning they sound 'higher' and 'lighter' than the note being played implies, so the bass effect is a bit weaker).

If the harp was the functional bass, in reality it would be playing a IV with a dissonant 7, 9 and 11... that don't resolve (The 7th could arguably resolve, but the 9th and 11th don't, or at least not properly). Not to mention the next vertical harmony wouldn't make sense, from a syntactical point of view (V7 -IV? No, that's not good syntax, not to mention the 7th doesn't resolve, anyhow for the dominant 7th chord...). Of course, you could look at that as a series of passing motions, but then you'd be falling back into the view that I'm presenting, so you'd end up coming to the same conclusion as me .

I hear it as a very functional piece of tonality when I listen to it, myself - and it all works out quite nicely if you hear the string part as the functional bass, as I do when I listen to it.

The strings higher, in reality, but I wrote them lower in order to show the bass functionality I hear (in fact, I heard it so dominantly that I thought the music was in the key of C before because I thought what was written reflected the bass I heard). Sorry if the picture is confusing - bitmap isn't the best way to get these ideas across.

Oh, and Willrock, the Journey to Silius bassline is a DPCM track - meaning they really did record a bassline as a compressed digital sound and use it for the soundtrack... In my opinion, that's cheating the NES, but it does sound pretty cool, nonetheless .

As for the Mass Effect game, Adamantium Dude, it's actually using a technique called Parsimonious Voice Leading (or Neo-Reimannian theory). The very sublte effect it has is caused by the fact that one voice in the chord moves at a time in the most minimal fashion possible (eg by semitone up or down). In that theory there is no such thing as functional harmony - it truly moves from one note to the next without any ultimate direction, so it isn't really tonal music (even though it uses the same harmonic language - that's actually why conventional harmonic analysis doesn't work when analysing it). That song from Mass Effect, for example, moves from i - VI - i - VI... etc. because the difference between i and VI is a semitone (in Cm: G to Ab). Interestingly enough, using a combination of semitonal movement you can get to any chord in the tonal relm seemlessly without the use of tonality . Try it out - you'll find the effect to be surprisingly soothing and non-directional (which is what your going for, right?).

[anosou]

New VGM Spotlight, this time only a short one. It's a quick look at part of the vocal motif in a track from Ar Tonelico II which utilizes changes of irregular meter.

GO HERE AND COMMENT AND STUFF: http://anosou.com/?p=130

:3

[Gario]

Alright! The second official analysis from me (woot)! I'm going to put something up every Monday, so keep an eye out - I'll be sure to make it interesting!

Alright, next up is the famed classic, Mega Man 3 (Sorry, folks - it beats the shit out of MM2, although that was still a good game, too).

Not to mention it has the best box art out of the whole Mega Man series .

The intro theme is going to be my focus, today. Yes, this is one of the most remixed themes on OC, but it's seriously one of the best songs from the entire Mega Man franchise (and that's saying something, there), so who could blame the remixing community? Now, let's get on with the meat of the subject - why is it so badass? Well, related to the Silver Surfer track I looked at earlier, it uses polyphonic lines in order to achieve a full soundscape. However, where the Silver Surfer tried to mask the polyphonic technique by making it faster than the human ear could perceive, Mega Man 3 instead uses more antiquidated techniques in order to imply multiple lines (these polyphonic techniques are actually very common in the Baroque era on), and also incorporated voice exchanges into the music.

Looking at this song channel for channel, the first interesting thing I see is in the first phrase of music. What does the melody sound like to you, a leap into a neighboring decoration, perhaps (and looking at all of the OC remixes of it, everyone interprets it in that fashion, except for IntroJazz )? For the longest time, I heard the melody that way too... until I dissected the channels for the purpose of making a remix of the theme (midi remix - not OC stuff ). Take a look at rectangle 1 (and forgive my poor quality) - you'll notice that it's the channel that carries the melodic material, yet the beginning actually leaps down and climbs in a stepwise fashion up to continue the melody we all know and love.

If you made the same mistake as I did when first listening to this song then you've just experienced the first case of voice-exchange that occurs in this song. It's strange, but rectangle 2 actually plays half of the melody for a few beats before returning to it's accompanying role - the melodic voice channel 'exchanged' the role with another channel for a few beats. Of course, I think that may have been an unintentional mistake on the part of the composer, as that could have been accomplished without using voice exchange. Regardless, it provides a perfect example of the technique, and the music does this a few more times throughout this short piece, as you'll see.

Continuing the analysis of the first channel, after the introduction sequence (that uses some cool slowdown techniques without changing tempo ) the music really gets going at 0:30. Listen to the channel on it's own - it's actually rather plain, but it incorporates some powerful polyphonic lines. Instead of trying to mask the effect by playing the notes quickly, however, the implied lower line plays in time with the rest of the melody. It's obvious that the melody begins with the arpeggio, followed by a leap up, etc. with a lower note playing a bass note (although the triangle holds the actual bass, the implied line doubles the triangle).

Even more interesting, though, is how this intro fills the soundscape by having rectangle 2 play the exact same thing a beat later, giving it a manual delay effect. This delay, though, has the unintentional (or at least I think it's unintentional) effect of filling out the implied bassline and implied melody. It's really fascination what happens to the music sonically - I drew a picture in order to help clarify it visually...

You see, because of the delay there isn't a moment where the melody isn't playing (the same can be said of the bass for that part, as well - although there are some moments when it isn't playing). Thus, we never actually miss the melody at all. Of course, because we're using two voices now it seems like a moot point, but not only do we have two lines playing, both the lines have a delay effect (which takes two voices on it's own), so it's like having four voices working at the same time in order to fill the soundscape.

At 0:41 the melody continues to use polyphony in order to imply two lines, but rectangle 2 does not create the delay effect anymore, so that empty space is not filled. Because of this, though, the rectangle 1 sounds a bit broken. You can easily separate the two voices out of the single line, though - in fact, the theme earlier is a motive for this theme later, being followed by the same implied static note (made more interesting because it's not simply doubling the bass). Because of the leaps between the two lines the mind doesn't connect the two as a single line, so we hear it as two individual lines, even without the other instruments filling the gap. Pretty cool, eh?

A final note regarding the triangle and the rectangle 2 channels - they often exchange the voices in order to make a complete phrase. Because the Triangle is often used as the drums, the other channels often complete an idea that was started by the triangle. Listen, for example, to 0:26 - 0:30 when the triangle is with rectangle 2. Notice that the triangle drops out at the end of the phrase while rectangle 2 completes the idea. This is another example of a voice exchange.

Also, when the song gets going later from 0:30 on, the leaps to the implied lower voice can be considered another sort of exchange, because it often fills in for the triangle bass that played a drum fill on the last beat of every measure. Really, this song is quite complex in it's uses of voice exchange and polyphonic lines!

For those that understand 'voice exchanges' as a very particular idiom of counterpoint, it actually means when one voice completes the idea of another voice (like I was presenting here) as well as the classic technique used in basic counterpoint. I just felt like heading that off before it got out of hand .

I've got to admit, AnSo - irregular meters are always the shit, especially when they constantly change around like in that song you presented . I'll be looking forward to your continued series - especially since your using a scoring program to show the notation and such (I'm still using bitmap, lol). By the way, were you working on a publication or a project for college? I actually didn't think about that until a few days ago and was meaning to ask .

[anosou]

I'm done with my ~14 page analysis of Jade Cocoon but it's in Swedish. I might translate it but not now, got too much stuff going on.. Nice analysis btw, awesome stuff, keep 'em coming.

[prophetik music]

if you guys like irregular meters, you're going to piss your pants at some of the tracks in my XBLA game. didn't start doing them until much later in the creation of it, and they wanted four on the floor for most of it, but i've got some 7/4, 5/8, 11/4, and x/8 (mixed meter throwdown, basically ) all over it. it's so much fun.

the 'war music' track is all over the map on time signatures. completely impossible to keep track of while you're playing.

[PriZm]

sweet, can't wait to hear it.

[Gario]

If you guys like irregular meters, you're going to piss your pants at some of the tracks in my XBLA game.

It's a shame that I'm not really involved with this generation of games - I would've loved to hear it (of course, if the soundtrack for it becomes available elsewhere I'll be looking ). What XBLA game is it?

I love using meters in the most screwed up fashion (or just 'conventional' mixed meter, if I'm lazy) - my music for the 'Holonic' project is all in mixed meters (the one that's up now is in 7/4, and the battle music is going to be meter-crazy ).

I should put up some of my college music - the metric stuff I did was crazy sometimes (and other times the meter just didn't exist...).

[Moseph]

I usually meter things after I write them. It's becoming increasingly uncommon for me to have more than three or four consecutive measures of the same meter.

[BardicKnowledge]

I've enjoyed reading this thread, and will take on an analysis of my own soon. At the moment, I'd like to put forward that Finale Notepad 2008 is free for those of you that don't have it.

It (or Sibelius, but AFAIK there's no free version) will help people throw up some sheet music without getting out MSPaint.

Incidentally, I'm reserving the Startropics main battle theme for this topic

[Gario]

I usually meter things after I write them.

Wise advice - that's often what I do (unless I want a song that creates metric tension by offsetting a downbeat - performers hate that ).

[anosou]

(desperately trying to steal Brad's spotlight)

The XBLA-game I'm working on also features mixed meter! 5/4, 7/4 and 4/4 in the same track! LOVE ME TOO!

[Gario]

Aw, AnSo; don't steal poor Brad's spotlight - we already love you for your 14 page musicology paper (and we'll love you even more when it's translated, or when we learn Swedish ).

[Gario]

Hey OCR! Time to give you all another dose of music theory goodness! In honor of the new TMNT IV arcade 3d remake that is coming out I've decided to analyse that exact soundtrack (the SNES version, of course ).

Sweet game (in fact, the first I ever played on my own home console, and it was epic, let me tell you - best christmas ever). However, it's made even more sweet because of it's memorable soundtrack - made memorable due to it really sounding like the turtles through and through. How did they achieve this uniformity in sound? How did they make it sound like 'Turtles' even with only one listening of the music (like it did for me)?

That's right, that took their musical ideas straight from the source, baby! What a source, might I add - this is a very interesting game in that it's one of the very few that had an outside source to derive their music from and actually took artistic advantage of it. Other games have music from movies and such in the soundtrack (Terminator, Star wars, etc.), but they more often than not actually arranged the original for the videogame port almost note for note (imagine doing a remix of the SNES starwars (doesn't matter which episode) for OCR... what do you think their response (insertion needed) would be?). TMNT IV, however, wouldn't have that problem (link to OCR remixes), yet it is heavily related to the original soundtrack... why? Because the video game has taken apart the original theme and taken multiple motives out of it and rearranged them in order to create new and interesting music out of it.

Take a look at the theme music (piano reduction done by me for the sake of this analysis)...

If one studies it closely, they'll realize there is not much going on in it, motivically. In fact, there are only five significantly different motives throughout the whole thing (three melodic ideas and two bass ideas)... and one of them is only significant in the TMNT IV game soundtrack (the one highlighted in blue in the score).

Hey, wait a minute, isn't there more to the song other than these five ideas? No, everything in the music is a variation of some sort or another of these very basic ideas - for example, the verse (mm 9 - 10 & 13 - 14) is the first melodic motive when it is inverted (flipped) and retrograded (backwards). The bass motion from mm17 - 20 is the second bass motive inverted and using a different rhythm. Reusing motives keeps a piece of music unified and connected.

By the way, the singers for each of the verses is a different turtle... Don sings the first part of the verse, Leo sings the second, Raph the third and final part of the verse (Mickey actually doubles Raph at the end). This has nothing to do with what I'm going to talk about, but I just heard that last night, and it was so cool and brilliant that I had to mention it somewhere . Seriously, listen to it with that in mind - the different timbres of each voice part fits that explanation perfectly.

Now, back to TMNT IV - TIT... maybe the acronym isn't so good, I'll should probably just write Turtles in Time... The music written for this game takes the motives I mentioned above and creates new, unique music based off of it. A few tracks make this more obvious than others, but the influence is always there.

The first track I'm looking at is the 'Roof' track (I'm using the ingame naming method, for better or worse). Now, I hope this is an obvious relationship to the original theme song (intro, theme chorus, theme verse... yeah, nearly the same, in fact). However, I would like to point out that they are, in fact, not the same. There are variations that make this a song in it's own right (the style is very different from the original, for example - funk vs straight 80's rock), not to mention an intro that actually makes the chorus function as a sort of 'verse' - quite different from how the original treated that material (in the original theme it's more like an intro and outro to the song). In fact, I'd say it takes a considerable amount of liberty with the harmonic structure and texture - taking advantage of the openess of the original (notice that most of the harmonies are not complete in the original theme, even if the harmonies are implied) and incorporating some of their own riffs and lines to fill in some gaps. I feel that if OCR was around back then, this would be considered a perfect remix of the source tune (it has enough source, yet it varies enough to create interest, as well)... other than the sample quality.

In contrast to the last song, Sewerage (yes, that's what it's called ingame - the beauty of Engrish) doesn't repeat the theme nearly as clearly... yet it's still easy to recognize that it's certainly a Turtles tune, right there. Quite a bit of complex motivic usage is going on here, but it is very clear that most of the ideas generated from the original theme. The intro theme (0:00 - 0:08 ), for example, is a variation of the bass motive 2 - except instead of using it as a bass, they use it as a melodic idea (who says that you have to use motives the same as they were originally used?). Even more interesting is that the second melodic motivic idea is integrated into the bass motive, adding the leap up into the descending line (like that motive does), only it leaps into the bass motive's notes. The texture of that part also has the first melodic motive playing, although it isn't nearly as salient.

After establishing itself as the theme of the song, it plays with a variation of that newly created theme (0:09 - 0:18 ). After that it plays the notes (in scale degrees) 1-3-1-4-3-1-b7-1 (the 3rd being major, not minor). What is significant about that? The first bass motive's first three notes are 1-3-4 (the third is flat in the original, I know - but the impact is still there), so this melody is dancing around the original harmonic motion very quickly. The relationship to the original is very salient, there, if you listen for it, and it leads back up to the theme that it introduced earlier.

Finally at the end of the song (0:37 - 0:47), it has a very prominent neighboring motion that rings like the first melodic motive of the original theme - that steps down. Notice that that theme in the original actually is an inverse of what is here - and in the original it tends to step up. Thus, this ending part is an inverse of that original motivic idea in the theme. Pretty heavy relationship, eh?

The level after that, Fortress, derives from a similar vein - after the intro material (which is an inversion of the first melodic motive) it uses the second bass motive as the theme of the song (0:09 - 0:11). However, it does not integrate the melodic idea into that theme at all - instead just descending without any leaps to break it up. It does follow the idea (0:11 - 0:13) with a rhythmic variant of the first melodic idea, though (the group of neighbors). The solos that occur after the melody use the bass motive again (actually in a similar fashion as it's used in the original at mm 17 - 20, although it's missing one measure of it). After repeating that, it solos over a variation of that bass motion again (It isn't very clear, though - I'm shooting from the hip for 0:26 - 0:35).

From 0:35 - 0:52 the music harmonizes over the first bass motive (incomplete, but still that motive, note for note) with a melody that follows the rhythm of the first melodic motive (along with a small neighbor motion that keeps it melodically in line with it), followed by a melodic version of the bass motion that was just played (actually, it's similar to the noodling notes from Sewerage in that it plays around with the notes 1-3-4, but it's shape is much more similar to the shape in the original motive, here). Of course, at 0:50 it plays melodic motive 3, which basically sets any song as a Turtles song .

By the way, why the hell hasn't anyone remixed this track yet!? It really rocks.

I can't go through every song on the track (well, I could, but I don't know if anyone would want to read it then, lol), but before I close this analysis I want to look at Star Base (as it's always been my favorite track on the game). The melody is, almost note for note, the second melodic motive, and it's a powerful rendition of it, let me tell you. Instead of having the note leap quickly up (like in the original) Harumi Ueko and Kazuhiko Uehara extended the rhythm so each note has a sense of importance. After that great opening it leads into a variation of the original theme (the first melodic motive and first bass motive together). In fact, other than the opening it plays something very close to the original theme music - but that opening really changes the mood from TMNT to something heroic, and has always stuck in my heart as such.

Take a look at the soundtrack yourself - you'll find it oozes with TMNT goodness everywhere you turn. The techniques used to expand and reuse the motives are also things that many remixers here do in order to vary their own interpretations of the music when they remix and want to incorporate original material that doesn't sound too detached from the original sources. Listen to a few remixes on this site and try to derive where the variations came from - you'll learn that they often do very clever things to the source in order to make it their own music (and I commend every one of you for this). Until next week!

[WillRock]

Novel

Altho an interesting one I must say, you go crazy indepth... lol

Keep up the analysis's

[SoulinEther]

I especially think this TMNT discussion was very salient to this community.

[Gario]

I especially think this TMNT discussion was very salient to this community.

Well, thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it - and I hope it encourages people to write more music and analyze more VG music on their free time (it's always fun to read other people's interpretations of music - often they catch something you'd never think about).

[Gario]

Hey eveyone! Like I said, I plan to do my own analysis every Monday of the week myself, but feel free to post something of your own - I enjoy seeing what other people think of music, as you will always have a different outlook from myself and I could learn some new stuff from you guys.

Another week, another analysis for me. What's the flavor of the week?

- if you haven't played this game, go out and shoot yourself... then go play it, as it is one of the best top down shooters in history. The graphics were great, the story was perfect ('This battle will make your blood boil. Good luck!'... priceless), and the music really did get your blood boiling. What is it about the music that made you want to rip the Russians/Germans/North Koreans/whatever-enemy-we're-dealing-with a new asshole? That first level especially is an epic piece of work, there - Seriously, it just feels like battle music. Why is that?

I'd attribute the battle sound to one element - the incredibly teleocentric harmonies they use. For those that don't know, teleocentric means 'goal oriented' (vs 'Centric', where the harmonies don't move towards anything, they just move around a center, or 'Generative', where the harmonies are all continually developed from the previous chord). Oddly enough, it never actually reaches a goal; it always sounds like it's moving towards one, though. There is actually a 'Shepard Tone' effect throughout the whole thing, as it never seems to relieve that tension the goal oriented music creates - it sounds like it's forever increasing in energy. The music is freaking insane. How did they do it?

Let's take a look at the tonal structure. Music that sounds teleocentric more often than not follows a tonal syntax, and this song isn't any different. The notes sound mixolydian, at first, but the harmonic structure feels like Major that borrows from the parallel minor mode. From the beginning to the looping point, it sound like...

(from 0:08 on...)

BM: V/v (no third) - I - V - vi - IV - V - vi - IV - V - bVII- I - II# - V - (IV) - V - (IV) - Passing...

Interesting harmonies, to say the least - if anyone is confused, I can make it into specific chords rather than Roman Numerals by request. Now, what is going on, there, and why does it feel like it's continually building up? The first two harmonies (three, if the intro is included) are textbook harmonies for a tonal song (I - V, or starting the song off with the dominant, to give it spice, V - I - V), and the move to vi isn't uncommon at all (it's called a 'deceptive cadence', because the dominant doesn't move to the tonic, but to a chord that has a single note difference from the tonic, the sub-mediant... okay, a deceptive cadence normally uses the 6/3 position of vi instead of the root, but more on that in a second). However, following that harmonic progression the music moves around vi as if it's the harmonic center of the music now. Thus, it makes more sense to analyze it like this...

(From 0:16 on...)

BM: V - vi - IV - V - vi - IV - V - bVII- I - II# - V - IV - V - IV - Passing...

g#m: VII - i - VI - VII - i - VI - VII - bII - III - VI# ...

For those that use Roman Numeral Analysis often, you may be wondering why I placed the pivot on the dominant rather than the sub-mediant (The 'pivot chord' is the exact chord that I begin to analyse the song in more than one key)? Here's the answer - common in modern 'tonal' music (but not in 'classical' music), the progression VII - i / bVII - I often replaces the traditional V# - i / V - I as the cadential pattern of the piece - and this song exemplifies this tendency throughout (in fact, I'd say roughly 90% of the music is driven by it). Thus, it makes more sense retrospectively to label the V a VII chord leading up to the implied tonic, especially since the pattern VI - VII - i follows.

That's great for a little while, but it hits a snag when it get to bII. Now, bII is actually a common chord used in the minor mode (the Phrygian or Neopolitan bII), but it doesn't resolve like that at all. Instead, it makes more sense to analyse it as functioning in yet another new 'key'...

(0:24 - 0:30)

BM: bVII - I - II# - V

g#m: bII - III - IV#

C#M: VI - VII - I

Now, what is significant about C#M? That is the applied dominant of the original key's dominant chord, which is, in fact, exactly where that chord goes - that's why I don't follow it any farther than that. It leads back into the original key again, but because of the time it spends on the dominant it almost establishes itself as the key center for a while. I don't label the chords after that point because they are very open (actually, they often are just octaves), meaning it's a scale degree passing motion rather than a harmonic one (hence, the label). It reduces to the scale degrees b3 - b5 - b6 - b7, which then leads back into the beginning of the song (or at least the programmed loop point, the tonic).

For those that are interested, it moves from the 'key centers' I - vi - V/V - V - I, which is a textbook progression you'd easily learn about in second semester music theory. It just moves to these areas in unconventional ways . Notice, also, that the song never stays in one key for very long at all - it just moves from one place to another. There's a current debate about this, but many theorists (including myself) would call these 'Tonicizations' rather than true 'modulations' - the difference being how long the music stays in the area.

This may all be very well and interesting, but how does this create the Shepard Tone effect explained earlier? The beauty of this whole song is that the harmonic motion essentially follows the infamous Circle of Fifths - meaning it sounds like a whole bunch of cadences stacked next to each other, with no way to disambiguate it, in this case. This ambiguity in the structure is further confused by the fact that this song actually rarely uses a real cadence throughout - it generally sticks to resolving the music with the bVII - I progression, which is not nearly as conclusive as the classic cadential formula (V - I or V# - i).

The only two places in the music that contain the classic cadential formula is the very first chord to the second chord (which is the introduction to the loop point, which is never heard again throughout the song) and the applied dominant to the dominant chord in the middle of the song (0:28 - 0:31). Everything else uses the bVII - I pattern, which sounds inconclusive - even the motion back to the actual tonic. Combine this with the fact that the overall harmonic structure is highly ambiguous without a clear tonic and the result is music that sounds like it's always moving forward, yet never actually ending anywhere. This constant motion towards a goal without ever reaching it is the 'Shepard Tone' that I described earlier - it always feels like it's increasing in energy without ever letting up.

Perfect for battle - it makes my blood boil every time I hear it. Funny, I didn't want this to be as long as it was last week... Oh well.

[Gario]

A new week, another analysis... I'm a day late, though, for anyone waiting (by the looks of it, not many people ) - as I've had writing the damn music down on my mind this week rather than writing about it. Thus, my next song will be from that very mix I'm currently working on...

Yup, Jurrasic Park - in particular,

. If you haven't played this game... well, I can't recommend it, personally - but it had some great music. Unfortunately, the music is also a pain to remix. If it has great music, how could it be difficult to remix?

One word - VARIATION.

The melodies in the music are variations of the same theme, so when you first listen to it you fall under the illusion that there is more material there than there is. In fact, there are only two themes that you could extract from it - the introduction material (which isn't that long) and the chorus (which first plays at 0:27). After that point there are a lot of open areas where the texture takes over, giving the music a rather 'ambient' feeling while waiting for the melodies to come back... when they do, though, it's merely either a slight variation of the intro or the chorus.

Even with two themes, it is often easy to extract smaller motives from them and make up your own material from it and move from there when remixing, but this song has another less obvious disadvantage - antecedent/consequent form. The chorus is set up in such a way that there isn't much material to draw from. By design, one half of the melody plays something called an 'antecedent' (0:27 - 0:31), which is half of a phrase that is designed to be followed up by something that sounds similar to it but completes the motion (the 'consequent', 0:31 - 0:36). Here, the first measure of the chorus repeats nearly the same in the second measure (as well as the third measure), until finally the final measure of the phrase changes it up (in order to give the phrase some closure).

Actually, it is because of these things that I use the textures from the background of this music in a more dominant manner in my own mix - there's a lot of texture and things to play off of in this music - great for techno and such .

Interesting little details about the music - that help you directly as a remixer looking for good music to remix. When looking for music to remix, study it a little bit - listen to the melodies and such and ask yourself how often that material repeats in the song. From there, listen for the antecedent/consequence form in the melody - if it is a part of the music it'll be difficult to pull more than one or two motives to make a remix out of (which isn't good). Mind you, one can still make an excellent song with very limited resources, but it's always nice to know what your getting into when you start a remix.

Hey, this is rather short, for me - yet it's (hopefully) highly relevant to what people do here on OC; I hope it's still interesting .

[Gario]

Hah! I'm back, and I want to take a more personal approach to this very famous song from FFVII.

The scene link is

, but if you don't want to ruin this scene (if you never played FFVII and plan to) then I'd suggest not watching it, nor reading the rest of this post (of course, I think virtually everyone knows about this scene, so whatever...).

Yeah, this scene is probably the most touching scene in RPG history, but there are a few factors about the music, the timing and such that really create a unique atmosphere in this scene - in fact, whenever I hear the music and watch this scene it really feels like the climax of the entire FF franchise. Why would I say that?

Alright, lets take a look at just the first phrase (in fact, that is the only phrase I'm looking at) - the notes are (CDE) - G - C (the notes in the parantheses are played as a cluster). Woo, a C major chord with an added D, right? Nothing special... until you realize that this is the very chord used in the prelude of every

- the very first chord, in fact. Not only does the Aeris theme use the same notes, but it ascends in almost the exact same fashion, although it only reaches one octave. The fact that there is a chord cluster that is struck first further intensifies the effect.

The timing of the materia striking the ground and the striking of the first cluster in the music accents the music in an artless fashion, and the impact of the scene itself (both visually and emotionally) compliment everything perfectly.

My interpretation of the scene, then, is that the Death of Aeris is the culmination of every Final Fantasy up to that point, as it is the most intense subject matter (your love interest dies - no other FF had done that, to that point, nor ever does that again, to my knowledge), the visuals were epic (well, for the time, anyway), the music was a variation of a theme that was (and is still) used in every Final Fantasy, and most importantly - every piece forms a whole that far surpasses the parts in intensity. It is almost operatic in how well everything forms, in the end. Yes, this is all because of the first chord (and only the first chord) - but the effect is so strong that it only needs that small relation to the Prelude to connect with it.

I get goosebumps every time I watch that scene - every time. The way everything forms together really touches me in a way no other FF game can. Does anyone else feel that way about the music, there?

[Gario]

Hmm... I don't have a game that's coming to mind for this week. Instead, I'm going to do something that's a little more general and applies to Video Games, overall. Have you all ever played

? How about The Legend of Zelda, or A Link to the Past? These two games have themes in them that sound very militaristic, but what does that even mean?

Way back in antiquity, Brass instruments were introduced. Their function was simple - you vibrate the air inside of a mouthpiece, and the opening amplifies that sound in a particular way. They had some problems inherent to their design, though - they could only hit notes that were on the harmonic series of partials (the 'fundimental', the octave, the fifth above, the fourth above that, etc), so they didn't have a full range of notes. Of course, at this time that was completely irrelevant, as the music that was performed didn't need that full range of notes - they just played music that only needed the notes they had.

Interestingly enough, due to their rather 'brass' nature (ha, bad pun) they were used heavily to rally military troops on the battlefield. Of course, because of the limitations of the instrument (they didn't come up with a decent way around this problem until the predecesser of the Trombone was developed in the 1500's), the fanfare that would be used was the leap from the octave to the fifth above it (or just a leap of a fifth upward).

Why do I tell you this? Because that perfect fifth upward leap is now a symbol of a militaristic fanfare, because it has been used as such for millenia. Therefore, if any song (game music or otherwise) uses the leap of a perfect fifth upward, it will evoke militaristic emotions within the listener. Let's take a look at the songs above and see how they use the perfect fifth leap.

Bionic Commando starts the music off with some snare rolls (on the nes it isn't that impressive sounding ), followed by the theme music we all know and love. That theme music starts off with a leap of a fifth - mirroring the fanfare for militia of the millenia. The music that follows that further enforces that fifth motion by accenting the fifth scale degree throughout the beginning of the theme. I would go further, but sadly I don't have my headphones with me today (that is also true of the Zelda music I will elaborate).

The main theme of all Zelda music also incorporates a lot of fifth motion (and the inverse of that, a leap of a fourth downward). The music starts with that leap down to a fourth, then back up to the main note - which is followed by a run up to the fifth and stops there, accenting the fifth in the process. From there it continues up to the octave and dances around using runs to the lower fourth and such throughout the music.

In the Dark World music of A Link to the Past, it starts quite similarly to Bionic Commando's theme music - except there is a neat little bass pattern over the snare rolls. When the melody strikes, however, one can easily see that it starts the music with that leap up of a fifth - establishing it's place as a military piece. I'd like to elaborate on this song more, but again - I don't have sound right now so I cannot .

If you want to add a little bit of a military flair to your own music or remixes try using that upward fifth leap - you'd be surprised at how effective it is in evoking a military mindset to your music overall. Of course it's not the only thing you can do, but as I've shown it can be a very powerful tool if used properly. Also, keep an eye out for it - more often than not when it is used it is done so to represent a military mood, whether the composer did it conciously or not. Happy analysing!

[Moseph]

I just realized while looking at this thread that Green Hill Zone reminds me of Zelda's Lullaby. It has the same sort of deal where IV tends to displace the tonic by existing as the focal chord at the start of the verse and undermining what would otherwise be V-I cadences. (I'm thinking that maybe this is something of a stock technique for looping music that drives things forward by avoiding any clear resolution.)

EDIT: Not to dredge up old discussions, Gario, but thinking about this reminded me that the original Link to the Past version of the lullaby doesn't feature that line that you took to be the functional bass until the repetition of the first section. There's also an interesting fanfare that introduces the piece that isn't present in the Ocarina of Time version.

[Gario]

It has the same sort of deal where IV tends to displace the tonic by existing as the focal chord at the start of the verse and undermining what would otherwise be V-I cadences. (I'm thinking that maybe this is something of a stock technique for looping music that drives things forward by avoiding any clear resolution.)

Interesting observation. I wonder why that happens - is it because of the contrapuntal relationship between IV and I or is it a harmonic relationship (IV - I sounds like I - V, if the IV is played first)? I guess that depends on the context of the music.

Not to dredge up old discussions, Gario, but thinking about this reminded me that the original Link to the Past version of the lullaby doesn't feature that line that you took to be the functional bass until the repetition of the first section.

Interesting... I've gotta go check out the music from LTTP, now - you've got me curious .

[Moseph]

Interesting observation. I wonder why that happens - is it because of the contrapuntal relationship between IV and I or is it a harmonic relationship (IV - I sounds like I - V, if the IV is played first)? I guess that depends on the context of the music.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess that IV is used that way both because of the potential tonic-dominant relationship with I and because if you treat it as a tonal center, it puts you in the Lydian mode without altering the scale, and of the white key modes, Lydian is the closest to major and therefore the most likely tonic substitute. And Lydian's also just generally a nice place to be. A jazz professor I TA'd for last year pointed out that Lydian's used all the time in film music to evoke a sense of scale or expectancy, and since then, I've noticed it all over the place.