Question RE baroque music

[Drakken]

Over the years I've noticed that I love video game tunes with baroque influences - or at least what I think of as baroque. Most recently I came across this with zircon's "Baroque Virus" from the Fittest! soundtrack. Thing is, I have no idea if these are really baroque pieces or if there are some other classical influences here (or it's something else altogether). My knowledge of music history and theory is a bit lacking. I'd love to be able to define why I like these songs (and eventually attempt my own in this style).

Basically what I'm asking is this:

1) Would these be considered baroque?

2) If so, what makes them baroque (theory-wise)?

Here are the tracks which prompted this thread (Youtube links):

(duh)

Dance Dance Revolution - "V" (this one's a bit different, maybe not baroque at all)

random Castlevania tunes composed by Yamane

The chord progressions in Huge Game Table and Baroque Virus in particular give me the same kind of feeling. I wish I had more examples; I used to have a playlist with a bunch of these but lost it awhile back.

If other people have examples of similar songs found in video games, I'd love to hear them. (If that happens I guess this would belong in a different forum. For now I've posted it in this one since it is a question about music composition/theory.)

[Gario]

Technically, the Baroque era (Baroque = Misshapen Pearl, named in the classical era because they thought the music was terrible) is defined by it's ability to define a single emotion very well (as opposed to later eras using multiple emotions to contrast one another in a single song). It also uses many 'inventions' and preset techniques to get more sound out of their instruments (like heavy use of polyphonic lines). From my own experience, the rhythms are often restricted due to this, but that's just what I hear in it.

The columns track uses very heavy polyphonic lines. Very baroque technique.

Atelier uses a harpsichord and has that nifty polyphonic line in it. I'm also hearing some heavy use of sequences - other eras use sequences too, but Baroque tends to use it without masking the sequence at all, like in this song.

Sam and Max wrote a fugue (or at least imitated one). That's pretty hardcore Baroque, there. Tonal fugues really weren't written often after that period, so they tend to sound 'Baroque'. Also, HAHAHAHAHA, Deis Irae at 1:38. I wrote a whole article about that in my good ol' theory thread . That... doesn't point it to Baroque, per se, but it's always fun to point it out whenever I hear it.

Good ol' Zircon uses those polyphonic lines and some rich counterpoint reminiscent of some of Bach's works. Particularly holding the bass while having the lines move above it, creating the illusion of chord changes. Very Baroque.

Dance Dance Revolution is a remix of one of my favorite Vivaldi tunes,

. It is baroque, by definition. Go listen to it and tell me if you recognize it.

Castlevania overuses the whole polyphonic lines thing + counterpoint over a static bass. God bless their hearts.

Hopefully that answers your questions about it all.

[Moseph]

A couple things about Baroque music:

There's usually a fairly rapid and steady harmonic rhythm (i.e. a lot of chord changes).

At least in the late Baroque, which I think is the type of music you're thinking of, it's much more counterpoint-based than today's pop and movie music (several melodic lines that fit together in complicated ways).

The Baroque feel in some of your examples comes from melodies played with rapid eighth- or sixteenth-notes using Baroque melodic idioms -- lots of ornamentation, lots of repeated patterns, lots of rhythmic drive. Specifically, the harpsichord lines in Huge Game Table and Baroque Virus exemplify this.

To some extent -- also most clear in Huge Game Table and Baroque Virus -- the conventions of Baroque harmonic progression are followed or at least referenced. These conventions have to do with how chords are expected to move. For example, in Huge Game Table, you can hear beginning at 0:35 a very bare harmonic progression in which the notes very clearly move according to Baroque counterpoint rules. You can also hear the same sort of thing in the strings at the start of Baroque Virus. Also, pay attention to the harmonic progressions in general in Baroque Virus -- they don't sound like what you normally get in EDM because they reference Baroque harmonic conventions.