Just wanted to inform everyone this blog is coming to a halt at the moment since I can’t afford the time to keep it going right now. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for the continued support!

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From the early public domain tunes to all-around action/adventure new compositions (Gradius being an excellent example of the later) and beyond, game music took some time to become more "specialized"--as genres past shooters were yet being played (literally) with; so it's still baffling to realize how conscious Ayako Mori's work in Ghosts 'n Goblins already was in 1985.

Starting from a folk-ish foundation (building upon the two basic harmonic minor chords, i and V7) but hinting (as much as possible within chiptune restraints, that is) at symphonic grandeur, it's efficient in both fronts all the same: mechanical (as for pumping an action game up right off the bat) and immersional (by setting a terror backdrop that even amplifies the crude presentation's merits).

At first, chromaticism is employed only at the riff's tipping point as a descending tone, starting with Am and becoming trapped in E/G#'s whirlwind before heading back for the loop; but in the bridge the premise becomes an integral part of the harmony as well, this time leading an ascending voice towards a climax cliffhanger that, surprisingly, ends up in a calmer B--a very interesting release for a track that must be "durable" in several-tries gameplays.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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1-on-1 fighting games usually make it for an "ethnic" (as this field of music is usually called) playground for composers: rosters of fighters from all around the world--and their respective locations, of course--need individual fitting themes to go along with. That's not quite the case with Skullgirls though (even if the odd "desert music" is still there), as the horror thematic is much more relevant to the overall mood of the game (Darkstalkers delved into it before, but still deeply rooted in Capcom's "World Warriors" tradition, since even monsters there still represent their "local" cultures anyway). Michiru Yamane (a seasoned Castlevania series composer) and Vincent Diamante (who cut his teeth on Konami mobile titles at first) leaned into a jazzy noir palette (and their expressive melody instruments--plus vocals) for a both efficient and expansible composition/arrangement framework.

This introductory track relies on the eerie theremin-esque vocals for conveying the mood, but it's not there for the chills alone: it plays hide-and-seek with the voice leading harmony by hinting at the chords against a solid, pulsing pedal bass--and it makes even more sense within the long arc (8 bars) progression, with room enough for some push/pull call and response that always bring it back home by the end of the line. After a palate cleanser B, the cliffhanger wanders into proper terror territory by tapping minor 2nd-ed Phrygian sources (for both melody and harmony) and finishing (or not?) with an open-ended whole-tone phrase. A "nostalgia note"-ridden postlude hangs there for the cherry at the top.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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On the surface a "regular" Chinese music theme (it's properly limited to the minor pentatonic scale in both melody and bass lines) Spartan X's aims to acclimatise it to modern Western-ish tastes--rightfully so, since it's a half-breed between the contemporary Jackie Chan movie Wheels on Meals and Bruce Lee's (already classic by then) Game of Death.

The composer Masato Ishizaki took an interesting approach to the issue: to dress his melodies in a blues-rock outfit. The main theme, for instance, would be a perfectly apt Eastern 12-bar blues if it wasn't for the shortened turnaroud making it actually a tenner--hard to say for sure, but likely due to a programming error or for coping with how grating six Gm bars in a row (with barely any instrumentation alternatives available) would sound.

But this Opening track is arguably more interesting because it doesn't rely on alien chord progressions or genre forms to imbue it with an actual "bluesy" feel; it strikes the core by changing the time signature. By setting the melody's metre against a 12/8 backdrop Ishizaki-san managed to solve the puzzle from within the composition in a much more natural, organic way.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹The version transcripted here is the one placed in the tutorial, which kicks in with the bass line already on.

²A more developed version of the theme is presented at the game's intro--an interesting arrangement study of their own.

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Bananas as the entire Shibuya-kei-ish soundtrack for Katamari Damacy may be--quite fittingly for a game where a drunken god destroys the universe and put his 5cm-tall son to roll a gluey ball in order to gather everything back together, that is--the main theme sets it off to a marvel of a whimsically catchy start.

Within a simple 2-Major-chords progression framework (quite like the one seen here before in Tactics Ogre) the theme takes advantage of the euphoric Mixolydian-borrowed G to paint the overall background mood for the track; unlike the former example though, Nah-Nah fully embraces the mode on the melody front as well (or rather develops the harmony from it), bringing a hint of tension to the table and pumping the player forward every time the chord changes as a result.

The melody's call and response metre helps a great deal on keeping the push too: the movement from more grounded notes upon chord changes to syncopated ones as they stray further away (as if the the pair of bars for each chord was a single, "logarithmic" unit) is just beautiful and plain fun to hum along to.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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In 1980 game music still had a long way to go becoming an entirely new beast of its own kind--past noise for rudimentar sound effects like shots, explosions or simply any "impact" in a broader sense, that is; but maybe Michiyuki Kamei's Space Invaders (1978) was on to something with its dynamic take on Jaws--tying sfx to the gameplay's pace on the fly (no pun intended).

Namco's sound designers Shigeichi Ishimura and Toshio Kai came up with a very interesting solution sound-wise (coupled with some quite conscious design decisions by Pac-Man's creator/director Toru Iwatani) for the project's thematic aesthetic--even in the physical, real world product level: put the machine to work as a focal point of a given venue well beyond its (then silent, as it used to be) "attract mode" idle state.

The "Start" fanfare at first sounds like a funfair/carnival's reminiscence with its fat organ-like Major chords skipping arpeggios--triggering both a nostalgia kick and a "toy" (not a "hardcore" specialist mechanism) feel. But nudging the theme half a step up makes it for a subtle nod to baseball "charge" tunes, bringing the game-y component to the table--together with a call-for-attention "pleasant breaking news" jingle (if such a thing existed outside sports). The simple 4-bar theme is a winner exactly for packing that amount of information in such a short span while taking the current trends a step further. A "classic" by definition.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹"Dream" is my personal favorite piece of music in Lack of Love's soundtrack, but after watching a full playthrough I couldn't find it in-game. If anyone more familiar with the game out there could lend us a hand on pointing it out I'd be glad to keep this file updated.

²This post will be open/free to all visitors as a tribute to master Ryuichi Sakamoto.

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It can be easy to dismiss Dream's "dreamy" quality for simply the result of great synth pick/tweak work (which is also obviously there for sure) but master Sakamoto sets his intricate narrative in motion brick by brick from the ground up through the use of some Jobim-esque Bossa Nova voice leading, as he puts harmony to gently manoeuvre his melody lines--as if such waving patterns could effortlessly come to life on their own as long as the groundwork is solid enough, which is the case.

Almost right off the bat (in the second bar of the progression, Bbmin6/C’s), the "nostalgia note"--a Major chord's minor 6th--shows up to beautiful emotional effect; but as the progression follows we start to realize it's actually more than that: it works as a pivotal point which moves half a step up and down, as an anchor that rather allows the ship to sway around instead of sticking it to place. If that sounds too much of an abstraction, numbers could make the point clearer: this "swaying anchor" device is at work in 8 out of the full loop's 9 bars. At times an Eb's 3rd (either Major or minor at the composer's will), at times a Cb's 5th and so on, it even serves the purpose of conjuring one of the rarest aural illusions in harmony: an "euphoric" minor chord--achieved here through a 9th (in Fm7add9) that happens to be the previous key's Major 3rd, clouding the listener's perception--and aptly used here as a single bar extra appendiceal turnaround. Gorgeous, inventive and efficient all the same.

All that goes without even touching the matter of subtle rhythm variations in the melody's metre, syncopations that push the overall movement forward while preventing the theme to ever becoming grating. A lot to unpack in a 29 seconds loop.

Take a listen to the original theme. Sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice are open for all this time. See ya next week!

And finally, here’s the Soundslice link. Feel free to drop any comments down here!

https://www.soundslice.com/slices/fxkyc/

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An experimentalist at his core (from working on Mario Paint to creating the Wii's sonic identity composing for Wii Channels and Wii Sports and later on directing Wii Music), Kazumi Totaka have always messed with blurring the lines between technology and music; and Yoshi's Story is a good early example of that. Beyond putting adaptative music to good use during gameplay (like kicking in rock versions of the tunes to reflect the Flower Meter's "mood") his imaginative ideas for the yoshi choir (silly as they may intentionally sound) are what really make it as a late 90's 64-bit soundtrack.

Audio tech stuff is the meat of Yoshi's Story sound design in general--like distorting the composer's captured voice to fit the characters, for instance--but randomization is the tool that ultimately breathes life into it. Displacing the choir's voices in both time and pitch within a given range (depite some more fine-tuned manual tweaking, as the one-degree higher note at every secong syllable in the "lyrics") infuses "Happy Song" with utter cuteness and comicness--certainly much harder to achieve without that.

Another interesting aspect of setting code to work in favour of musicianship is how Totaka-san makes the most of tempo dynamic variances--with both full stop changes and more varied curves, as with the rallentando applied twice to this piece. In a way it's yet another approach to "humanizing through data noise" that sums up on helping get the "warmth of believability" point accross into the final product.

Wrapping up with the composition side of the short theme, there's still value to be found down there in the basement: some clever voice leading (in harmonized 3rds’ descending intervals) unlocks an unusual progression towards the root chord (in this case, G, Bbm, F) that breaks the more traditional moulds of leading single voices locked on to one degree--here that would mean either G, Gm or Bb, Bbm, but master Totaka manages to get the best of both worlds nailing an "inverted" ii V I as an actual II iv I. Brilliant stuff.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹The lyrics iterations contain minor melody/rhythm variations to make them fit--just like any regular popular song usually does.

In the medium's humble beginnings proper "songs" (music put together in order to support human voices singing lyrics--even if gibberish ones, like the Splatoon 3's theme covered last week) were a long way off any feverish dream since even cramming some noisy "HAHA" sample into a game by then would eat up a good chunk of memory--often to not-so-good results anyway, rendering the effort unworthy the trouble. After CDs came to be the way to go for most videogame consoles though, the feature would evolve from just "doable" to fairly common--on occasion even pitched as a selling point--as the memory boost allowed for such recordings to become part of the so called vgm catalogue. "HAHA" and beyond, Still Alive is the perfect icing on Portal's cake.

Despite bearing several layers of sci-fi (both in content and form) it's actually built upon the framework of a simple folk song: short progressions, few consonant chords, solid rhythm patterns. But then again, maybe it worked so well because it's much more Bowie-ish (quite fittingly, for his caustic humor and the thematics the material needed to borrow from) than Dylan-ish; style and presentation aside, what's most interesting--from a strict composition standpoint--in Bowie (and this) is the quirky use of common chords. It can be relatively easy to spice up a theme/arrangement's harmony values by employing fancy extended chords, jazzy tetrads and so on; but creating something unique only with regular chords that every boy learning to play already have in their pockets can be much trickier than it firstly appears--and this is the case.

Jonathan Coulton set up a trap for himself here with the tough chorus modulation (from D--two ♯s--to F--one ♭), but the clever "two birds with one stone" solution is what makes the song in the end: voice leading A7 (D's V) to Bb (F's IV) and back again through the same route when needed creates a safe path that also doubles down as an efficient "euphory" emotional trigger device.

It could also be said Still Alive doesn't stray that far from more modern gothic references as well (even if it's some post-apocalyptic "cyber-gothic") since the style's main aesthetic trope--contrasting "happiness" with dark content--is here from the ground up with the cynical lyrics (magnified by Ellen McLain's fantastic delivery) being laid over two different Major keys.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹This week I got a Ko-fi from Pierre (thanks a lot!) so soon there will be a free acoustic guitar slice of this song up available in my profile. Stay tuned!

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The first piece of diegetic (that actually exists inside the medium it's used, that is) music covered here at GMAC, Clickbait is part of C-Side's set--a fictional in-game band whose real-life composers aren't exactly clear (even if Nintendo has recently shared some amusing footage of the actual musicians behind this particular recording, so at least the execution side of it is clear at the moment). Putting such music together can be tricky depending on the setting, and this is certainly the case: a post-apocalyptic alternate human world that has been retaken by meta/anthropo-morphic squid-like folk--which endeavour in human activities like, for instance, making music.

One of the toughest tasks in composing original material for soundtracks is thinking outside the box enough to be able to create sounds that are "believably alien"--in the sense of not sounding like something a human would/could do. Mica Levi's stellar work on Under the Skin aside, we usually fail at the daunting task in several levels but end up in good solutions for wrapping things up on the arrangement/instrumentation end.

Clickbait makes use of such shenanigans--e.g. gibberish distorted voices--but it also goes surprisingly hard on twisting the blocks of what "human" bluesy rock would be if done "right", to the point it can sound "glitchy" at times--or at least noticeably "off".

Abusing the parallel borrowing framework (as seen previously in Gradius' and Final Fantasy's issues here), C-Side kicks it up an extra notch by messing around with the riff. Subverting the penta blues scale in genuinely creative ways (like using both minor/Major 3rds and the augumented 4th--which should be employed only as passing tone--as structural parts of the riff) makes it for a delightfully whimsical musical narrative--specially when the blue note is finally nailed "correctly" in the final bar of the 3rd iteration of the riff, a cracking up cue right before the verses kick in. Throw in a hint of Eastern spice through the Flamenco Phygian mode (one that's both Major and minor 2nd-ed) and a subtle whole-tone feel both melodically (when the solo guitar emphasizes four full steps in a row, as a Lydian ascendent scale that never resolves) and harmonically (when parallel borrowing Major chords go for another ascending movement, A, B, C#) and you have a uniquely fun alien-ish rocker track.

Take a listen to the original theme and an impromptu rendition of it I did a while ago. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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Still sailing British vgm waters but now well into "stuff of legends" territory here, David Wise needs no introduction whatsoever. This particular work though sits rightly on the cusp of some watershedding waves: when prerendered visuals were there for making beautifuler games--and ambient music was still "thematic" (and a perfect match for it).

Many Donkey Kong Country tracks make use of ambient devices for setting up "mystery" backgrounds before developing their motif-ic material upon it, and Life in the Mines is yet another beautiful sample from that batch; but what makes it stand apart from others--at least from a music analysis point of view--is how that "mystery" approach is carried on to the composition side of the work in it--while still retaining a good deal of accessibilty, like a (good) Pink Floyd (a mainstream equivalent reference) song would.

First of all, despite the apparent "stillness" of the ambient parts (both opening and closing the track in slow "emotional fades"), there's plenty of rhythm information in the sparse sound effects/percussion hits painting the backdrop. That structure will be fully explored when the "band" setup kicks in later on, but it's already helping the listener to navigate the airy (panflute included) pad synths from the start. Another rhythmic approach that cleverly blurs the thematic/ambience lines is the counterpoint being--often quite literally--just an echo of main melody phrases. It conveys the cavernous setting well without the need for fx editing gimmicks, and as the interlude bridges into the progressive rock 2nd half of the track by making use of quick ostinato arpeggios it adds up to the overall mood in cohesive fashion.

The enigmatic approach also permeates Life in the Mines' harmony, and here's where Mr. Wise really shines--obvious arrangement values aside, of course. The long (8 bars) drone sus chord in the ambient intro doesn't help shining a light on what the key is, and in fact even the chord progression that follows it in the A section works deceptively: at first sounding as a Dorian G minor (with the Major C borrowed from that mode, once again in Pink Floyd-ly vein) it will only fully reveal itself by the end of A'--with the "real" key main chord, D minor, remaining still throughout the entire interlude and finally setting the matter for once an all.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹Big 20 Race #16 (a speedrunning event featuring 20 NES games back to back) will be happening by March 11th; watching streamers training for it got me in touch with Loopz--and instantly hooked to Tune C.

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Last week we talked about Gradius' soundtrack, a work (in the words of Miki Higashino herself) influenced by Kraftwerk--which may seem surprising at first but can be easily confirmed with a simple "0.75 speed" YouTube play to our chosen theme, "Stage 1". This week we're going to delve into something throughly Kraftwerkian--still, with an extra Russian layer to it.

David Whittaker is the first "Brit scene" composer featured here (and quite a prolific one too, with hundreds--no hyperbole--of games under his belt), and his work represent well those bloke's strenghts against the outputs of "regular" Japanese studios' environments: music that's written "top-down"--meaning "how it sounds is more important than compositions themselves". Probably due to the personal home computers trend in Europe (which resulted in a flourishing demoscene too) and how ubiquitous the SID chip (through Commodore machines) was there, composers working under those influences became masters of sound programming above anything else. (Incidentally, a listen to Aquatic Ambience by David Wise for Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, a worldwide acknowledged masterpiece, may settle the argument better than words.) Either way, even if more on the "arrangement" side of the job--rather than GMAC's usual composition focus--it's well worth bringing attention to (more so in a medium where the craft blurries such lines so frequently).

Tracks for puzzle games (specially slow ones like Loopz) tend to need more development for durability's sake, and Tune C is a masterclass on approaching the matter as a programmer: restating sections entirely as a palate cleanser between themes (like it's done here turning the base hook into an interlude when due), shifting octaves in melody lines for movement (the meat of making the hook interesting while not stealing the main themes' spotlight, in this case) and modulating entire sections on repetitions are some good practices put to excellent use here--including plenty of deceptive cadences in key changes.

Some of those traits can be traced back straight to Kraftwerk's late 70's songs. Bumping motifs around helps carrying Metropolis through its 6-minute odyssey, for instance; in the same fashion the unusual downspiraling modulation here is akin to the one in We Are the Robots--both from 1978's The Man-Machine. But as a for the aforementioned "Russian layer" our best shot must be, obviously, Tetris taking the world by storm a year or so earlier. Skipping mood aside, what accounts for that feel is how a couple sections delay resolving to the key for a more intense release feel--many famous Russian folk themes (and Tetris' most known theme too) have progressions that avoid starting on the I chord, lending them some interesting emotional dynamics that are part of what makes them unique.

Lastly, on the composition side there are interesting solutions going on as well. The bluesy turnaround is so twisted by voice leading techniques (turning regular tetrads into full diminished chords) that barely any blues can still be heard there at all; and applying Bach's approach of going up and down through different scales--but swapping Major for Mixolydian instead of with minor ones--is downright brilliant.

Take a listen to the fantastic MS-DOS version of the theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹Just to clarify some chord notation references, the convention used here so far is "dim" for diminished 5th triads, while ° going for full diminished tetrads.

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Previously here in GMAC we talked about applying parallel borrowing (and eventually traced back its origins, picardy thirds) into lending a piece an euphoric/victorious feel. But coming across such an aggressive approach to this system as the one Miki Higashino managed to pull off in this Gradius' piece can be a rare encounter: what about picking 6-out-of-7 chords from a given key and turn all of them Major?

The trick to make the most of it here was charging at two different fronts simultaneously. Firstly--and surprisingly straight-forwardly enough--Higashino-san made the clever decision of only borrowing chords when strictly needed; by dropping unwanted (namely minor) ones she was able to get away with making use of Major chords that were already available from the start, as F and G (without the need for minor harmonic gymnastics--which would in a way "tie" it to a dominant function--for instance). Secondly--and maybe what really makes it all work so smoothly--is leading those chords' voices up when possible/desired. The range the first progression covers (C, Eb, F, Ab, Bb, C again) without even needing a "perfect" cadence to hook the loop is just pure unflinching resolve.

Two extra bonus points for a couple interesting developments: swapping the "right hand" (upper register) function on the fly (pun intended) from harmony arpeggios to main melody; and section B teasing a key change (through a deceptive cadence even) for the "relative wannabe" Eb (a delayed plagal one while at it) and aborting mission (pun intended) when the coda kicks in smashing the listener's perception of time--to the point of being able to shrug an entire bar off the charts--and heading back straight to the very beginning of the loop. Plain awesome.

Take a listen to the original theme. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹The excerpt analysed here is the motif. Both the "ad-lib" solo and "back to motif coda" were left out 'cause those aren't relevant for the subject we'll be covering on this issue.

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Picking up from where Mega Man (the very first entry in the series) left couldn't have been harder for any composer to follow: Manami Matsumae had crafted a stellar and referential body of work there--to the point it got her a promotion to Capcom's more prestigious Arcade department--and almost as a parting gift of sorts wrapped the game up with one the most beautiful "credits" themes to ever grace any 8-bit machine. Well, the newcomer Takashi Tateishi (alongside the whole dev team working as a single unit) managed to nail it in spectacular fashion by actually taking advantage of the issue: unrolling a transitioning cutscene into the brand new bombastic Title Theme (something missing in the awkwardly silent original instalment's equivalent screen) sets the game off with a memorable bang right off the bat.

Tateishi-san came from a rock band background, and it shows here in spades: the motif could easily pass for an Iron Maiden riff, gallop picking included (which was "cleaned up" for this issue's piano arrangement since it was unfit for the instrument, but can still be applied at the musician/arranger's will, of course). Even before touching the main technique behind this composition (which we're going to do soon) there are some interesting features already spicing up the metal framework chosen here: alternating syncopated and regular time chords changes, shifting the usual "power chord" approach (5ths intervals) duets to 3rds that reveal the harmony's real qualities when due, grounding the theme with a solid pedal bass line and the interesting way of closing loops inside the final bar instead of waiting for it to resolve by the next one--which cleverly ensures being able to use a particular section wherever it's needed regardless of what comes next without a hassle.

But the real meat in "Title Screen "Part II" is a technique lifted from the baroque era that can be traced as the origins of parallel borrowing (discussed in the last issue on Final Fantasy): the picardy third. The practice consisted in always resolving progressions "on a high note"--subjectively, in a "mood" sense--even when a piece's narrative was sad all the way through; the musical equivalent to a "happy ending" (in practice carried over by a Major chord substitution in the root position of the tonal key). It fell out of use for sounding "cheesy" or "dated"--while also becoming easily replaceble by modern (and more flexible) techniques--but it worked it's magic here with no hint of such side effects for fitting the genre well. In fact this one could almost be taken for anoter parallel borrowing example... if it wasn't for moments when the original minor C scale show up--and the way some chords are veiled by their sus voicings, as if keeping the composer's real intentions a secret until the final motif bar.

Take a listen to the original theme in its full version. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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Fanfares are just like rock'n roll riffs: concise and memorable pieces of melody--and if they can pack a punch while at it it's all for the better. Usually meant for introducing important people in or making highbrow announcements, the form is put to terrific use in the original Final Fantasy release and beyond (years of iteration on what has become a staple of the series made it a widely recognizable reference in vgm in general) and helps the game to celebrate a player's victory (alongside the very characters with their uplifting 2-frame "cheer" animation) as if injecting small dopamine bursts into the longrun fuel tank.

For the epicness level intended with such a piece to actually land their hits, this fanfare had to be built upon the most aggressive approach around when it comes to borrowing chords: replacing the tonal center itself. We've talked about employing Mixolydian interchange as a tool for accessing "stronger" chords in the previous issues of GMAC (it was pointed out in both Ogre Battle and Ys' editions) but parallel borrowing takes the concept to another level because it's a clever way of allowing a composer/arranger to tap into a pool of different chords by only swapping the main one's quality--in this case, Ebm for Eb. That not only opens a myriad of interesting substitution options but also brings a brand new surprising (on the listener's side) conclusion to the table regarding what's expected to be "home"--where this technique's "euphory" mood in fact lies.

Still, what really made this track unique back then (and seminal for future soundtracks in the medium for the ages) was the way Uematsu-san developed his fanfare into the subsequent loopable theme--a perfect "stats screen" fit. Ringing an epic victory jingle is a given; but it's hard to measure the impact of having some piece of music just to follow along a player indulging in browsing through their loot or level up stats after a battle.

A final interesting detail deserving a bit of an extra digging is how Mr. Uematsu managed to set the fully-fledged theme apart from the fanfare while keeping the overall mood intact: against all odds, by messing around with rhythm. The fanfare relies heavily on conventions, and those are much more inclined to a compound feel--to the point it would probably be better written in 12/8 instead of common time--than the thematic material (which even sounds modern for its "disco" syncopated bass line).

Take a listen to the original theme and an impromptu rendition of it I did a while ago. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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An early sample from the extensive (and quite broad genre-wise) Master Yuzo Koshiro's catalogue (here with Mieko Ishikawa), "Fountain of Love" remains as fresh as back in 1987 when it was released--and it will serve our newsletter's purposes well at this point because it gives its own spin to techniques discussed in both previous issues while throwing yet another variable (dissected in the end of this article) into the mix.

Starting with the "classical approach" component, this composition (much like that The Legend of Zelda piece we talked about before) builds its structure upon a pair of arpeggios: from the ground up, a "melody driver" tops the "harmony support" (which also doubles down as a counterpoint device) one. Despite being more "traditional" than Koji Kondo-san's, they work quite well together because of their contrasting "paces": the bottom one's triplet feel (through the use of syncopated dotted figures) sets a calmer (and not dull while at it) background that makes the skipping melody line even more interesting without sacrificing the comfort expected of a "city music" theme.

On the harmony side it uses the very same modal interchange pointed on #0's Tactics Ogre piece, to more-or-less the same effect (as it's always the case): lending strenght to a "slot" where a gloomier chord would be expected--here a Bdim is exchanged for a rock solid Bb, and it surely looks (sounds) the part as a dominant chord which ensues the loop restart. Interestingly enough the main melody line here also avoids what I called before the "acidic" minor 7th that comes into play with the Mixolydian borrowing, tricking the listener with a resting point (Do) that's not "resting" at all since now it's Bb's 2nd--even allowing for a late reveal when it finally steps up to the current chord's Major 3rd.

Finally, the secret ingredient. The thematic material's premise is an ostinato--literally an "obstinate" idea that keeps coming back over and over; but it's much more interesting due to how it's displaced rhythmically. Comprised of 1 rest and 5 8th notes (to a total of 3 full beats) it falls short of being enough to fill a bar; but the clever shift made in its overall feel (by making the syncopated rest an integral part of the motif) makes for a delightful waving pattern that's both unique an memorable at the same time.

Take a listen to the original theme and an impromptu rendition of it I did a while ago. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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"Beginning of the Journey" may sound like a regular run-of-the-mill "IV-iii-ii-I" progression--and it... kinda is? But Master Koji Kondo took things seriously when he picked the "arpeggio" route for putting literal "harps" to use in this composition/arrangement. So, what's going on with that?

Well, firstly there are two simultaneous arpeggios at work--one supporting the main "thematic" melody line, the other hinting at some extra harmony intel while (also) cleverly working as a counterpoint device on the 2nd half of each bar. Glueing it all together there's an "acoustic" bass lining up the listener's perception of pulse (even if plays hide-and-seek at times by syncopating notes or even dropping them altogether for movement and novelty).

What's interesting in Kondo-san's approach here is: none of the arpeggios alone is enough for allowing us nailing the actual chords progression down. In order to do that we must take a step back and see it all as a cohesive unit, but... we can still learn a thing or two analysing each "hand" individually.

The "bottom" arpeggio (the one closest to the bass line) works within a tetrad framework (mostly dropping the 5th for the 7th), but it isn't entirely conclusive because there are places where octaves replace other "expected" informational notes. Close enough, "doable" with a bit of "filling the gaps" work; but things get really interesting if we take a look at how the upper hand works by itself.

Playing that line alone gives us an impression that it's the most "reliable" one because it "appears" to build the melody over regular triads. Simpler is usually right... right? I'd say so, yeah, but here we could end with an... interesting, to say the least (even though I truly like it as, maybe, a Dark World version of the original intent) progression. Try it for yourself and tell me if isn't quite a ride:

RH arppegios as triads:

Re# (5)	Do# (5)	Si  (5)	La# (5)    |	Re# (5)	Mi  (3)	Re# (5)	Si  (5)
Si  (3)	La# (3)	Sol#(3)	Fa# (3)    |	Si  (3)	Do# (T)	Si  (3)	Sol#(3)
Sol#(T)	Fa# (T)	Mi# (T)	Re# (T)    |	Sol#(T)	Sol (5)	Sol#(T)	Mi# (T)
-------	-------	-------	-------    |	-------	-------	-------	-------
G#m	F#	E#dim	D#m	   |	G#m	C#°	G#m	E#dim

By cross referencing that with the bass we realize the actual intervals and arrive to a more complete understanding of how the piece works. Here is the same data table coupled with the bass extra info:

Re# (3)	Do# (3)	Si  (3)	La# (3)    |	Re# (3)	Mi  (5)	Re# (5)	Si  (7)
Si  (T)	La# (T)	Sol#(T)	Fa# (T)    |	Si  (T)	Do# (3)	Si  (3)	Sol#(5)
Sol#(6)	Fa# (6)	Mi# (6)	Re# (6)    |	Sol#(6)	Sol (7)	Sol#(T)	Mi# (3)
-------	-------	-------	-------    |	-------	-------	-------	-------
B6	A#mb6	G#m6	F#6	   |	B6	A#°	G#m	C#7
						D#7b9

So, are those chords 6th-ed or 7th-ed in the end? Of course, you could use both! But 6ths and 7ths rubbing shoulders in the same octave may take a toll on the "comfort" feel the theme aims for. Still, the 6th could be overlapped to become a 13th, but then it can clash with the melody itself... So I personally went for a solid cluster 6th approach because it informs the composition's intents better--even without the melody.

Lastly, the A' reharmonization: it uses a cool "ii-V-i of ii" trick, and as the "ii" is minor that allowed Mr. Kondo to get away with that A#° via harmonic minor scale. Fantastic stuff, frankly.

Take a listen to the original theme and an impromptu rendition of it I did a while ago. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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¹#0? Why not #1? Well, I just realized I have a track called "Beginning of the Journey" in my stack and I figured that one should be #1. Do you know what game it's from? :)

²Thanks everyone for coming, and my utmost gratitude to the early bird adopters who embraced the paid model from the very first kick-off post here. Thanks an awful lot!

Inscrever-se agora

Among the 30-something tracks in The Knights of Lodis' soundtrack this is one of the only 3 that are both a) calm (more on that soon) and b) happy-ish (I mean, at least in a Major key); but, despite being an odd duck in the project, it's probably the one a player will be listening to most while organizing their troops and planning strategies over the spread table-like world map scene. What features such a track must bring in then?

I think the most important this one achieves is being able to lend the player a feeling of "strenght" and/or "resolve"; and this is achieved here through the use of a Mixolydian modal interchange. The deceptively simple 2-chord progression (ǁ:G|F:ǁ) hides the interesting effect of dropping the "right" chord (F#dim, which would bring both "sadness" AND "tension" on) for a much simpler (but "stronger" due to getting to fill an unexpected slot with a Major sound) and straight-to-the-point one. The fact those chords' arpeggios are presented with their 3rds missing (sus-piled) does a good job in preventing them sounding too euphoric too, making for some excellent emotional/harmony balance.

On the melody side there's another quite interesting decision: avoiding the acidic natural F (G's minor 7th) brought in with the Mixolydian mode. That ensures the main theme will still sound comfortable enough to be hummable along the journey without getting grating.

Lastly, why does it sound calm if the tempo itself isn't that slow? Well, sticking to a single chord for many bars (as is the case) can trick a listener's mind into "feeling" the music more slowly--and it works particularly well here coupled with the long notes in the melody.

Take a listen to the original theme and an impromptu rendition of it I did a while ago. Pro users will be able to access sheet music for this theme plus a link for its interactive sheet at Soundslice. See ya next week!

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As much as I simply can’t help loving music all around, vgm is what really puts a smile to my face. Of course, nostalgia for those simpler mid-80’s times when I used to play Super Mario Bros. in my grandma’s house every Sunday—or when in my teen days school mates asked me to play some Street Fighter music in classes breaks—may have played—quite literally—a big role in that for sure; but even as a grown-up, professional musician I can’t let it go because of the genre’s inherent infinitely interactive feature (not a bug at all). I love singing the deeds of my heroes, the brave game music composers trailing Koji Kondo’s blazing path and beyond! And that’s what I’ll aim to do here—once a week. :)

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A videogame music piece analysis will reach your inbox every week; paid users will be able to access a sheet music PDF of it and have a link to an interactive sheet at Soundslice—something akin to this arrangement I wrote a while ago:

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VGM buffs FTW?

You bet! I’d love to see the community grow and start grasping people’s suggestions, thoughts and opinions on the matter!

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I’m working on the first issue right now and it’s almost ready to go! The only thing I can say it's gonna be about an RPG-ish Ogre-y track… 😈

Thanks for now, I hope to see you again soon!

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