I take a look at some old Zelda Dungeon music to find out how series composer Koji Kondo kept us unsettled. PATREON: / 8bitmusictheory TWITTER: / 8bitmusictheory
I sense some dissonance between you and I. I would say something about this, but I would rather plead the fifth as that is a much richer sound then this dissonance between us
One very interesting method of making something creepy is to take a familiar, comfortable concept or object and invert its characteristics to make a disturbing perversion of reality. I've heard it said that zombies are a horrifying idea because they do this to the concept of a human being, and the "dark world" mechanic that Nintendo's used so many times is compelling for the same reason; contrasts are interesting, and having familiarized us with one form of a world the designer can creep us out by presenting a disordered version of it. You can do this with music, too, by the way, and in fact Koji Kondo has many times; for instance, the Clock Town theme from Majora's Mask is all the more disconcerting on the third day because it becomes a frantic, sped-up version of a tune you've learned to associate with the safe, easy gameplay found in the central hub. Suddenly the music is challenging your feeling of safety instead of reinforcing it. You mention a lot of tricks that Koji Kondo uses in this video, but this ironic use of familiar leitmotifs is probably my favorite. I think it's important to remember that how video game music makes us feel isn't a question of composition alone. It has a lot to do with expectations that are set up by other aspects of game design and even other songs that the player has heard before. You have to be quite talented to consider everything that feeds into a player's reaction to your music, and Kondo's success in this regard is really remarkable.
one newer example is Doki Doki Literature club. You get so used to the happy background music that even the slightliest changes creep you out. The flute theme lands on a semitone higher or lower. One piano phrase is out of tune. It happens so rarely, and you think you misheard. You listen a while and nothing happens. When you play on, it happens again. Perfect musical foreshadowing before the game becomes really creepy.
Cinnamon Noir I’m late by a year for commenting on this, but, you forgot to mention the fact that, yes… on the third day, the melody of Clocktown is sped up, but what also gives it this feeling of unease, is the slight subtle hint of ominous string playing in the back. You’ll have to listen very hard, but if you keep listening, you can hear it, it just sits there, in the back, playing all these ominous sounding chords. Letting you know, yeah… Some bad shit is going to happen if you don’t hurry your ass up and save the town.
MM is dark af in general. I mean, what isn’t dark in that game? The transformation masks come from dead people, death and tragedy and loss are the major theme, the main bad guy turns out to be a lonely kid who is afraid of losing his friends, the hero is on a sad journey to find a friend that is gone forever. That game is one of the most emotionally mature and dark games ever.
At 3:05 my brother came into my room asking "Did you just hear the soundtrack for Zelda's Forest Temple?" It's amazing how music like this, that doesn't really resemble your typical top 40 songs, classical pieces or film scores, still manages to be so memorable or at least recognisable that you immediately know its origin.
When i was a kid i was stuck in the forest temple for hours and hours. And couldnt get that song out of my head when i was trying to sleep. The music made me feel completely lost and confused cause the temple felt like a endless maze LOL 😂
Timofee When I played the game for the first time, 2 years ago.. I placed the 3 stones in the temple of time to pull out the master sword. I thought that was going to be the end of the game. Instead, I was taken by surprise, that now I, that is, Link was 7 years older. Then, I somehow managed to get to the Forest Temple, and the dungeon was so hard and unsettling compared to the first 3 dungeons, I felt like I was transported to another game. That is the first time a game left me so confused and unsettled. I instantly fell in love with the game.
Timofee when I played breath of the wild, I never figured out the lost woods gimmick, and so I only got through it by wandering through it and following what I knew about game conventions and guessing about the path, and once running very fast when the screen went white. Made it through, but it took 15 minutes and I had to ask all of my friends to be silent, because I was that stressed. When I first wandered in, I was like “ooh, where am I now?” “Is it a winter place?” “I like the music, it’s puzzely!” After I got to the center of the place, I was so stressed out, at one point I went to try and explore the rest of the island, because I didn’t know it was ALL like that, and the moment there was a bit of blue fog I started freaking out and heading back. Couldn’t deal with the typho ruins exclusively because of the now horrifying music, even though I actually liked that because it wouldn’t send me back, and haven’t touched a labyrinth for the same reason. That music is so. Horrifying.
It really is... it's rare to hear a piece of music so unsettling without it resorting to dissonant intervals or some kind of atonal-feeling melody. The forest temple theme sounds soothing until you've been running around the dungeon for an hour and get grabbed by that fucking wallmaster for the third time and feel the music filling up your head like damp fog.
When i was a kid i was stuck in the forest temple for hours and hours. And couldnt get that song out of my head when i was trying to sleep. The music made me feel completely lost and confused cause the temple felt like a endless maze LOL 😂
it's an insanely cool modal jazz-derived chord pattern which doesn't sound major, minor, dissonant, soothing, or anything really. It's just there... Endlessly confusing you and filling your thoughts.
Honestly the theme for the forest temple is one of the best creepy themes in any game ever. It's strangely soothing yet really eerie and unnerving at the same time. It's also great for forest temple especially since it's the first temple you enter as an adult link. Just the music alone is telling you that you're an adult now, and this is where shit gets real. In my opinion anyway.
I was really hoping that you'd talk about the clock town theme from MM. It utilizes SOO many little tricks to make it sound as uncomfortable as possible. Like how as time progresses to the final day, the happy and cheerful melody becomes detuned slightly, and lingering softly in the background are strings doing some atonal out-of-key stuff. PERFECT example of the uncanny valley concept being used in music, imo. Really LOVE the analysis of the temple themes from OOT 😁
i agree, given that the thumbnail and the start of the video feature majora's mask, i was hoping for some more analysis of tracks from that game. great video overall though! just wish one of my favorite zelda games got a bit more than a passing mention. :P
I think another thing that makes Clock Town so delightfully creepy is, ironically, that it's so bright and cheerful. Musically, there are no tense rhythms, no ominous harmonies, no issues with the instrumentation. That song should not be nearly as dark and creepy as it is... But use such an easygoing song in such a dire context...the freaking moon is about to level Termina and that song is just "oh what a beautiful day, everything is gonna be all right..." That disparity is what really sets the game in a league of its own. Koji Kondo was an absolute genius for applying that concept and getting it to actually make sense in practice. There is a fine line between Clock Town's "something isn't quite right here" quality and "why is this track so out of place?" Thankfully Kondo seems to have understood that and applied it perfectly. I hope to see more of this side of Kondo's expertise sometime soon...
One thing I notice about Clock Town's theme on the 3rd day is employing the use of bass notes that are dissonant against the original, familiar melody, and it does have that chromatic resolve at the end of the phrase thus making it seem like everything is just another ordinary day on the surface (the melody) but you know there's obviously something ominous underlying it (the bass). That's really artistic of Kondo to do this.
All the Mayora Mask game is so dissonant and familiar and disonat againd. All had the feel of playing a Zelda game and a different game at the same time. The music is half nice music scales and half dissonant disturbing and then that Majora Mask moving around like a clock is a detail not normal to see from a normal use of a mask.
@@Slechy_Lesh so? It's better to be immersed in the music than to just listen to music. I mean, just listen to song of storms with headphones. Trust me, youll feel like the room is spinning.
Koji Kondo's music is freaking hard to play. I think this explanation is great in showing how it doesn't follow any discernible pattern much of the time and uses irregular chords and crazy rhythm. If you look at Final Fantasy music, it's very simple. It follows a basic pattern with little variance. I played FF music a lot, thinking I was sooooo good then I took a gander at Koji Kondo music and I was like ಠ_ಠ
My grandpa is a pianist and componist, so I gave him the Zelda and Mario piano sheets for his 80th birthday, he got really confused and yet intriged..!
@@Uchuuaoi No. Music theory is a map that shows you all the possibilities that you can do to your music to get a desired effect. Konji Kondo, being a serious composer, knew exactly what he was doing. The main role of music theory is to explain to you how music works and to expand your musical vocabulary.
@@Uchuuaoi No, not at all. Creating memorable scores and music requires a lot of background knowledge. You can't just slap some notes down and call it a day just because it "feels right."
People always say the forest temple creeps them out...but I’ve always loved its atmosphere :3 the music is all mysterious, almost soothing. Then the temple itself has this cool aesthetic with the walls being made out of the surrounding trees and the idea of lighting torches using the bow was really cool too. It was almost like you weren’t ever really “entering” any actual building, just forging further into the forest.
Hey 8-bit Music Theory, love your work! I'm sure this is just a coincidence but a way to say four in Japanese, 'shi' (四), is also the pronunciation for death, 'shi' (死). I wonder if this maybe pushed Koji Kondo's decision to harmonize everything in Perfect Fourths too (hiding foreboding 'death' in the harmony to make it sound unsettling or, creepy)?
Man, I was really hoping you'd analyze Ghirahim's theme in this one. It was nice getting insight to the trove of tools that Kondo likes to use, though. Great stuff as always!
Any chance of a dedicated Majora's Mask video? IMO Clock Town has some of the best music in any video game because of how frantic, dark and actually sad it sounds, and how well it complements the sense of dread that the game causes. Also, the way the C section of Clock Town 1 resolves back into D major like "well, it's a IV chord but let's stick an A there to resolve properly" is so pretty and half-assed
Hey 8Bit, I cannot speak music lol. I don't know the terms or anything and at the moment, it's not something I'm going to invest time into (but I one day hope to learn to read music just for the sake of understanding notation and whatnot) But what I wanted to say was that I enjoyed this and all your videos tremendously. At the end of this video, you broke up the Death Mountain theme into three parts: the initial melody, the same melody but lower, and then the backing (?I'm not sure if I used the correct terminology). That was tremendously beneficial for me to really hear those separate sounds in conjunction with what you were saying. I can generally understand the gist of your messages, but hearing that song split up REALLY helped me understand your comments about it and hear what you were getting at. I know that probably adds more work to your videos and is not realistically viable for every song, but I'm just expressing my thoughts about how absolutely useful that was for someone like me in enjoying your video! ^u^
I think they've got to be even more interesting when you don't know shit about music theory, because I'm learning all these rules I was never aware of. I grew up just picking out harmonies on my own, and "perfect 4ths" sound like totally valid harmonies to me. I don't know what "not found in nature" means in this case, but if I had to put a name to them they'd just be "saturated cherrywood colored harmonies"
Basically every single note you hear (for instance C on a piano) has a series of other notes sounding with it (called overtones) that naturally sound very quietly above the original note. This series of notes is called the harmonic series, or overtone series - and the 4th interval isn't present anywhere in that series! So, the interval is "unnatural" in that sense. 4ths were actually very popular in folk music of various cultures and even medieval music. They became "bad" in the baroque era due to the style, and that notion has stuck around to the modern day (but often lacks the proper explanation as to why 4ths were ever "bad" in the first place.) Just remember that music theory isn't a set of "rules". It's more like the pirate code - guidelines that don't strictly have to be followed - or even more accurately, a method of explaining the music that has already been created throughout history. All of the greatest composers broke convention when it was fitting.
oh come on this is bollocks. you're telling me every note is a bunch of notes? I don't believe it. this is just like when I found out there's no purple light wavelengths and that most colors I see are a mixture of wavelengths. It may well be true, but that doesn't make it not bullshit.
@@csconnor5160 I think the parts in SH2 without music are much worse. The game just makes you think something will suddenly happen, but there are only like 1 or 2 "jump scares" in the whole game.
God, I love the Forest Temple's music so much. So glad that was the first song you brought up, because it's also pretty much the first time I'd ever come into contact with Koji Kondo doing that kind of thing, and it left a huge impression on me as a kid. To this day, it's still my favorite dungeon in a video game.
Louis XIV (aka 1685Violin) The point is that there is no perfect fourth above the fundamental. But with that logic sixths should also be dissonant bc there is no sixths (at least reasonably in tune) over the fundamental either.
Louis XIV (aka 1685Violin) this is what I came to say. Hard to say that there isn't a perfect fourth of the harmonic series when it's the third interval in the entire series.
It's because diatonic perfect fourths from the fundamental (present in every mode but Lydian) are really 5^2*6^3/(4^2*5^3) and not 4/3. The perfect fourth between the fifth degree and the tonic is 4/3. Two types of perfect fourths there are, but one ain't so perfect.
When speaking about theoretical intervals, I'm completely disregarding equal temperament. Equal temperament isn't a theoretical framework, it's a quick and easy shortcut that allows us to play music without constantly re-tuning instruments, so I'm not here to talk about ET intervals. In Zarlino's just intonation, which is, theoretically "correct" (yet impractical) tuning, diatonic "perfect" fourths from the tonic are 4.05/3 (not an approximation) while the inverse of a perfect fifth is 4/3. Although there is no audible difference, perfect fifth inverse and "perfect" fourth from the tonic are only incidentally similar. The former is consonant in practice while the latter is dissonant in practice, assuming we are only in one tonality. But yeah, they sound exactly the same in isolation. In composition, if you use a subdominant chord, the root should be 4.05/3, since the root of the subdominant chord is the 6th degree of an extended 13th chord. If you are using a tonic chord, first inversion, the distance between the low note and the middle note should be 4/3, since the low note is a perfect fifth an octave lower, not a diatonic "perfect" fourth. And, again, this is all assuming you're using Zarlino tuning, which of course, no one actually is in practice. Yeah, if we are talking about equal temperament, none of what I said means jack squat!
One slight correction. The Perfect Fourth does appear in the Harmonic series, it's just that it's on the 21st degree which most diagrams don't go up to. It's the last note in our 12 tone theory to make an appearance. Besides that, excellent video! Love exploring the idea of consistency, consonance and inconsistency, dissonance in music with the intent of provoking a particular feeling!
Just wanted to drop a big thank you from a comp major at university who's life dream is to write music for Nintendo. There are very little resources out there to study and you channel has been a huge help.
Could you do an episode on how the jumpy rhythms in Marx's theme make it more exciting and scary? I really love that song, but I haven't been able to capture the mood of it in my own stuff.
oh man Super Mario Sunshine has the best soundtrack. Well of any Mario game. In my opinion. Castlevania's got some good tunes too especially Sotn. dance of pales man....dance of pales.
Thank you for another great video! In addition to what you mentioned I'd like to contribute to this topic which I LOVE, which is linked to the essence of Japanese music. Taking some things you mentioned, specifically the perfect 4th: as you explained we tend to label this interval as "not-so-consonant", rather in "suspension" that creates tonal ambiguity if used in harmony, such as suspended chords where the third is omitted (sus4 or sus2). I'd say that Koji Kondo's use of the perfect 4th touches another endemic point, which is the Japanese folklore. The traditional music of Japan used to employ the perfect 4th and 5th intervals, both melodically and harmonically in a much higher quantity in contrast to the occidental use of the 3rd and 6th. For us (occidentals) this harmonies are somewhat exotic and fascinating, and precisely occidental composers of the late XIX century (such as Debussy) took this exotic musical ideas and blended them with their own, resulting in one of the characteristic sounds of french impressionism that broke with the traditional rules of occidental music, such as the use of parallel 4ths and 5ths, wholetone scales, clusters of major 2nds (mentioned in the video), etc. This folk roots have been preserved with great respect in Japan, and they have been the foundation for many composers such as Koji Kondo itself, who perhaps instinctively took them and spiced them up (such as Debussy in his time), adapting them into the video game format in a more subtle way (instead of just using an obvious pentatonic scale, which will make us think of Japan immediately). This only in the frame of Kondo's Japanese influence in Zelda, because we know that he's a big fan of many other styles such as Latin and north american music, which can be seen in his rhythmic patterns and harmonic progressions in other games more prominently (i.e. Mario). Trying to make a crossover, other notable examples of Japanese folk influencing composers can be seen on Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger & Chrono Cross) such as you mentioned in your "Nonfunctional Harmony" video. The use of consecutive 4ths (not necessarily perfect such as C-F-Bb, but also with #4 such as F-B-E) in melody and harmony, doing parallel motion of the same voicings (Root-9-b3-b7) a broader harmonic freedom (not necessarily atonal) and transposition of chords and melodies. One clear example is "Boss Battle 1" from Chrono Trigger (and with a view from the West to the East, has a similar vibe to 1971's Tarkus from ELP). Jumping to anime, another great composer of which I'm a big fan (and a Koji Kondo contemporary in its works) is Joe Hisaishi. In Hayao Miyazaki's films one can hear (and see) the fusion he has made with Japanese folk and american jazz, applied to an orchestral format achieving a lush, rich and exotic (for us maybe?) sound that really makes your ear to pay attention and say "Wait, what chord was that?", for example on "One Summer's Day" from Spirited Away, or "Legend of Ashitaka" from Princess Mononoke; just within the first few bars one can hear this distinctive Eastern essence. With the application of the already mentioned techniques such as chord progressions transposed to other keys, parallel 4ths and 5ths, motion of voicings, and the overall usage of the perfect 4th to create this "suspended and soaring" kind of harmonic atmospheres, we can see at times that his has been the evolution of Japanese traditional music: still being used for our entertainment, but being adapted into today's mediums; from theaters and scenarios, to our TV's through movies and video games :)
I really appreciate this video. The music theory analysis helps me understand these cherished themes from my childhood on a deeper level. I also appreciate the sheet music examples you have provided. This allowed me to follow along on the piano and demystify these Legend of Zelda themes. Bravo!
Sunshine's soundtrack could bring about world peace, I'm absolutely sure of it. You just can't be grumpy listening to that - you would feel ridiculous.
Death Mountain was always my favorite track from TLoZ. You just know you're at the end of the game when you hear it. It really builds you up for that epic final battle with Gannon. But a game that did it even better was Dragon Quest 1. The music gets lower and slower as you go deeper and deeper into Charlock Castle. And then there's the two phase fight with the Dragonlord, in the first phase it's the normal battle music, contrasting with the second phase music, that really makes you feel like you are facing the ultimate evil. Maybe you should make a video on music from the Dragon Quest series?
This is hands down my favorite channel ever on youtube. The Southern Swamp theme (Ikana Valley and so on..) might be a cool theme for your analyses, i think it uses some resources from the augmented scale!
Your channel is my new favorite thing on TH-cam! I studied music in primary school through college, but traded in my musician hat for politics. This is definitely helping to scratch my musical theory itch! Thank you!!
It does have that dark and errie sound especially the use of all the really omomius like bongos but also those weird synths that feel like the spirits attempting but failing to communicate
this is so fucken dope. I remember some of the stuff in elementary music class but most of the technical language that you used just flies over my head but the way you edited the video along with the song and the music sheets shows it to me in simpler ways. holy crap what an awesome channel. keep up the great work!
Honestly you are so smart when it comes to music! You have a new genre for the TH-cam platform and it's amazing in every way! I hope you keep doing what you do
zelda dungeons were definitely a good choice for the topic, but you'll have to do another one about the various creepy themes from the mario series too! castle/ghost themes, and the airship from SMB3! :)
You got a new sub man, I'll check all your videos later, gotta work in a few hours, music makes everything better, you explaining it, just makes it better, hope to see your work, keep it up.
From what I gather he transcribes most or all of it by himself, BUT if you wan't to get some sheet music, check out www.ninsheetmusic.org There's a looooot of it!
yes, water temple and forest temple especially are oddly soothing to me. the city in the sky dungeon theme from twilight princess has a similar eerie-yet-weirdly-soothing feeling
The Forest Temple's chords are an insanely clever progression which manages to not sound happy, sad, dissonant or melodic at all. It's just there... Filling your thoughts like fog. It's kinda pretty in an unsettling way.
At 5:20, Why do you say that the perfect 4th doesn't appear anywhere in the harmonic serie ? There is one between the 3th and 4th harmonics, no ? Am I wrong?
SORRY I'M LATE! I'm excited to binge watch your videos as I go about my day. Music theory fascinates me and your narration is very well paced and spoken. 👍🏼
Nice job on this! FYI: "Kondo" is pronounced "Cone-doe", not "con-doe". an "o" in a Japanese name actually is always pronounced that way ("oh" instead of "ahh").
It's actually really interesting to me watching this. I've never really payed too much attention to dungeon music in Zelda games, but at the moment I'm replaying OOT for like my millionth time and now I can't help but hear all of the small details in the dungeon music that you pointed out. Like Jabu-Jabu's belly for example, playing while I was younger all I ever heard was the noises like being inside of a stomach, but now I can actually hear the beat they put along with it. Great video!
Wait... what? Isn't the perfect 4th in the harmonic series? If you look at the graph at 5:22 you see that the interval between step 3 and 4 is a perfect 4th. I don't get what you're saying here, someone please elaborate...
The interval's there, but the fourth degree of the scale build from the fundamental of that series doesn't appear in the overtone series. So, if you build the overtone series starting at C, you'd get C, G, C, E, G, an out-of-tune Bb, etc, etc. There's a perfect fourth interval between the G and the C, but there's no F in that overtone series.
I recently started studying harmony out of interest+curiosity with a teacher i found online during lockdown, and your videos really fueled my passion. my teacher loves them, too!
I think a good comparison is Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". A lot of that song is just built on making the listener as uncomfortable as possible, with its jarring use of compound time to give the listener nothing to attach to and the extreme dissonance written in every part makes it just uncomfortable to listen to. I suggest listening to the Fantasia version to just get a snippet and save your self from listening to the full version, but it really should show you how scary music can be.
Sabbastian Wilson-Webb yeah some parts of it can be pretty nice and beautiful and easy to listen to, but especially when joined with the choreography it can be down right terrifying.
(Joseph Soto, The Rite of Spring is not a song, it's a piece. Songs are standalone works to be sung. Calling this a song will really bother any classical music-enthusiast) einsteinrox7800 That's not true. Twelve Tone music still had ten years to be invented at the time of The Rite, and Stravinsky wasn't involved in the free atonality preceding it. Stravinsky's serialist period actually didn't start until the 50's. The unpredictability of The Rite comes mostly from the polytonality, polyrhythm, dissonances, and the motifs with slight changes (especially in rhythm) every time they're repeated.
I adore embracing dark music; not ("lel") edgy black metal but pieces like those which others have mentioned, Stranvinsky's "Rite of Spring," as well as his "Firebird," particularly Danse Infernale. I'm currently learning Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain," a piece quite enjoyably of the dark and doom.
9:43 That was a weird editing choice. You show Twilight Princess and start talking about a musical piece that you think is more unsettling than all the other ones you've discussed, and then you start talking about the original Legend of Zelda. I thought (and was hoping) you were gonna talk about something from Twilight Princess. Why show that random Twilight Princess clip there when it has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about?
this is the type of content i wish i could sponsor. as a person that's played video games all his life and who is starting to learn music, discovering this is finding something i never knew i would love (even though what i can actually understand is very little!). sadly i'm not economically in the condition to be able to support the channel and i have no idea when i will be.
My dream is for an Indie Game I make with friends to have music that gets a video by this channel. I’ve been marathoning these videos for months to help me with getting ideas for my current/first real game.
oh wow. ooooohhh my god. you basically put how i feel about zelda music (specifically atmosphere) into words and explained how it works so well. this makes me so SO happy. now i can explain why the music of zelda is so memorable. it's things like this!! and this sort of thing is exactly what breath of the wild was missing to me. it didn't feel as much of a zelda game as i wanted to because such a key part to many zelda games is the music. that music was pretty and stuff, but it's not all that memorable (except the guardian music. that sets a good feeling for me, that feeling being fear and urgency combined). idk, i'm rambling lmao but either way!! this is awesome, probably definitely gonna take a gander at the rest of your stuff because it's FASCINATING
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You might say the minor changes to chords make A Major impact
Leave.
I sense some dissonance between you and I. I would say something about this, but I would rather plead the fifth as that is a much richer sound then this dissonance between us
Bankai2169 I can't even be mad.
"d minor changes"
Mikhail I C you’re Sharp with the music puns
One very interesting method of making something creepy is to take a familiar, comfortable concept or object and invert its characteristics to make a disturbing perversion of reality. I've heard it said that zombies are a horrifying idea because they do this to the concept of a human being, and the "dark world" mechanic that Nintendo's used so many times is compelling for the same reason; contrasts are interesting, and having familiarized us with one form of a world the designer can creep us out by presenting a disordered version of it.
You can do this with music, too, by the way, and in fact Koji Kondo has many times; for instance, the Clock Town theme from Majora's Mask is all the more disconcerting on the third day because it becomes a frantic, sped-up version of a tune you've learned to associate with the safe, easy gameplay found in the central hub. Suddenly the music is challenging your feeling of safety instead of reinforcing it. You mention a lot of tricks that Koji Kondo uses in this video, but this ironic use of familiar leitmotifs is probably my favorite.
I think it's important to remember that how video game music makes us feel isn't a question of composition alone. It has a lot to do with expectations that are set up by other aspects of game design and even other songs that the player has heard before. You have to be quite talented to consider everything that feeds into a player's reaction to your music, and Kondo's success in this regard is really remarkable.
This is what I was noticing as well. The first time I noticed something like this happening was probably during the first scene of Up.
one newer example is Doki Doki Literature club. You get so used to the happy background music that even the slightliest changes creep you out. The flute theme lands on a semitone higher or lower. One piano phrase is out of tune. It happens so rarely, and you think you misheard. You listen a while and nothing happens. When you play on, it happens again. Perfect musical foreshadowing before the game becomes really creepy.
dude. one genius to another, I have mad respect for this statement.
Cinnamon Noir I’m late by a year for commenting on this, but, you forgot to mention the fact that, yes… on the third day, the melody of Clocktown is sped up, but what also gives it this feeling of unease, is the slight subtle hint of ominous string playing in the back. You’ll have to listen very hard, but if you keep listening, you can hear it, it just sits there, in the back, playing all these ominous sounding chords. Letting you know, yeah… Some bad shit is going to happen if you don’t hurry your ass up and save the town.
Zombies, and Aliens, have been talked about by almost every type of tribe and culture on earth. The truth is out there. I WANT TO HABEEB
As a musician, playing zelda as a kid, its music left a huge, yet unconscious influence on my composing. Koji Kondo is a genius!
Niklas Gebert I feel like all music I write is inspired by these games and kojis aesthetics he creates
Majora's Mask left lasting scars on me just because the music was soooooo dark and ominous. Creepy stuff.
Neuro Transmissions that's why in my opinion it's better than oot
Everyone just learned about the word ominous? I suddenly see it everywhere.
MM will IMO always be one of the best Zelda games there is.
MM is dark af in general. I mean, what isn’t dark in that game? The transformation masks come from dead people, death and tragedy and loss are the major theme, the main bad guy turns out to be a lonely kid who is afraid of losing his friends, the hero is on a sad journey to find a friend that is gone forever. That game is one of the most emotionally mature and dark games ever.
the healing son heal it all.
At 3:05 my brother came into my room asking "Did you just hear the soundtrack for Zelda's Forest Temple?"
It's amazing how music like this, that doesn't really resemble your typical top 40 songs, classical pieces or film scores, still manages to be so memorable or at least recognisable that you immediately know its origin.
Steffen Thole dude it sends shivers down my spine, such an ominous and hypnotizing piece of sound.
I would know it anywhere for sure
i love it
I really like the Forest Temple song...
It's a sort of soothing and sleep inducing song for me
When i was a kid i was stuck in the forest temple for hours and hours. And couldnt get that song out of my head when i was trying to sleep. The music made me feel completely lost and confused cause the temple felt like a endless maze LOL 😂
Timofee When I played the game for the first time, 2 years ago.. I placed the 3 stones in the temple of time to pull out the master sword. I thought that was going to be the end of the game.
Instead, I was taken by surprise, that now I, that is, Link was 7 years older.
Then, I somehow managed to get to the Forest Temple, and the dungeon was so hard and unsettling compared to the first 3 dungeons, I felt like I was transported to another game.
That is the first time a game left me so confused and unsettled. I instantly fell in love with the game.
+Abhi Khose
Bit of a short game for Nintendo if it ended when Link pulled the sword lol
Timofee when I played breath of the wild, I never figured out the lost woods gimmick, and so I only got through it by wandering through it and following what I knew about game conventions and guessing about the path, and once running very fast when the screen went white. Made it through, but it took 15 minutes and I had to ask all of my friends to be silent, because I was that stressed. When I first wandered in, I was like “ooh, where am I now?” “Is it a winter place?” “I like the music, it’s puzzely!”
After I got to the center of the place, I was so stressed out, at one point I went to try and explore the rest of the island, because I didn’t know it was ALL like that, and the moment there was a bit of blue fog I started freaking out and heading back. Couldn’t deal with the typho ruins exclusively because of the now horrifying music, even though I actually liked that because it wouldn’t send me back, and haven’t touched a labyrinth for the same reason. That music is so. Horrifying.
The oddest thing about this piece is that I find comfort in it. So of course once I'm done listening to a bunch of pieces I'm going to throw it on.
Ha bad
is it me or that forest temple harmony is so cool...
It really is... it's rare to hear a piece of music so unsettling without it resorting to dissonant intervals or some kind of atonal-feeling melody. The forest temple theme sounds soothing until you've been running around the dungeon for an hour and get grabbed by that fucking wallmaster for the third time and feel the music filling up your head like damp fog.
When i was a kid i was stuck in the forest temple for hours and hours. And couldnt get that song out of my head when i was trying to sleep. The music made me feel completely lost and confused cause the temple felt like a endless maze LOL 😂
it's an insanely cool modal jazz-derived chord pattern which doesn't sound major, minor, dissonant, soothing, or anything really. It's just there... Endlessly confusing you and filling your thoughts.
Honestly the theme for the forest temple is one of the best creepy themes in any game ever. It's strangely soothing yet really eerie and unnerving at the same time. It's also great for forest temple especially since it's the first temple you enter as an adult link. Just the music alone is telling you that you're an adult now, and this is where shit gets real. In my opinion anyway.
gorons are good you're boring mate, not the music
I was really hoping that you'd talk about the clock town theme from MM. It utilizes SOO many little tricks to make it sound as uncomfortable as possible. Like how as time progresses to the final day, the happy and cheerful melody becomes detuned slightly, and lingering softly in the background are strings doing some atonal out-of-key stuff. PERFECT example of the uncanny valley concept being used in music, imo.
Really LOVE the analysis of the temple themes from OOT 😁
i agree, given that the thumbnail and the start of the video feature majora's mask, i was hoping for some more analysis of tracks from that game. great video overall though! just wish one of my favorite zelda games got a bit more than a passing mention. :P
Yes..
I think another thing that makes Clock Town so delightfully creepy is, ironically, that it's so bright and cheerful. Musically, there are no tense rhythms, no ominous harmonies, no issues with the instrumentation. That song should not be nearly as dark and creepy as it is...
But use such an easygoing song in such a dire context...the freaking moon is about to level Termina and that song is just "oh what a beautiful day, everything is gonna be all right..." That disparity is what really sets the game in a league of its own.
Koji Kondo was an absolute genius for applying that concept and getting it to actually make sense in practice. There is a fine line between Clock Town's "something isn't quite right here" quality and "why is this track so out of place?" Thankfully Kondo seems to have understood that and applied it perfectly.
I hope to see more of this side of Kondo's expertise sometime soon...
One thing I notice about Clock Town's theme on the 3rd day is employing the use of bass notes that are dissonant against the original, familiar melody, and it does have that chromatic resolve at the end of the phrase thus making it seem like everything is just another ordinary day on the surface (the melody) but you know there's obviously something ominous underlying it (the bass). That's really artistic of Kondo to do this.
Bryan Losey I tried to avoid the third day for that exact reason. Music sped up and bass notes you mentioned = feeling of restlessness + doom
Couldn't agree more. The constant quakes too just added to my anxiety.
All the Mayora Mask game is so dissonant and familiar and disonat againd. All had the feel of playing a Zelda game and a different game at the same time. The music is half nice music scales and half dissonant disturbing and then that Majora Mask moving around like a clock is a detail not normal to see from a normal use of a mask.
This video was so spooky that I had to watch the "Why is Mario Music Fun" video three times in a row to prevent myself from having nightmares.
Gosh you're sensitive.
That's a good thing
@@Slechy_Lesh so? It's better to be immersed in the music than to just listen to music. I mean, just listen to song of storms with headphones. Trust me, youll feel like the room is spinning.
and you sir are still everywhere I go
@Anthony Ouellet you’re kind of a bitch
Koji Kondo's music is freaking hard to play. I think this explanation is great in showing how it doesn't follow any discernible pattern much of the time and uses irregular chords and crazy rhythm. If you look at Final Fantasy music, it's very simple. It follows a basic pattern with little variance. I played FF music a lot, thinking I was sooooo good then I took a gander at Koji Kondo music and I was like ಠ_ಠ
My grandpa is a pianist and componist, so I gave him the Zelda and Mario piano sheets for his 80th birthday, he got really confused and yet intriged..!
Essence Wolf trie sorry but final fantasy is a god
@@TeruteruBozusama sorry but he's 80 bro
@@vegah4432 so? My grandmother may be stagnant, but he isn't. He's perhaps even a little too good at moving on and trying new things honestly...
@@TeruteruBozusama no he is just always confused :D
And this is why I need to learn music theory.
Not. A composer composes music out of his heart and emotions, I'm sure he simply did that without thinking about what and where.
@@Uchuuaoi No. Music theory is a map that shows you all the possibilities that you can do to your music to get a desired effect. Konji Kondo, being a serious composer, knew exactly what he was doing. The main role of music theory is to explain to you how music works and to expand your musical vocabulary.
@@Uchuuaoi I don't mean to be rude because I know your comment was written very innocently, but as a music major, it hurt to read this.
I always found it interesting they call it music "theory" when its all proven.
@@Uchuuaoi No, not at all. Creating memorable scores and music requires a lot of background knowledge. You can't just slap some notes down and call it a day just because it "feels right."
Koji Kondo is a genius. That guy is incredibly talented, he deserves as much appreciation as he can get.
8:36
Kondo is an ominous genius pulling this off with the SNES.
The free tempo and accelerando?
dude i fucking LOVE your videos
did you write this comment bro write something else
Majora's Mask is an early Zelda game? You, sir, just made me feel old.
Probably cause you are old.
It is though.
It's basically 20 years old.
People always say the forest temple creeps them out...but I’ve always loved its atmosphere :3 the music is all mysterious, almost soothing. Then the temple itself has this cool aesthetic with the walls being made out of the surrounding trees and the idea of lighting torches using the bow was really cool too. It was almost like you weren’t ever really “entering” any actual building, just forging further into the forest.
Would like to hear more about Majora’s soundtrack!
Seconded!
Triforced!
The majority of the original music in MM is creepy, so why was it only briefly mentioned in this video?
Same! Was really hoping to hear how the Clocktown Final Day manages to sound so creepy.
By far the creepiest Zelda soundtrack. I can't believe he never even mentioned Song of Healing!
The Forest Temple theme from OoT still freaks me out
A few people say its creepy but I really liked it when I played the game at the age of 6.
@@Bobby_Peters I find the forest temple theme calming but it might just be nostalgia
I actually love Forest temple !
This is such a great episode!
Kondo’s creepiest music piece for me was the bottom of the well theme from OoT. even just listening to it puts me off
I don't find the Bottom of the Well music to be especially creepy, but the Redeads' moans still give me chills
For me, it's the Boo Moon theme from Galaxy 2. th-cam.com/video/i9DiIeYxAJk/w-d-xo.html
The original Luigi's Mansion theme is a close second.
Yeah, okay, I really do know nothing about music. xD
Lugmillord I don’t either but these videos are so well put together and interesting that I can’t help but help but watch them
No actually all these pussies in here scared of this 🎶 music!!??? No wonder it's dead...
+Son Kyler Gamez
Go rub your ego somewhere else
Music is abstract. You don't have to follow a certain theories or such understand it. :)
@@malik87breaker If you're only listening, sure. Actually making the music is a lot more complicated.
Hey 8-bit Music Theory, love your work! I'm sure this is just a coincidence but a way to say four in Japanese, 'shi' (四), is also the pronunciation for death, 'shi' (死). I wonder if this maybe pushed Koji Kondo's decision to harmonize everything in Perfect Fourths too (hiding foreboding 'death' in the harmony to make it sound unsettling or, creepy)?
This is the same in A LOT of Asian cultures. Thai. Chinese, Korean, Japanese all use the same sound for DEATH and FOUR.
I think if you did an episode with Adam Neely, that'd probably the best greatest TH-cam collab of all time. Great video as always!
DJChupa13 I second this
That would be really good - I hope this happens!
omg please
A collab with Sideways would be cool too.
Into it
Man, I wish I'd know what u are talking about.
learn that shit boie
@@_frection_419 thank you :)
The original Death Mountain theme also made a return for the Death Mountain in BotW, which was quite cool.
Filipe while it’s not as creepy sounding, it’s still a cool callback.
Man, I was really hoping you'd analyze Ghirahim's theme in this one. It was nice getting insight to the trove of tools that Kondo likes to use, though. Great stuff as always!
Any chance of a dedicated Majora's Mask video? IMO Clock Town has some of the best music in any video game because of how frantic, dark and actually sad it sounds, and how well it complements the sense of dread that the game causes. Also, the way the C section of Clock Town 1 resolves back into D major like "well, it's a IV chord but let's stick an A there to resolve properly" is so pretty and half-assed
Fuck yes the hannibal clips. Such a great show
Hey 8Bit, I cannot speak music lol. I don't know the terms or anything and at the moment, it's not something I'm going to invest time into (but I one day hope to learn to read music just for the sake of understanding notation and whatnot)
But what I wanted to say was that I enjoyed this and all your videos tremendously.
At the end of this video, you broke up the Death Mountain theme into three parts: the initial melody, the same melody but lower, and then the backing (?I'm not sure if I used the correct terminology). That was tremendously beneficial for me to really hear those separate sounds in conjunction with what you were saying. I can generally understand the gist of your messages, but hearing that song split up REALLY helped me understand your comments about it and hear what you were getting at.
I know that probably adds more work to your videos and is not realistically viable for every song, but I'm just expressing my thoughts about how absolutely useful that was for someone like me in enjoying your video! ^u^
I think they've got to be even more interesting when you don't know shit about music theory, because I'm learning all these rules I was never aware of. I grew up just picking out harmonies on my own, and "perfect 4ths" sound like totally valid harmonies to me. I don't know what "not found in nature" means in this case, but if I had to put a name to them they'd just be "saturated cherrywood colored harmonies"
Basically every single note you hear (for instance C on a piano) has a series of other notes sounding with it (called overtones) that naturally sound very quietly above the original note. This series of notes is called the harmonic series, or overtone series - and the 4th interval isn't present anywhere in that series! So, the interval is "unnatural" in that sense. 4ths were actually very popular in folk music of various cultures and even medieval music. They became "bad" in the baroque era due to the style, and that notion has stuck around to the modern day (but often lacks the proper explanation as to why 4ths were ever "bad" in the first place.)
Just remember that music theory isn't a set of "rules". It's more like the pirate code - guidelines that don't strictly have to be followed - or even more accurately, a method of explaining the music that has already been created throughout history. All of the greatest composers broke convention when it was fitting.
oh come on this is bollocks. you're telling me every note is a bunch of notes? I don't believe it.
this is just like when I found out there's no purple light wavelengths and that most colors I see are a mixture of wavelengths. It may well be true, but that doesn't make it not bullshit.
It's true. The relative volume of each overtone is why a violin sounds different from a piano.
uhh no. the things that make things sound different from other things are the fact that they are other things.
The creepiest music is no music at all.
scary but it's true
Or one chord every 20 seconds which fades immediately. Makes it feel like there's life, but not enough.
Or the silent hill style where the music is like scratching and shit... that stuff is so unsettling
real shit
@@csconnor5160 I think the parts in SH2 without music are much worse. The game just makes you think something will suddenly happen, but there are only like 1 or 2 "jump scares" in the whole game.
God, I love the Forest Temple's music so much. So glad that was the first song you brought up, because it's also pretty much the first time I'd ever come into contact with Koji Kondo doing that kind of thing, and it left a huge impression on me as a kid. To this day, it's still my favorite dungeon in a video game.
this video is amazing
"without diving straight into"
I love how you said that right as link is jumping into an abyss at 7:44
5:25 There is a perfect fourth between the "G" and the "C" on the third and fourth partial.
Louis XIV (aka 1685Violin) The point is that there is no perfect fourth above the fundamental. But with that logic sixths should also be dissonant bc there is no sixths (at least reasonably in tune) over the fundamental either.
Louis XIV (aka 1685Violin) this is what I came to say. Hard to say that there isn't a perfect fourth of the harmonic series when it's the third interval in the entire series.
It's because diatonic perfect fourths from the fundamental (present in every mode but Lydian) are really 5^2*6^3/(4^2*5^3) and not 4/3. The perfect fourth between the fifth degree and the tonic is 4/3. Two types of perfect fourths there are, but one ain't so perfect.
Joe Yacketori It doesn't matter since every interval in equal temperament is altered (even the fifth is altered by 2 cents)
When speaking about theoretical intervals, I'm completely disregarding equal temperament. Equal temperament isn't a theoretical framework, it's a quick and easy shortcut that allows us to play music without constantly re-tuning instruments, so I'm not here to talk about ET intervals.
In Zarlino's just intonation, which is, theoretically "correct" (yet impractical) tuning, diatonic "perfect" fourths from the tonic are 4.05/3 (not an approximation) while the inverse of a perfect fifth is 4/3. Although there is no audible difference, perfect fifth inverse and "perfect" fourth from the tonic are only incidentally similar. The former is consonant in practice while the latter is dissonant in practice, assuming we are only in one tonality. But yeah, they sound exactly the same in isolation.
In composition, if you use a subdominant chord, the root should be 4.05/3, since the root of the subdominant chord is the 6th degree of an extended 13th chord. If you are using a tonic chord, first inversion, the distance between the low note and the middle note should be 4/3, since the low note is a perfect fifth an octave lower, not a diatonic "perfect" fourth.
And, again, this is all assuming you're using Zarlino tuning, which of course, no one actually is in practice. Yeah, if we are talking about equal temperament, none of what I said means jack squat!
YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!! ThIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR!!!!!!
I can't wait until Chuck Berry's album of ambient creepy music.
Mister Apple I'll try not to disappoint :)
It’s only right that the ghost of chuck berry creates something ominous and unsettling for his next album
One slight correction. The Perfect Fourth does appear in the Harmonic series, it's just that it's on the 21st degree which most diagrams don't go up to. It's the last note in our 12 tone theory to make an appearance.
Besides that, excellent video! Love exploring the idea of consistency, consonance and inconsistency, dissonance in music with the intent of provoking a particular feeling!
"Rhythm and dancing are an innate part of being a human"
(or Goron)
:D
Forest Temple is the catchiest melody Koji ever made.
EH REH
EH REH
EH REH
Mweeepp
Just wanted to drop a big thank you from a comp major at university who's life dream is to write music for Nintendo. There are very little resources out there to study and you channel has been a huge help.
Your transcriptions are FANTASTIC. What you're able to explain, highlight, and dig into with them is even cooler.
Could you do an episode on how the jumpy rhythms in Marx's theme make it more exciting and scary? I really love that song, but I haven't been able to capture the mood of it in my own stuff.
Karl Marx has a theme song?!
Jordi Faxon Assuming that's not a joke, he's talking about Marx from Kirby Superstar
th-cam.com/video/t8EMx7Y16Vo/w-d-xo.html
oh man Super Mario Sunshine has the best soundtrack. Well of any Mario game. In my opinion. Castlevania's got some good tunes too especially Sotn. dance of pales man....dance of pales.
Super Mario Galaxy has the best soundtrack in my opinion
Super Bomberman 2 is the greatest soundtrack of all time.
Sonic R has the best soundtrack of all time
Dalton Growley Super Mario Galaxy’s soundtrack is nothing short of brilliant. Sunshine is great as well but Galaxy is a whole other level.
Have you play mario galaxy for the wii? I'm just curious.
I just discovered this channel. Feels like I found something I've been looking for for a long time!
I Love your videos, how you break down the effect of music so precisely. make me appreciate music even more
I always love it when you talked about composers' works. Maybe can you talk about Tim Follin's music next please?
Watching this wondering what it all means
Another amazing video. Breaking down the sense that each note gives, was one of the most valuable insights I've come across in composing.
It feels very rewarding to watch this again a few months (and music lessons) later and understand what he's talking about much better
so basically he uses music that
a) not repetitive and out of normal time signatures
b) utilized minor 4 and 6
this is my favorite composer
Thank you for another great video! In addition to what you mentioned I'd like to contribute to this topic which I LOVE, which is linked to the essence of Japanese music. Taking some things you mentioned, specifically the perfect 4th: as you explained we tend to label this interval as "not-so-consonant", rather in "suspension" that creates tonal ambiguity if used in harmony, such as suspended chords where the third is omitted (sus4 or sus2).
I'd say that Koji Kondo's use of the perfect 4th touches another endemic point, which is the Japanese folklore. The traditional music of Japan used to employ the perfect 4th and 5th intervals, both melodically and harmonically in a much higher quantity in contrast to the occidental use of the 3rd and 6th. For us (occidentals) this harmonies are somewhat exotic and fascinating, and precisely occidental composers of the late XIX century (such as Debussy) took this exotic musical ideas and blended them with their own, resulting in one of the characteristic sounds of french impressionism that broke with the traditional rules of occidental music, such as the use of parallel 4ths and 5ths, wholetone scales, clusters of major 2nds (mentioned in the video), etc.
This folk roots have been preserved with great respect in Japan, and they have been the foundation for many composers such as Koji Kondo itself, who perhaps instinctively took them and spiced them up (such as Debussy in his time), adapting them into the video game format in a more subtle way (instead of just using an obvious pentatonic scale, which will make us think of Japan immediately). This only in the frame of Kondo's Japanese influence in Zelda, because we know that he's a big fan of many other styles such as Latin and north american music, which can be seen in his rhythmic patterns and harmonic progressions in other games more prominently (i.e. Mario).
Trying to make a crossover, other notable examples of Japanese folk influencing composers can be seen on Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger & Chrono Cross) such as you mentioned in your "Nonfunctional Harmony" video. The use of consecutive 4ths (not necessarily perfect such as C-F-Bb, but also with #4 such as F-B-E) in melody and harmony, doing parallel motion of the same voicings (Root-9-b3-b7) a broader harmonic freedom (not necessarily atonal) and transposition of chords and melodies. One clear example is "Boss Battle 1" from Chrono Trigger (and with a view from the West to the East, has a similar vibe to 1971's Tarkus from ELP).
Jumping to anime, another great composer of which I'm a big fan (and a Koji Kondo contemporary in its works) is Joe Hisaishi. In Hayao Miyazaki's films one can hear (and see) the fusion he has made with Japanese folk and american jazz, applied to an orchestral format achieving a lush, rich and exotic (for us maybe?) sound that really makes your ear to pay attention and say "Wait, what chord was that?", for example on "One Summer's Day" from Spirited Away, or "Legend of Ashitaka" from Princess Mononoke; just within the first few bars one can hear this distinctive Eastern essence.
With the application of the already mentioned techniques such as chord progressions transposed to other keys, parallel 4ths and 5ths, motion of voicings, and the overall usage of the perfect 4th to create this "suspended and soaring" kind of harmonic atmospheres, we can see at times that his has been the evolution of Japanese traditional music: still being used for our entertainment, but being adapted into today's mediums; from theaters and scenarios, to our TV's through movies and video games :)
I really appreciate this video. The music theory analysis helps me understand these cherished themes from my childhood on a deeper level. I also appreciate the sheet music examples you have provided. This allowed me to follow along on the piano and demystify these Legend of Zelda themes. Bravo!
This is about to be my favorite channel REAL quick after only watching 2 videos.
Sunshine's soundtrack could bring about world peace, I'm absolutely sure of it. You just can't be grumpy listening to that - you would feel ridiculous.
Death Mountain was always my favorite track from TLoZ. You just know you're at the end of the game when you hear it. It really builds you up for that epic final battle with Gannon.
But a game that did it even better was Dragon Quest 1. The music gets lower and slower as you go deeper and deeper into Charlock Castle. And then there's the two phase fight with the Dragonlord, in the first phase it's the normal battle music, contrasting with the second phase music, that really makes you feel like you are facing the ultimate evil.
Maybe you should make a video on music from the Dragon Quest series?
This is hands down my favorite channel ever on youtube. The Southern Swamp theme (Ikana Valley and so on..) might be a cool theme for your analyses, i think it uses some resources from the augmented scale!
Your channel is my new favorite thing on TH-cam! I studied music in primary school through college, but traded in my musician hat for politics.
This is definitely helping to scratch my musical theory itch! Thank you!!
Great video
The Spirit Temple theme from OoT is actually my favourite thing Koji Kondo has ever done.
It does have that dark and errie sound especially the use of all the really omomius like bongos but also those weird synths that feel like the spirits attempting but failing to communicate
this is so fucken dope. I remember some of the stuff in elementary music class but most of the technical language that you used just flies over my head but the way you edited the video along with the song and the music sheets shows it to me in simpler ways.
holy crap what an awesome channel. keep up the great work!
Honestly you are so smart when it comes to music! You have a new genre for the TH-cam platform and it's amazing in every way! I hope you keep doing what you do
zelda dungeons were definitely a good choice for the topic, but you'll have to do another one about the various creepy themes from the mario series too! castle/ghost themes, and the airship from SMB3! :)
The Mario one was literally the second video he ever did.
"Songwriting Secrets: Spooky Mario Music": th-cam.com/video/7lCDc84yTeM/w-d-xo.html
He should do a video on the metroid games
AKA: how to write better death/black metal songs...
Yir boi :P Also Doom.
Perfect 4ths is the secret recipe 👌
MUSIC THEORY IST KRIEG
This actually gave me some trve kvlt ideas lol
Rickster Z Definitely, these tips are way more effective than slamming the listener with dissonance and blast beats recorded through a potato.
I am so thrilled that you did this video! I’ve always wanted to analyze these pieces.
Wow, just discovered this channel. Awesome stuff!!
Quality stuff man 💪
wassup zeltik? :)
*(or Goron)*
Another great video! Love your content! It's always great to hear from another musician!
Man I really love your videos, keep up the fantasic work!
Oh my god. PLEASE do a video on Masashi Hamauzu.
You should really analyze some touhou music...
Just stumbled upon you right now. You've definitely earned yourself a sub my friend. What amazing content.
You got a new sub man, I'll check all your videos later, gotta work in a few hours, music makes everything better, you explaining it, just makes it better, hope to see your work, keep it up.
Do you sound out the compositions yourself or do you get the transcriptions from a particular website? Also, is that Finale? Thanks : )
bobomber I think he uses Sibelius, Sibelius has a green line during playback.
He transcribes them himself. He even has a couple videos of him transcribing.
From what I gather he transcribes most or all of it by himself, BUT if you wan't to get some sheet music, check out www.ninsheetmusic.org There's a looooot of it!
Does the forest temple, inside jabu-jabu's belly, spirit temple and water temple music sound almost calming to anyone else?
yes, water temple and forest temple especially are oddly soothing to me. the city in the sky dungeon theme from twilight princess has a similar eerie-yet-weirdly-soothing feeling
Water temple theme fits the word relaxing best out of those imo. I like to think of its music as zen.
Yes I could listen to the Forest Temple theme like forever
I love the Forest Temple theme so much... It just goes to show how relaxing music can be without needing to be happy.
The Forest Temple's chords are an insanely clever progression which manages to not sound happy, sad, dissonant or melodic at all. It's just there... Filling your thoughts like fog. It's kinda pretty in an unsettling way.
This content is just what I needed. I subscribe !
oh this should _definitely_ come in handy for some parts of my score in progress. lovely work, as always!!
At 5:20, Why do you say that the perfect 4th doesn't appear anywhere in the harmonic serie ? There is one between the 3th and 4th harmonics, no ? Am I wrong?
Gabriel Rouet My thoughts exactly.
I think he means there isn't a 4th relative to the fundamental, i.e., there's no F in the harmonic series based on C.
I need to know what that cg movie is on the left at 1:27. Anybody?
Its a game idk what game though
It's the ending scene from Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Love your videos dude. Solid Insights.
SORRY I'M LATE! I'm excited to binge watch your videos as I go about my day. Music theory fascinates me and your narration is very well paced and spoken. 👍🏼
Nice job on this! FYI: "Kondo" is pronounced "Cone-doe", not "con-doe". an "o" in a Japanese name actually is always pronounced that way ("oh" instead of "ahh").
Speaking of creepy music think you can do the main Shin Megami Tensei series?
StarForceKid194 The casual switches between industrial and house in that series is amazing.
Praise Nocturne
Dudue what an awesome content. Thanks for taking the time to share this knowledge.
It's actually really interesting to me watching this. I've never really payed too much attention to dungeon music in Zelda games, but at the moment I'm replaying OOT for like my millionth time and now I can't help but hear all of the small details in the dungeon music that you pointed out. Like Jabu-Jabu's belly for example, playing while I was younger all I ever heard was the noises like being inside of a stomach, but now I can actually hear the beat they put along with it. Great video!
Thumbnail game on fleek
Wait... what? Isn't the perfect 4th in the harmonic series? If you look at the graph at 5:22 you see that the interval between step 3 and 4 is a perfect 4th. I don't get what you're saying here, someone please elaborate...
The interval's there, but the fourth degree of the scale build from the fundamental of that series doesn't appear in the overtone series. So, if you build the overtone series starting at C, you'd get C, G, C, E, G, an out-of-tune Bb, etc, etc. There's a perfect fourth interval between the G and the C, but there's no F in that overtone series.
saboo that's a perfect fifth to the fundamental pitch
the F is the 21st partial, just one more higher than shown
brassmaster it's not equal tempered
Gabriel Souza Equal tempered fourth isn't a perfect fourth
First time viewer and now a subscriber! Love the concept of the channel and I love the deep analysis. Thank you!
I recently started studying harmony out of interest+curiosity with a teacher i found online during lockdown, and your videos really fueled my passion. my teacher loves them, too!
I think a good comparison is Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". A lot of that song is just built on making the listener as uncomfortable as possible, with its jarring use of compound time to give the listener nothing to attach to and the extreme dissonance written in every part makes it just uncomfortable to listen to. I suggest listening to the Fantasia version to just get a snippet and save your self from listening to the full version, but it really should show you how scary music can be.
Joseph Soto incidentally, Stravinsky was very interested in twelve tone music, mentioned in the video.
Nice. The Rite of Spring is one of my favorite classical pieces. Such a blend of exquisite beauty and dissonance.
Sabbastian Wilson-Webb yeah some parts of it can be pretty nice and beautiful and easy to listen to, but especially when joined with the choreography it can be down right terrifying.
(Joseph Soto, The Rite of Spring is not a song, it's a piece. Songs are standalone works to be sung. Calling this a song will really bother any classical music-enthusiast)
einsteinrox7800
That's not true. Twelve Tone music still had ten years to be invented at the time of The Rite, and Stravinsky wasn't involved in the free atonality preceding it. Stravinsky's serialist period actually didn't start until the 50's.
The unpredictability of The Rite comes mostly from the polytonality, polyrhythm, dissonances, and the motifs with slight changes (especially in rhythm) every time they're repeated.
I adore embracing dark music; not ("lel") edgy black metal but pieces like those which others have mentioned, Stranvinsky's "Rite of Spring," as well as his "Firebird," particularly Danse Infernale. I'm currently learning Mussorgsky's "Night On Bald Mountain," a piece quite enjoyably of the dark and doom.
9:43 That was a weird editing choice. You show Twilight Princess and start talking about a musical piece that you think is more unsettling than all the other ones you've discussed, and then you start talking about the original Legend of Zelda. I thought (and was hoping) you were gonna talk about something from Twilight Princess. Why show that random Twilight Princess clip there when it has absolutely nothing to do with what you're talking about?
this is one of my fav videos of yours.
Just wanted to say you're doing a great job and to keep it up!
this is the type of content i wish i could sponsor. as a person that's played video games all his life and who is starting to learn music, discovering this is finding something i never knew i would love (even though what i can actually understand is very little!). sadly i'm not economically in the condition to be able to support the channel and i have no idea when i will be.
This might be my favorite video of yours so far. Well done.
(that might be because it was the most accessible to my layman's music theory knowledge)
Man, you know so much about music theory. Wish I knew a lot of these things like you.
My dream is for an Indie Game I make with friends to have music that gets a video by this channel.
I’ve been marathoning these videos for months to help me with getting ideas for my current/first real game.
Seriously awesome commentary, never heard something so sophisticated analyzing music like this.
oh wow. ooooohhh my god. you basically put how i feel about zelda music (specifically atmosphere) into words and explained how it works so well. this makes me so SO happy. now i can explain why the music of zelda is so memorable. it's things like this!! and this sort of thing is exactly what breath of the wild was missing to me. it didn't feel as much of a zelda game as i wanted to because such a key part to many zelda games is the music. that music was pretty and stuff, but it's not all that memorable (except the guardian music. that sets a good feeling for me, that feeling being fear and urgency combined). idk, i'm rambling lmao but either way!! this is awesome, probably definitely gonna take a gander at the rest of your stuff because it's FASCINATING
You did an incredible job with this video - I learned a lot!
I love your videos!!! My brain is going to explode with so much information, but keep it like that, I love it!!!! And is soooo interesting