Theory Analysis: As previously mentioned in the video description, Flamelurker from the Demon's Souls Remake is an incredible piece of music. When the OST first released, I think many were unimpressed with most of it because of it's tendency to lean towards modern orchestration methods; massive choirs, wall-of-sound archetype, and strings and big brass sections aplenty. However, reception has changed and I think the OST is probably viewed as an absolute banger lol. While transcribing and arranging the piece, I was actually surprised by how much of the music followed Classical traditions of harmony on a fundamental level. A lot of this piece is actually filled with a bunch of tonic-predominant-dominant harmony, like a very simple i - iv - V. There are clear deviations from this throughout the piece, but that's what it is mostly comprised of, and of course in Souls-like fashion... it's filled with a bunch of extensions haha. 0:01 The piece begins in the key of D minor, and opens with a very soft D that eventually expands into a cluster chord comprising the notes A Bb C# D and Eb. At 0:09, a low rumbling D sustains for the rest of the intro; creating a ton of tension that will lead into the first main phrase. In my arrangement, rather than just using tremolos on octaves on the lowest D available on the piano, I've opted to have it span several octaves in a technique similar to what Chopin did in his 'Revolutionary' etude. This technique is pretty difficult to pull off, but allows the piece to have the same amount of tension as the original (mostly due to the chromatic enclosure in-between the octaves) without the monotony of simple tremolo octaves... not that there is anything bad with those haha. 0:15 After a little run that covers the same notes from the cluster chord in the intro, we finally get the appearance of the main melody from the original piece. The orchestration is absolutely wild here; it's a massive wall-of-sound. The piano lends itself very well to this style, though because of how big the modern piano is and how aggressive a forte fortissimo can be because of the size of the bass strings on the instrument. From 0:15 to 0:22, the harmony is as follows: Dm9 - Bb/D - Bb#11/D. On a side note, what's really cool about this piece is that consistently throughout the piece-or at least the first half of the piece-the third of the tonic chords are omitted, which creates a bit of ambiguity. 0:22 The first two bars of the phrase are then repeated (Dm9 for two bars again), but then something interesting happens... and I want to try to make a compelling argument to my assessment of the next two bars. 0:25 - 0:28 Here's my take on what happens: the next chord, if attempting to analyze in the key of D minor, is G# 6 (G# B# D# E#). It's important to note that on the first bar of these two bars, there is an accented lower chromatic neighbor tone. When we take a look at this chord, it's clear that it's a dominant preparation, but not one that we'd expect. Usually, we'd expect a dominant preparation built on G# to come in the form of a V7/V (E G# B D) or a viio7/V (G# B D F), but that's not what happens here. The D# and B# both pose a bit of a problem in analyzing it either of these. So here's what I believe is going on here: this is obviously still a dominant preparation because what follows this chord is the V, and the G# (which will be slightly challenged in a bit) proves this because it basically acts as a leading tone. But rather than going for a simple V7/V or viio7/V, what Bill has done is created a bit of modal mixture and tapped into D Locrian to build this chord. If we analyze this in D Locrian, the Ab, which would be G# checks out; the C, which would be B# checks out; the Eb, which would be D# checks out; and the F, which would be E#... also checks out. To go even a bit further, the G (which I analyzed as a accented lower neighbor tone and still do, tbh) even makes sense when looking at it this way. So rather than calling it G# 6, it becomes Ab6, and also still works well because of the half-step relationship between the Ab and A natural. TLDR; I believe it's modal mixture lol. 0:28 From here up until 0:41 is all basically a dominant pedal point. These eight bars can be summed up to be Aaddb2. I hesitate to analyze is as A7b9 because the b7 doesn't really make a solid appearance in this section. It's there, but very fleeting due to the fact that it's only really in the string runs, and on the last half bar it becomes Aaddb2/C#. 0:41 The original melody makes a return here, or at least a portion of it. Analyzing the next few section four bars a time, this section is as follows: Dm9 - Dm9 - Bb/D - Bb/D. As a side note, on the second half of the last bar, the bass moves from D to C#, and I believe this is just a non-chord tone. This also happens on the next four bars. 0:47 is a repeat of the previous four bars, but with a variation on the melody found in the last two bars of this phrase. This variation also completes one of the tunes found in the original piece, and thus far, we've had very little harmonic movement. Going from what is essentially Dm to BbM, especially over a tonic pedal, is a movement of a third. This is considered weak and mostly serves as a way to embellish the tonic. Our next phrase will change this, though. 0:53 to 1:00 is nothing but Gm13. Melodically, I don't think that these four bars even reference anything from the original. It may be a sort of call back to it, but not actually pulled directly from the original. These four bars also serve as a PD (predominant) to what will come next. 1:00 to 1:06 is all a dominant pedal, but switches between a cadential 6/4 and V (i6/4 [also notated as V6/4 or C6/4] - V - i6/4 - V). Up until this point, from 0:41 to 1:06 is virtually a big i - PD - V progression. The i being the Dm9 and Bb/D, the PD being the Gm13 or iv, and the V obviously being the last four bars that I just mentioned. I also took a bit of creative liberty here (1:04) by introducing some lower chromatic neighbor tones (G# and D#) to embellish the arpeggio in the left-hand. 1:06 These next eight bars are a departure from what came before. The next bars are all on D, and is filled to the brim with clusters. I also took a bit more creative liberty and put in a bunch of arpeggios spanning a few octaves. This technique can be found in a bunch of Classical music repertoire (sorry guys... I don't know much solo jazz piano stuff lol), like Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, etc. 1:18 is sort of a continuation of the harmony from the previous eight bars. This section makes fantastic use of the b2 and #4 along with the leading tone to create a rather unsettling and menacing melody. The pounding bass continues as previously written into this new section, which adds even more to the menacing vibe. 1:31 is a repeat of 1:18, but the harmony has been expanded to include a bunch of tight dissonances to create EVEN MORE tension. These eight bars end on a dissonance (1:41) built on the b2 (still the tonic in the bass, though lol), and leads into a phrase modulation to the key of F minor.
1:44 at this point, we've departed from the key of D minor and now are in the key of F minor. From 1:44 to 2:09 has an interesting structure. It again consists of the same i - PD - V progression (Fm - Fm9 - Db/F - Edim7/F), and those first four bars are then repeated three times to create this big 16-bar phrase. There is a bit of a change at 2:00 where the Db/F is substituted for Bbm7/F, and this change persists at the same point (2:06) in the next four bars. Another thing worth noting is that the pounding, rhythmic bass again continues throughout this section, but does away with the chromatic enclosure around the tonic, and strictly sticks to a tonic pedal. 2:09 is interesting. It's basically a phrase modulation to the key of the iv, but this section in itself also serves as a modulation back to the initial key (D minor) by going through a little bit of chromatic mediants (Bbm to Dm) to do so. This modulation works because in the key of D minor, Bbm would be the vi, which happens to have tones in common with the tonic (F), but also has two tones in common with the dominant b9 (Bb Db/C#). So all that really needs to be done is to resolve the F to E, and coincidentally, the vi does end up resolving the V at 2:20. Also, to avoid just banging out big chords at this point, I've used some arpeggios to make it a bit more interesting, and also have the right-hand play the same chord a little more than an octave higher. Just a bit more creative liberty lol. 2:22 We're approaching what is essentially a recapitulation of 0:41. However, before we get there, we have a bit of a buildup, and Bill makes this section very interesting. Here we have the strings going nuts, and the orchestration begins to thin out. The harmony of the first four bars of this phrase is Gm - F# m/G - Gm - A/G. This is pretty typical stuff, but the F# m is a bit of an outlier (I did omit the F# btw). What I think is going on here is Bill tapping into D Ionian to get that iii chord, which is more color than using DM. But continuing on, as mentioned in my previous piano arrangement, Flooded Commercial Sector, Bill employs a bit of a "chord retrogression" here, too. From the AM chord in the bar proceeding this section (2:20), he resolves it to Gm, and then walks up the D minor scale starting from G on the next four bars. 2:28 Not only do we get another tune from the original piece here, which is a completely different one than what we've heard thus far, but get the aforementioned walk up the scale. These next eight bars (harmony in bars of two) can be summed up to be Gm - A7b9 - Gm/Bb - Ab9/C#; this whole section is just preparing us for the dominant pedal. 2:41 The previous eight bars are repeated, but now with a countermelody. Also, instead of the Gm/Bb resolving to the V, we get a REALLY nice G# dim7/B, which is our viio7/V, and that leads us perfectly into the dominant pedal. 2:53 The dominant pedal here is short, but very nice. It also, interestingly enough, is basically a call back to the dominant pedal from earlier in the piece that features the cadential 6/4 chord. The harmony here is as follows: Dm9/A - A - Dm9b13/A - A. Simple, but effective. 3:00 until 3:50 is quite literally several repeats of 0:41 - 1:06. However, there is a bit of variations made to the parts. For example, at 3:25, Bill brings in these big metal percussion instruments to accent the strong beats of the piece, and at 3:37, there is a bit of a change in what would be the violins. Instead of moving from the high E to the D, he instead resolves the E to G. Small little change, but adds to the intensity. I'd also like to note that in my arrangement, at 3:25 when the entire phrase repeats itself, what I've done to add intensity is just engage the sustain pedal. The pedal adds a particular sound to the piano, and throughout the arrangement, I've made a conscious decision to not use it because I wanted the different color specifically at the end. There are a few points where it is engaged, but it isn't quite overdone. On an actual piano, I'd also not fully depress the sustain pedal at 3:25. I'd sort of do a half pedal because the bass strings on a piano are very noisy, and fully depressing them can result in some sort of unpleasant sounds. For the audio that I used in the video, unfortunately I did not have the ability to half pedal lol. It was either all or nothing. 3:50 But continuing, this is a really nice addition to the piece. It ends with a solo cello and what I believe to be a viola playing the original melody in octaves. It then finally closes on the tonic. That is the end of the piece!
This is the best Demon's Souls arrangement that I have heard. Its a shame that not many people make arrangements for the Demon's Souls remake... I do not understand how i did not get this recommended to me sooner. I will learn this on the piano when i have the time. I have waited since the release of the remake for someone to make an arrangement like this. Please make more arrangements of souls OSTs. I subscribed to not miss any future works of yours. Keep up the good work :)
This is a fantastic transcription, Ludwig! The way you manage to contrast the softer notes in the beginning with the hard-hitting follow-ups is amazing. You make the piano sound large and all-encompassing, and it's just great. Awesome work!
Theory Analysis:
As previously mentioned in the video description, Flamelurker from the Demon's Souls Remake is an incredible piece of music. When the OST first released, I think many were unimpressed with most of it because of it's tendency to lean towards modern orchestration methods; massive choirs, wall-of-sound archetype, and strings and big brass sections aplenty. However, reception has changed and I think the OST is probably viewed as an absolute banger lol.
While transcribing and arranging the piece, I was actually surprised by how much of the music followed Classical traditions of harmony on a fundamental level. A lot of this piece is actually filled with a bunch of tonic-predominant-dominant harmony, like a very simple i - iv - V. There are clear deviations from this throughout the piece, but that's what it is mostly comprised of, and of course in Souls-like fashion... it's filled with a bunch of extensions haha.
0:01 The piece begins in the key of D minor, and opens with a very soft D that eventually expands into a cluster chord comprising the notes A Bb C# D and Eb. At 0:09, a low rumbling D sustains for the rest of the intro; creating a ton of tension that will lead into the first main phrase. In my arrangement, rather than just using tremolos on octaves on the lowest D available on the piano, I've opted to have it span several octaves in a technique similar to what Chopin did in his 'Revolutionary' etude. This technique is pretty difficult to pull off, but allows the piece to have the same amount of tension as the original (mostly due to the chromatic enclosure in-between the octaves) without the monotony of simple tremolo octaves... not that there is anything bad with those haha.
0:15 After a little run that covers the same notes from the cluster chord in the intro, we finally get the appearance of the main melody from the original piece. The orchestration is absolutely wild here; it's a massive wall-of-sound. The piano lends itself very well to this style, though because of how big the modern piano is and how aggressive a forte fortissimo can be because of the size of the bass strings on the instrument. From 0:15 to 0:22, the harmony is as follows: Dm9 - Bb/D - Bb#11/D.
On a side note, what's really cool about this piece is that consistently throughout the piece-or at least the first half of the piece-the third of the tonic chords are omitted, which creates a bit of ambiguity.
0:22 The first two bars of the phrase are then repeated (Dm9 for two bars again), but then something interesting happens... and I want to try to make a compelling argument to my assessment of the next two bars.
0:25 - 0:28 Here's my take on what happens: the next chord, if attempting to analyze in the key of D minor, is G# 6 (G# B# D# E#). It's important to note that on the first bar of these two bars, there is an accented lower chromatic neighbor tone. When we take a look at this chord, it's clear that it's a dominant preparation, but not one that we'd expect. Usually, we'd expect a dominant preparation built on G# to come in the form of a V7/V (E G# B D) or a viio7/V (G# B D F), but that's not what happens here. The D# and B# both pose a bit of a problem in analyzing it either of these.
So here's what I believe is going on here: this is obviously still a dominant preparation because what follows this chord is the V, and the G# (which will be slightly challenged in a bit) proves this because it basically acts as a leading tone. But rather than going for a simple V7/V or viio7/V, what Bill has done is created a bit of modal mixture and tapped into D Locrian to build this chord. If we analyze this in D Locrian, the Ab, which would be G# checks out; the C, which would be B# checks out; the Eb, which would be D# checks out; and the F, which would be E#... also checks out. To go even a bit further, the G (which I analyzed as a accented lower neighbor tone and still do, tbh) even makes sense when looking at it this way. So rather than calling it G# 6, it becomes Ab6, and also still works well because of the half-step relationship between the Ab and A natural.
TLDR; I believe it's modal mixture lol.
0:28 From here up until 0:41 is all basically a dominant pedal point. These eight bars can be summed up to be Aaddb2. I hesitate to analyze is as A7b9 because the b7 doesn't really make a solid appearance in this section. It's there, but very fleeting due to the fact that it's only really in the string runs, and on the last half bar it becomes Aaddb2/C#.
0:41 The original melody makes a return here, or at least a portion of it. Analyzing the next few section four bars a time, this section is as follows: Dm9 - Dm9 - Bb/D - Bb/D. As a side note, on the second half of the last bar, the bass moves from D to C#, and I believe this is just a non-chord tone. This also happens on the next four bars.
0:47 is a repeat of the previous four bars, but with a variation on the melody found in the last two bars of this phrase. This variation also completes one of the tunes found in the original piece, and thus far, we've had very little harmonic movement. Going from what is essentially Dm to BbM, especially over a tonic pedal, is a movement of a third. This is considered weak and mostly serves as a way to embellish the tonic. Our next phrase will change this, though.
0:53 to 1:00 is nothing but Gm13. Melodically, I don't think that these four bars even reference anything from the original. It may be a sort of call back to it, but not actually pulled directly from the original. These four bars also serve as a PD (predominant) to what will come next.
1:00 to 1:06 is all a dominant pedal, but switches between a cadential 6/4 and V (i6/4 [also notated as V6/4 or C6/4] - V - i6/4 - V). Up until this point, from 0:41 to 1:06 is virtually a big i - PD - V progression. The i being the Dm9 and Bb/D, the PD being the Gm13 or iv, and the V obviously being the last four bars that I just mentioned. I also took a bit of creative liberty here (1:04) by introducing some lower chromatic neighbor tones (G# and D#) to embellish the arpeggio in the left-hand.
1:06 These next eight bars are a departure from what came before. The next bars are all on D, and is filled to the brim with clusters. I also took a bit more creative liberty and put in a bunch of arpeggios spanning a few octaves. This technique can be found in a bunch of Classical music repertoire (sorry guys... I don't know much solo jazz piano stuff lol), like Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, etc.
1:18 is sort of a continuation of the harmony from the previous eight bars. This section makes fantastic use of the b2 and #4 along with the leading tone to create a rather unsettling and menacing melody. The pounding bass continues as previously written into this new section, which adds even more to the menacing vibe.
1:31 is a repeat of 1:18, but the harmony has been expanded to include a bunch of tight dissonances to create EVEN MORE tension. These eight bars end on a dissonance (1:41) built on the b2 (still the tonic in the bass, though lol), and leads into a phrase modulation to the key of F minor.
1:44 at this point, we've departed from the key of D minor and now are in the key of F minor. From 1:44 to 2:09 has an interesting structure. It again consists of the same i - PD - V progression (Fm - Fm9 - Db/F - Edim7/F), and those first four bars are then repeated three times to create this big 16-bar phrase. There is a bit of a change at 2:00 where the Db/F is substituted for Bbm7/F, and this change persists at the same point (2:06) in the next four bars. Another thing worth noting is that the pounding, rhythmic bass again continues throughout this section, but does away with the chromatic enclosure around the tonic, and strictly sticks to a tonic pedal.
2:09 is interesting. It's basically a phrase modulation to the key of the iv, but this section in itself also serves as a modulation back to the initial key (D minor) by going through a little bit of chromatic mediants (Bbm to Dm) to do so. This modulation works because in the key of D minor, Bbm would be the vi, which happens to have tones in common with the tonic (F), but also has two tones in common with the dominant b9 (Bb Db/C#). So all that really needs to be done is to resolve the F to E, and coincidentally, the vi does end up resolving the V at 2:20.
Also, to avoid just banging out big chords at this point, I've used some arpeggios to make it a bit more interesting, and also have the right-hand play the same chord a little more than an octave higher. Just a bit more creative liberty lol.
2:22 We're approaching what is essentially a recapitulation of 0:41. However, before we get there, we have a bit of a buildup, and Bill makes this section very interesting. Here we have the strings going nuts, and the orchestration begins to thin out. The harmony of the first four bars of this phrase is Gm - F# m/G - Gm - A/G. This is pretty typical stuff, but the F# m is a bit of an outlier (I did omit the F# btw). What I think is going on here is Bill tapping into D Ionian to get that iii chord, which is more color than using DM.
But continuing on, as mentioned in my previous piano arrangement, Flooded Commercial Sector, Bill employs a bit of a "chord retrogression" here, too. From the AM chord in the bar proceeding this section (2:20), he resolves it to Gm, and then walks up the D minor scale starting from G on the next four bars.
2:28 Not only do we get another tune from the original piece here, which is a completely different one than what we've heard thus far, but get the aforementioned walk up the scale. These next eight bars (harmony in bars of two) can be summed up to be Gm - A7b9 - Gm/Bb - Ab9/C#; this whole section is just preparing us for the dominant pedal.
2:41 The previous eight bars are repeated, but now with a countermelody. Also, instead of the Gm/Bb resolving to the V, we get a REALLY nice G# dim7/B, which is our viio7/V, and that leads us perfectly into the dominant pedal.
2:53 The dominant pedal here is short, but very nice. It also, interestingly enough, is basically a call back to the dominant pedal from earlier in the piece that features the cadential 6/4 chord. The harmony here is as follows: Dm9/A - A - Dm9b13/A - A. Simple, but effective.
3:00 until 3:50 is quite literally several repeats of 0:41 - 1:06. However, there is a bit of variations made to the parts. For example, at 3:25, Bill brings in these big metal percussion instruments to accent the strong beats of the piece, and at 3:37, there is a bit of a change in what would be the violins. Instead of moving from the high E to the D, he instead resolves the E to G. Small little change, but adds to the intensity.
I'd also like to note that in my arrangement, at 3:25 when the entire phrase repeats itself, what I've done to add intensity is just engage the sustain pedal. The pedal adds a particular sound to the piano, and throughout the arrangement, I've made a conscious decision to not use it because I wanted the different color specifically at the end. There are a few points where it is engaged, but it isn't quite overdone. On an actual piano, I'd also not fully depress the sustain pedal at 3:25. I'd sort of do a half pedal because the bass strings on a piano are very noisy, and fully depressing them can result in some sort of unpleasant sounds. For the audio that I used in the video, unfortunately I did not have the ability to half pedal lol. It was either all or nothing.
3:50 But continuing, this is a really nice addition to the piece. It ends with a solo cello and what I believe to be a viola playing the original melody in octaves. It then finally closes on the tonic.
That is the end of the piece!
This is the best Demon's Souls arrangement that I have heard. Its a shame that not many people make arrangements for the Demon's Souls remake...
I do not understand how i did not get this recommended to me sooner. I will learn this on the piano when i have the time. I have waited since the release of the remake for someone to make an arrangement like this.
Please make more arrangements of souls OSTs.
I subscribed to not miss any future works of yours.
Keep up the good work :)
beautiful arrangement Ludwig! and thanks for the detailed analysis as well. top notch work 💜. this is definitely one of the best demon's souls songs.
Thank you, Moon! Got more DeS stuff coming!
This is a fantastic transcription, Ludwig! The way you manage to contrast the softer notes in the beginning with the hard-hitting follow-ups is amazing.
You make the piano sound large and all-encompassing, and it's just great. Awesome work!
Thank you! I’m glad that you liked it!