![]() Final Fantasy VIII began development and Square were keen to throw off the some of the well worn shackles of RPG conventionalism they helped establish with previous FF titles. Age of ‘OK, Maybe This Instead?’ (VIII-XV)ġ997. Not long after VII though, change was in the air again. In Final Fantasy VII, Uematsu expands Prelude’s orchestral palette with woodwinds and brass. The melody in Final Fantasy VI is on flute played with little musical inflections giving it a folk-like feel, perhaps symbolising the main conflict in the story: rag tag rebels (folky flute), against the empire (regal sounding orchestra). Prelude had also matured: What started life as a melancholic arpeggio was now, through orchestration and compositional techniques, developing into a full bodied orchestral theme.īetween IV-VII Uematsu gently tweaked the new Prelude sound including small changes to instrumentation. Through experience and experimenting we begin to see a franchise mature, and this is mirrored in Uematsu’s equally well received score. IV was both a critical and commercial success and was praised for expanding what RPGs were capable of. Plus, we can hear the string section shifting with short counter-melodies, adding to the perception of motion. He also includes a simple melody in the woodwinds which gives the whole arrangement an added sense of direction. The sound is bigger, the feels are amplified. But what his harmony does is greatly enhance the emotional weight of that arpeggio line. Uematsu’s predominantly string harmony sticks to the chords of the arpeggio line the basses play the root notes, cellos and violas in thirds and fifths on top etc. It begins with one round of what I like to call the h-arpeggio, and then on the repeat the ‘orchestra’ makes its grand introduction, establishing a sound that will stay with Prelude for the rest of the series. In Final Fantasy IV Prelude goes through its first major transformation: orchestration. Our intrepid composer must have been inspired. A shiny new console, with shiny new sound capabilities, and a shiny new FF title to be made. He didn’t rest on his laurels for long mind…Īt this point in the series, Prelude was still the sound of one lonesome square wave going up and down. Perhaps Uematsu was keen to have a musical anchor while the franchise found its footing. Sonically, not much changes between I– III’s Preludes aside from a key change to C major from II onward (something that remains relatively unaltered throughout the series). As we will see down the line, Uematsu and other later composers make great use of these possibilities. There is a core personality to it, but there is also scope to develop it. At this point, Prelude manages to be a characterful piece of music and at the same time, a bit of a blank canvas, and this is what makes it a good theme. Our composer says a lot with very little by using his tools effectively. The arpeggiated chords seem to stretch out into infinity and the addition of a short delay effect compounds this sense of hefty, important legacy. By adopting this classic progression Uematsu harks back to a wealth of timeless music, and as a result this quality rubs off on Prelude itself. Prelude is written in the key of Bb major and mostly consists of a set of arpeggiated chords known collectively as the ’50s progression (ubiquitous in ’50s/’60s pop music, but also pops up in classical music as far back as the 17th century). ![]() ![]() So how did Uematsu manage to write something so timeless in no time at all? Producer Hironobu Sakaguchi gave Uematsu just 30 minutes to come up with the theme for FFI‘s opening screen. Aside from being a lesson in simple yet effective thematic writing, Uematsu’s Prelude also has one of the most efficient time-spent-composing to historical-legacy ratios in video game music history. Prelude has been through a number of variations and composer pass-downs in its 30 year history, but it all starts with Final Fantasy musical granddaddy Nobuo Uematsu and a humble pulse wave. This month we’ll be exploring how and why themes evolve and just what makes them so ‘evolve-able’ in the first place, by digging into the ‘Prelude’ theme from Final Fantasy. We’ll be looking at what makes thematic content in video games different to that of other mediums, with in depth explorations into some well known concepts and pieces from vgm history. This is the first in a series of articles discussing the nature of themes in video game music.
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