the Silent Hill games have always been
praised for their innovative sound
design but as I played through Silent
Hill 2 the thing that struck me the most
was the games use of silence not an
empty silence a silence heavy with
expectation a hesitation and anxiety
that permeated through the entire game a
silence that pulled your attention to
what wasn't there this silence is
foundational to Silent Hill 2 s whole
approach good horror is all about
playing with people's expectations fear
on a basic level is an innate response
to the perception of danger or the
expectation of something bad happening
for a work in any medium to create fear
in an audience and must have an acute
awareness of what the audience is
feeling and expecting at all times in
order to position them in this state of
fear effectively the approach to horror
throughout the original Silent Hill
games and especially Silent Hill 2 is
about slowly getting under the player's
skin through an oppressive atmosphere
and it's because the game is so
intensely aware of what the player is
going to be thinking and feeling at any
given point that it can craft this
perfect creeping dread there are no jump
scares well there's one jump scare scare
you but other than that it's the
constant threat that something might be
around the next corner or through the
next door
coupled with the creepy environments and
uncanny enemy designs that bathe the
player in a slowly rising terror like a
frog in a pot of boiling water Akira
Yamaoka the game's sole sound designer
and composer played a crucial role in
this process by taking the same approach
with the music yamaoka forgoes the
common orchestral melodic and harmonic
approaches to creating rising tension in
music and goes for a much more primal
approach
pounding rhythms grading unnatural
sounds and unexpected silence when you
first arrive in the town of Silent Hill
ominous drones and quiet metal clanks
drift through the fog punctuated by the
static of your radio informing you of
some hideous creature lurking nearby
but when you first step inside the
apartment building that makes up the
first level of the game all that noise
abruptly comes to a halt this pause
feels like a held breath as the player
creeps around the dark halls of the
apartment building each door entered and
corner turned is poisoned by the anxiety
induced by it being too quiet until it
isn't
yamaoka has set himself I think that
selecting moments of silence is another
way of producing sound and he uses this
technique beautifully the dissonant size
and pounding rhythms that make up the
music for Brookhaven hospital fade out
to nothing as you make your way up to
the hospital roof after exploring the
roof just long enough to decide that
you're safe for monsters
the silence is pierced by noise the
player will definitely recognize at this
point in the game the scraping of a
giant knife on the ground belonging to
none other than the infamous Pyramid
Head
[Music]
hearing nothing but James's footsteps as
he descends the staircase down into
Toluca prison draws attention to just
how deep this stairway goes giving the
player the impression that it's too late
to turn back
besides punctuating these and other
moments throughout the game the periodic
use of silence also gives the soundtrack
a ton of headroom to grow each level in
the game is structured kind of like a
rollercoaster they start off a little
creepy slowly building to greater and
greater points of intensity punctuated
by brief points of respite before a
climax of horror takes the player and
spits them out into the town to make
their way to the next area where the
cycle will start again only this time
reaching even higher points of intensity
the music and sound design mirror and
amplify this intensity curve perfectly
getting under the players skin with a
building array of grating industrial
noises the silence of the apartment
level is contained to the first two
floors of the building the third floor
is scored with ominous low moans as the
player progresses up to this floor there
are moments where subtly unnerving
musical elements come into play this low
bass heartbeat figure accompanies the
discovery of a mutilated body in one of
the apartments creating a subtle sense
of anxiety
joined by this horrible mechanical noise
this same figure amplifies the anxiety
of sticking your arm into a slimy hole
in the wall as the player progresses
further and further through the
apartment
the silence is replaced with a low-level
drone creepy wailing and the addition of
pounding percussion to the radio static
that accompanies a monster attack the
way the music builds an intensity like
this even as it reacts to what's
happening in the game slowly builds up
the sense of dread climaxing with a
cacophony of banging and scraping and
moaning as James has his first encounter
with Pyramid Head
akira yamaoka is a master at generating
musical intensity through less
traditional means instead of orchestral
crescendos or dissonant harmonies his
more primal approach hits players right
in the gut a perfect example of this is
when James and Maria are attempting to
escape the hospital through an
underground maze only to discover that
they're being chased by Pyramid Head
accompanied by an unnerving industrial
pulse
this pulse gradually ramps up with
additional layers of buzzing and
pounding
we added in as the chase goes on
building up the intensity to a breaking
point for this final moment
open up
[Music]
no atonal clusters or extended string
techniques and yet the music captures
the horror of this scene perfectly
horror like music requires both tension
and release if the tension in horror
stories is the fear of something bad
happening to the characters then the
release could either be the characters
escaping from the danger at hand or
succumbing to it needless to say Silent
Hill 2 favors the latter approach these
points of release after big scares bring
the intensity back down to give the
player a chance to catch their breath
and showcase the other softer side of
Yama OCA's composition forgoing a focus
on melody to hone in on creating a
distinct atmosphere Yamaoka takes an
almost trance-like approach to these
tunes multiple layers of repeating piano
lines ghostly synth chords and blow
fight drum loops work together to
perfectly capture the mood of the town
and its inhabitants irregular ambiguous
chord voicings lend a dreamlike quality
to these pieces as we hear in the queue
that follows Maria's murder under the
hospital an f9 sus chord slowly played
four times alternates with an E flat 13
chord with no third the space between
each held chord allows the player to
really soak in each of these juicy
voicings
[Music]
I love how the OpenFlow tf's us voicing
contrasts with the crunchy ER E flat
voicing in other tunes such as in Laura
plays the piano
multiple synth and piano lines weave
together over dense piano chords to
create a thick texture
[Music]
voicing the flat 13th a flat above the
fifth of the chord G lends a sharpness
to this first chord that resolves as we
move to the second chord creating an
interesting harmonic push and pull even
though these could both be considered C
minor chords in fact most of these
pieces throughout the soundtrack seem to
be based entirely on the tonic minor
chord the game's intro cutscene is
scored with a thick synth D minor chord
alternating with an a minor triad over
top of the peddled D and a in the bass
[Music]
the emphasize nine tiers colorful but
the real star of the show is the synth
sound being used Yamaoka is ability as a
sound designer isn't contained just two
monster noises when talking to Angela in
the apartment building the music stays
planted on the tonic G minor chord with
the v rising chromatically up to the
natural 6th and then back down the piano
melody here is made almost entirely of
stepwise motion around the G minor scale
planting this tonic chord even more
firmly in our ears throughout
[Music]
the minor key and use of minor scales
and these and other pieces lends them a
dark quality but sticking to the tonic
chord and using looping or repeated
figures keeps them grounded as well they
may be dark but they're stable and
worked perfectly as a release of the
tension built up by the howling clanging
and scraping of each levels background
music without sacrificing the game's
bleak atmosphere this style of musical
release is epitomized as the game
reveals its big plot twists James
realizes that he is the one who killed
his wife just three days before being
drawn to Silent Hill after finishing the
tape that reveals this information James
sits alone in front of the TV as this
piece of music plays out
[Music]
in it we find many of the elements we
saw in previous examples the tune sticks
to the tonic C minor chord throughout
gradually layering in synth pads a drum
loop and a piano melody that wanders
around the C minor scale this melody is
punctuated with offbeat pedaled notes
that move between the fifth of the key
and the flat sixth emphasizing a natural
minor kind of sound
[Music]
this paired with the emphasized second
scale degree in the piano and ensuing
cello melody create a deeply melancholy
tone which is counterbalanced by the
driving piano and drum rhythm
[Music]
it's an emotionally intricate piece of
music but in the context of this moment
in the game it feels like a huge point
of release every monster puzzled and
dimly lit hallway that James has faced
up until this point has all been an
extension of his mental inability to
cope with the truth of what he's done
and with the reveal of the tape he's
finally come to terms with his guilt as
horrifying as his discovery is being
able to stop running away from the truth
has lifted an enormous weight off of
James's shoulders and that's what I feel
from this piece it's certainly not a
pleasant moment but it has the sense of
relief the real lesson to pull from
Silent Hill 2 soundtrack is the way the
music always serves each scenario in the
game Yamaoka wasn't afraid to make
unconventional choices with the
soundtrack in order to elevate each
moments emotional impact whether that
was through a carefully crafted musical
atmosphere using intensely uncomfortable
noise and sound design or even leaving
the player in complete silence this can
be said of the game as a whole as well
what makes Silent Hill 2 so special
isn't just the bold and innovative
approach it took to horror it's the fact
that the philosophy behind the game
scares permeates every aspect of the
game the art design the writing the
monsters the environments the atmosphere
and of course the music were all
meticulously crafted to achieve the
game's unique and unprecedented vision
truly no game has done it better since
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theory thanks so much for watching and I
hope you all have a truly horrifying Hal
[Music]
you