[Intro music plays]
Cuphead is one of those rare games that takes a simple pre--oh.
Cuphead is one of those rare games that takes a sim--
Cuphead is one of those rare ga-- Aw, you got to be kidding me.
Cuphead is one of those rare games that takes a simple... Damn it!
[quickly] Cuphead is one of those rare games that takes a simple premise and--God!
[angrily] Cuphead is one of those rare games that takes a simple premise and executes it perfectly!
Yes!
The initial premise was to combine the aesthetic of a 1930s animation style
with the gameplay of a bullet hell shooter, and that's exactly what the game turned out to be.
The art style and hand-drawn animation look and feel amazing, and this is obviously
a huge selling point of the game. But equally as impressive to me
was the period-appropriate soundtrack, which has only grown on me the more
I play the game. So when patron T.J. Agne suggested the topic,
I knew I had to do a video about it.
I mean, that's not to say that he was the first to ever suggest doing a Cuphead video.
I actually was kind of putting off writing this one, because I didn't know what to say about the music.
I could talk about the general attributes of ragtime and swing music,
but I already kind of touched on that in my old Mario video.
I could talk about the mechanics of writing jazzy eighth note lines,
but I already sort of covered that in my Mario Kart 8 video.
But then I realized that there was one vital element of this early jazz style that I haven't covered:
The arranging.
Arranging is a pretty broad term, which covers a few different compositional disciplines
like orchestration and form,
But it also applies, perhaps most importantly, to shaping the overall emotional
direction of a piece of music.
To get a sense of how an arranger does this, let's take a deep dive into Cuphead's "Inkwell Isle One".
This tune is perfect to use as an example, because we actually have
two different arrangements of it on the soundtrack:
The regular version, scored for 11-piece ragtime band including piccolo, clarinet,
cornet, trombone, tuba, rhythm section, and strings,
and the solo piano version.
By comparing the two arrangements, we can see what sort of techniques the composer would use
to translate the exact same piece of music from one of these settings to the other.
First off, let's look at the overall form of the piece:
The tune is comprised of three main sections: A, B, and C,
which are set up like this.
The dynamic structure goes something like this: You start off at a normal intensity level,
bring it down for the second A, then bring it down even more for the B section.
We contrast this on the repetition of the B section by bringing the dynamic level way up,
and then we come back down to our starting level for the next A section.
At this point, we've had a little journey--a sense of going out on an adventure and returning home safely,
but if we stopped here, the song would only be, like, two minutes long,
so we get this transition out of nowhere, which is enormous,
and then we move on into our C section. The first run through here is very quiet
to contrast the transition, and then the second C section ramps up the intensity;
This is the climax of the piece here.
For the last A, we bring it back down to a quiet level, then halfway through
increase the dynamic level until we hit the end of the piece.
This is a simple but good dynamic road map, with lots of peaks and valleys
and a perfectly-placed musical climax.
Notice how the most drastic dynamic changes happen in spots with repeated musical material,
which is a crafty way of making your music easy to follow along with while still keeping things interesting.
Now let's look at how Kris Maddigan, the composer and arranger for Cuphead,
handles the exact same music in the exact same form with the exact same dynamic roadmap
with these two very different instrumentations.
The piano arrangement gives us the melody in the right hand and the bass and chords
in the left hand, in this oom-pah stride piano pattern.
This is very appropriate for the early jazz aesthetic that the game is going for.
The full band arrangement, despite the 10 extra people playing, doesn't really
add any notes other than what we find in this piano part.
So in this first A section, we have the bassline taken note-for-note and given to the bass, tuba,
and the trombone one octave higher, while the chords are played by the piano
and the banjo which you can barely hear. The melody part is taken away
from the piano and given to the violin and cornet, while the piccolo plays the two octaves higher.
It's important to note that the first section sets the dynamic standard for the tune,
like a reference point that informs our perception of all of the musical changes to come.
You can see that this arrangement includes all of the same elements from the solo piano arrangement.
They're just spread out around the band.
So then, the question is: Why pay 11 people to play this tune if you could have it done with one?
The answer is color. In the piano solo version, as we move into the B section,
we're supposed to hit a low-point dynamically.
This is achieved by playing the melody in a super high register, as well as moving the bass up an octave
from where it usually sits.
This, along with simply physically playing it quieter, makes the section feel more gentle.
Moving into our dramatic dynamic shift in the second B section, the piano creates intensity
by doubling both the melody and bass parts in octaves, as well as returning the bass down to its natural register.
The huge range between the top and bottom notes here
does a lot to bring the dynamic level up to an appropriate intensity.
With the full band arrangement, things work a little differently:
The quiet B section keeps the super high melody by giving it to solo piccolo, but instead of
moving the bassline up an octave, we remove the brass instruments and just give it to the bass and piano.
Well, we don't completely remove the brass; The tuba is still there, but it's relegated to just playing
every time the chords change.
The new musical texture that this creates could not have been achieved with just a solo piano.
The contrasting strong B section is handled very differently from the piano version.
There's no lower octave for the bass part, and the melody is played in the normal register.
This shrinks the range between the lowest and highest notes,
which was a key part of what brought up the dynamic level in the piano arrangement.
It's not necessary here though, as the melody is doubled by the violin, flute, and clarinet,
with the cornet harmonizing it a sixth below.
Make note of this decision! The section would sound a lot bigger and brighter
if the cornet played the melody, or even harmonized it a third above.
Choosing to put it in its medium register means that Maddigan is saving
some intensity for later on, which we'll see once we get to the real climax of the piece.
Note that the tuba is back in full force, and the cello plays this new counterline,
which would have been just impossible to do on a solo piano with all of the other parts.
With the dynamic shift between the C sections, we see the piano approach it
pretty much the same way:
Octave melody, octave baseline, huge range between the highest and lowest notes,
and just generally pounding away on the piano.
There's not much more you can do with just a piano. I mean he's only one man for God's sakes!
But with the full band, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for the competent arranger.
First of all, the first C section, another dynamic low-point,
is scored completely differently from our other low-intensity sections.
This time, we get paired down to just three instruments:
The piano, which plays the melody and accompaniment much in the way it does in the solo piano version,
the tuba which quietly contributes to the bassline,
and the drums, which switch from a full kit to a simple woodblock to change the texture.
This orchestration makes this C section even quieter than the previous quietest section,
and we'll see that the next C section is even more intense than the previous highest point.
For the climax of the piece, Maddigan scores this next section as a group improvisation
between the clarinet, cornet, and trombone, which itself is kind of a staple of early jazz music.
Notice how the piano still has the melody, but it just gets completely overshadowed
by the energy of the interacting soloists.
Obviously, there's no way to achieve this effect without the proper instrumentation, but that's not to say
that the piano arrangement is necessarily worse.
It's more limited for sure, but there are some things that a piano can do by itself
that are impractical for a full band.
Take a look at the transition going into the C section: The band is split into two halves,
with one half playing this chromatically descending line in octaves,
and the other half playing this chromatically ascending line in unison.
Also, the trombone has this descending counterline, but you can hardly even hear it, so who cares?
This works perfectly well and fills the role of the big loud surprising transition,
but if you take a look at the piano version, it's a little different:
We still have the two chromatic lines, with the bass of course, pounded out in octaves for intensity.
The top line, though, is this time played with block chords,
or tightly-voiced chords that follow the shape of the melodic line.
I think this is so interesting, because these block chord voicings get totally scrapped
for the orchestrated version, even though we had four instruments playing the melody.
I mean, one of those instruments was the piano,
which could have easily just pumped them out, but it didn't.
It shows a restraint on the part of the arranger, which is incredibly important.
It's tempting when you have four or five melodic instruments at your disposal
to voice everything in four or five part harmony, but this is rarely the right choice for whatever you're arranging
and usually makes things sound muddy or bogged-down.
Arranging isn't talked about much when you're learning music theory, but it's an essential part
of any good composition, so I'm glad I got the chance to talk about it a little bit here.
Thanks again to T.J. Agne for the suggestion, and you can find me on Twitter @8bitMusicTheory.
Or if you want to support the channel, you can check out my Patreon here.
Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you all next time!