[Music]
Dark Souls is a game that doesn't waste
any part of this experience the story of
the game is told through everything from
the environment to the enemy designs to
the loading screen the game systems for
leveling up currency and punishments for
deaths all use the same resource even
the layout of the game the world is
structured in such a way that you're
constantly retreading old ground
the music is consistent with this
philosophy rarely do we hear elaborate
intros or static background music in
fact we rarely hear background music at
all
when there is music though it takes a
small number of musical elements and
makes the most of them today I want to
talk about how to take a few musical
ideas and turn them into a larger piece
I'm sure I've mentioned these before but
here's a quick overview for newcomers in
music the term of motifs refers to the
smallest possible musical idea that can
still be recognized as a unique idea
motifs are fundamental building blocks
poses use to construct pieces that sound
completely coherent without being
repetitive as the ear can latch on to
recurring motivic figures that
emphasizes the pieces identity even as
they evolve
throughout the piece furthermore if you
know how to manipulate a small motif
into a larger musical idea it makes the
composition process much less
rage-inducing for an example let's look
at gwyn lord of cinder the music that
plays during the final box fight in dark
souls if that weren't enough of a hint
there are going to be spoilers for the
final boss fight in Dark Souls just say
no this scene is surprising to say the
least
on a soundtrack full of pounding
orchestral boss fight music you'd expect
the grand finale to be the town deist of
all instead we get this delicate piano
piece which evokes less pulse-pounding
action and more crushing loneliness it's
a beautiful piece which adds a lot to
the dark skills narrative in itself with
this implication of the tone of this
last boss battle who cares about
narrative I want to touch my booty
uh-huh
the piece is two and a half minutes long
but it's really built out of two small
melodic motif it can be a little
overwhelming trying to write even one
minute of music from scratch but if you
know how to effectively elaborate on a
musical idea you can get away with
writing 15 seconds of music and
stretching it out however long it needs
to be a key element in this process is
structuring the song as a whole as I'm
sure you know any piece of music is
going to be made up of different
sections like verses or choruses or what
have you
we can break quints theme down into
three main sections which I'll call a B
and C phrase a is a simple elaboration
on our first three note motifs
five four one this isn't exactly a
revolutionary melodic idea it's
basically just one note different from a
five to one but the rhythm keeps things
interesting by keeping beat one
completely empty so how does this three
note motif get stretched into a full
eight bar phrase one way to do it is to
state it as a melodic idea and then
state a variation of that idea it
doesn't have to be anything complicated
in fact you don't have to change very
much at all instead of this force leaps
down to one in the motif we invert it to
get a fourth leaf up to the flat seven
in the variation
this extends the phrase in a very
natural way to finish off the phrase we
get this walk down back to the e where
we started and then the last three bars
are kept empty
motoi sakuraba the composer for dark
school could have handled this a few
different ways he could have repeated
the personal teeth and ended on the one
but that feels to final and loses
momentum he could have maybe used
another variation of motif to extend the
phrase even longer while still landing
on the fifth
and
but this would have filled up the rest
of the eight bars the fact that he kept
half of the phrase melodically empty was
a careful decision that I think serves
two purposes first keeping the melody
sparse serves to emphasize the
loneliness and isolation of the subject
Glyn Gwyn was once a powerful God but it
has been thousands of years since he
gave up his soul to rekindle the first
flame and what we see when we meet Glenn
in the game is an empty husk of his
former glory desperately trying to hold
the coming age of darkness that's a just
a little longer the spotlight isn't
supposed to feel like an epic finale so
much as like putting down an old sick
dog or more like Bor let's get back to
music theory okay this open space leaves
lots of room for further variations to
expand upon the melody later in the song
and we see sakharova's capitalize on
this towards the end of the piece phrase
B is twice as long as phrase a at
sixteen bars and is based off of our
second three note motif this phrase is a
little less straightforward with how it
uses this motif as we start with the
stick-up note emphasizing our v II
before the three note walk-up plays out
now that we've heard our second motifs
it's time for the variation instead of
walking up the scale once again the line
is inverted from the original walking
down to the second B
anything on the second allows the piece
to keep the same sense of unrest and
forward momentum as lending on the fifth
because the both chord tones of our
dominant chord and they don't feel as
totally resolved another interesting
aspect of this variation is the lack of
beat one an element clearly taken from
our original motif back in the a section
blending established motif together like
this does a lot to make a piece feel
more cohesive the rest of the first
eight bars are left empty again like
phrase a but with the second eight bars
we get to see a very common melodic
structure we start with our regular B
motif but then afterwards get another
new variation instead of walking down to
the second we jump up to the root giving
the B section as a whole that's a BAC
cond response structure
you'll notice that this interval of an
upwards fourth is an inverse of the
downwards force we had in the first half
sound familiar
limiting the number of musical ideas you
use to write a piece is a really good
way of focusing the music even when
you're writing variations on your
establishment piece this is also the
first time Sakuraba starts to play
around and all that spaces left himself
we get a variation on a variation if you
will as let's walk down to D is
transpose up to bring us back down to
our fifth E
so here we have our phrase a and their
phrase B these two phrases are given to
us in an aad a structure this is a
pretty common structure for musical
phrases sections or entire pieces and
should be a part of any serious
composers vocabulary by using this
structure these two sections get us just
over a minute of music but at this point
we risk boring the listener if we don't
give them something new here's where we
bring in the c section it's kind of hard
to tell it first listen but this melody
is actually just another variation on
our second motif
stretched out into dotted half notes and
transposed down the fourth
checking out a previous melodic idea
into longer note values like this is
called augmentation it's really
interesting to hear what it would sound
like if Sakuraba had used his first
motif for the bridge instead of his
second
it just doesn't quite work as well
probably because ascending motion is
much better for building tension which
is our goal at this point in the piece
this is also the very first time in the
piece that Sakuraba moves away from the
tonic a minor chord over the section we
get a minor 5 chord moving to a minor 4
6 chord you'll notice that those mirrors
are very first motif 5 for one movement
coincidence maybe I mean it's a really
common harmonic movement but who knows
it's also worth noting that the c
section is set up the same way as our B
section with a motif variation motif new
variation structure the only difference
here is that each variation is pretty
simple only adding a few extra notes at
the very end of the frame
it's little changes like that to keep
the music from being repetitive this one
bar motif got stretched to four bars and
the four bars got stretched into sixteen
this is what I mean by getting the most
out of your ideas now at this point in
the piece we get an 8 bar transition
section it's a cluster chords that
gradually build tension with this
dissonant major 7th interval
we're out of the relative somberness of
the c-section and building intensity
towards the pieces climax after the
transition it's time to kick the piece
into high gear we move back into the B
section
only this time forgoing the driving
eighth-note accompaniment we sell before
for the type of cluster chords we saw
introduced in that transition section
the phrase is also altered a little bit
or moved to the b and v bar is delayed
and in the second half of the phrase
instead of walking back down from the
tie a the melody builds right into it
and sticks they're building the
intensity going into the next section
the harmonies descending from flat seven
two five six at this point gives us a
little extra momentum
you
the next section is the climax of the
whole piece a combination of all the
ideas we've been introduced to so far we
get eight bars of the eight sections
melody with an additional three bars
based off of our first motif moved up a
step
filling out the empty space next we get
the first four bars of phrase be
repeated all of this over a minor five -
minor for progression taken from phrase
see
notice how we switch from the pounding
cluster cords of the transition section
back to our driving eighth note
accompaniment from the beginning this
last phrase kind of sputters to a stop
slowing down to try and catch its breath
before trying and failing to start back
up again this reinforces the utterly
unheroic death of our lord of cinder who
desperately fought to delay his
inevitable demise only for his blame to
finally sputter out at your hand hey how
do you think you are daddy said yeah cut
it out okay that's enough oh you after
the music slows down we go into an
entirely new restrained eight bar
transition section that leads us back to
the beginning
so two ridiculously oversimplify the
speeds we have two main three note
motifs split into three sections as well
as two h-bar transition section it's
ridiculously hard to write two and a
half minutes of good music but it's
significantly easier to write a three
note motif and writing an eight bar
section based on the motif isn't too bad
and if you know different ways to
structure 8 bar sections into a song you
all the sudden can turn a little bit of
writing into a lot of music just don't
forget that the emotional core of a
piece is much much more important than
the structure in terms of writing
something that people will connect with
well I hope that was helpful or
interesting or maybe even both if you
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so much to all of you for watching and
I'll see you around
[Music]
right I just think you are very busy