[Music]
the Touhou project has got to be the
longest running series of games
developed by one person with 17 main
line installments of the anime girl
bullet-hell shooters released in just
over 20 years these games are developed
entirely by one guy who goes by the
handle Xun from the art to the
programming - of course the music the
Xun has gone so far as to call the games
a vehicle primarily for his music and
his music has garnered an international
cult following of its own with hundreds
of fan arrangements and remixes of tunes
from throughout the games strewn all
across the internet listening to some of
the series music it's not hard to pick
up on some common elements that make up
the Touhou sound fast paced driving
drumbeats and quick flurries of
arpeggios bubbling under dramatic
harmonized synth melodies with a
reliable stable of chord progressions
that you see pop up in tune after tune
one element that might be less obvious
is the frequent use of key changes most
tunes will change key at least a couple
of times with some moving through four
or five different keys before finishing
out their loop that's certainly unusual
but what's interesting is that these key
changes do a lot to shape the emotional
arc of each piece of music each point of
climax or sudden twist or dramatic
emotional shift is almost always
accompanied by a change of key and
modulations both augment the effect of
these individual moments as well as help
shape the structure of each tune as a
whole in Hartman's yokai girl from
subterranean animism the main section of
the piece is wild and hectic with choppy
syncopated rhythms and chromatic chord
movements assaulting you in a fast-paced
7/8 time signature the harmony keeps
close to the tonic a flat minor chord
but slides around to the chords a half
step above and below it to create a
frantic feeling
this establishes a very clear vibe for
the tune but as the piece develops this
vibe is contrasted with a new more
delicate section in the key of a-minor
take a listen to this
[Music]
now tell me would you expect that these
last two examples I played were from the
same piece there is a huge difference in
tone between the two sections we just
heard and the difference is accentuated
with the huge distance between the keys
of a flat minor and a minor the distance
between any two keys can be measured by
the number of notes that these keys have
in common and any two keys that are a
tritone apart from each other like an E
flat minor and a minor are going to have
as few notes in common as is physically
possible in equal temperament tonal
music microtome this leads us to the fun
part taking a look at how this key
change actually happened
a short transition section explores
further the opening sections idea of
chords moving around by a half-step and
we see alternating minor and diminished
chords rise and chromatically up from
our tonic a flat minor in a sequence
eventually ending up on a G sharp
diminished chord this fits perfectly
logically with the tune up to this point
but also sets up our key change
perfectly as diminished chords generally
want to pull up to resolve on the chord
a half step above them the momentum of
this chromatic arising melody pushes the
final G sharp melody note up to an a
right as we make the shift to the new
key and the effect is a huge release of
tension
[Music]
even though we're in the key of a-minor
our resolution to the actual a minor
chord is delayed by a bar as we instead
land on the flat six chord of the key F
and walk-up diatonic ly to a minor not
only is this the reverse approach from
the previous section which started on
its minor tonic and walked up
chromatically from there this flat 6
flat 7 minor 1 progression is one that
gets used all the time in Touhou music
for more sentimental moods this
particular progression comes up so often
that I'm positive it's zooms default
emotional sounding chord progression
anyways moving to a minor for this
section represents a big shift in the
piece as a whole but key changes don't
have to be quite this dramatic to be
effective the relatively subdued piano
melody and synth pads of this a minor
section slowly build over the course of
the rest of the piece to a climax that
launches us back to the top of the form
as the piece loops elements that had
dropped out to give the section a
sparser texture gradually come back in
with the drums offering syncopated kick
drum hits and synths coming in to double
the melody to help build up intensity as
this build crosses over a hump with the
drums coming back in in full force and
swirling arpeggio backing figures
joining the mix the piece accentuates
this noticeable rise in intensity by
suddenly shifting the key up by a
half-step
this gives the music a little added
boost which combines with all the other
building musical elements to make this
crescendo just that much more intense
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
changing the key up a half-step has kind
of a bad reputation as a trick that
songwriters pull to be able to stretch
out a song without having to write any
new musical ideas but here it's part of
the arrangement working together with
all of the other musical ideas at play
and it makes a very tangible
contribution to the effect that this
part of the piece was going for in necro
Fantasia from perfect cherry blossom the
whole structure of the tune is tied to
how the tune changes key each new
section is accompanied by a dramatic
modulation with the piece moving through
five different keys before it's done we
start off with a bold melodic statement
in c-sharp minor
setting the stage with a catchy synth
melody over a chord progression that's
very typical of Touhou music with chords
descending from or ascending to our
tonic c-sharp minor in stepwise motion
[Applause]
[Music]
once again we've immediately established
this pieces musical identity skipping
ahead a little bit a more subdued
section in B minor brings down the
intensity and acts as a transition into
the climax of the song sort of a calm
before the storm approach
[Music]
notice the use of zooms go to flat 6
flat 7 1 progression here interrupted on
the second phrase by a first inversion 5
chord this F sharp 7 over a sharp this
chord is key to a very clever way of
changing keys moving into the following
climactic section the section repeats
ending on this walk-up from G to A to F
sharp 7 over a sharp which is just
begging for a resolution to our tonic a
minor chord the a sharp in the base
especially coming up from the previous a
really wants to push up to that beat and
the fact that the f-sharp chord on top
jumped back down to a G the first time
around makes that resolution to be minor
all the more tantalizing this time right
when this resolution feels like it
should come though we instead get a
whole bar of just this kind of weird
drum fill before leaping straight into
the climax of the tune a huge emotional
melodic hook in the key of a minor we
will once again see the classic flat 6
flat 7 1 progression starting on this F
and setting up this F with an F sharp
chord gives us a surprise drop down by a
half step a little jolt like when you're
running downstairs and you miss a step
by accident using the third of the F
sharp chord in the bass a sharp adds to
the power of this transition because it
gives a nice fourth leap down to F if
you think of it as a b-flat to F in the
bass it's easier to see that
relationship and moving a bass line in
fourths or fifths gives it a lot more
weight than moving it in steps or half
steps all of this plays into the effect
that the music is going for here getting
you to let your guard down and then
smacking you in the face with a super
hyped up hook out of nowhere
[Music]
this is the structural high point of the
tomb but because of the looping nature
of the music we need some way to get
back from here to where we started both
totally and emotionally to do this the
music slows down its momentum after a
couple repetitions of this a minor
section by dropping down a half step for
a new section which takes the same basic
idea of the a minor section and
expresses it in a slightly chiller more
melodically sparse way this key change
is facilitated by a very cool technique
that you'll see pretty often in Touhou
music the final cadence of the a minor
section ends with a Picardy third
meaning the F to G walk-up resolves to a
surprise a major chord rather than a
minor this is immediately followed by
the key dropping down a half step which
would make its first chord in E major
back to back this gives us a very clever
four to one relationship between the a
major chord and the E major chord at
results two making for a very smooth
transition between two very different
keys
[Music]
the same type of idea is used to end off
the tune and loop back to the top in the
new key of G sharp minor the tune ends
off with another Picardy third
resolution from E to F sharp to G sharp
major surprise only this time we loop
straight from here to the first section
we heard way back at the beginning the
one in c-sharp minor this picardy third
g sharp major tonic chord simultaneously
acts as the five chord in the next key
of C sharp minor
making the transition back to C sharp
super smooth
[Music]
a cord like this that serves to separate
functional purposes simultaneously to
smooth out a transition between keys is
called a pivot cord which I talked about
in more detail in a previous video I'll
link to it at the end the abundance of
key changes throughout Toho's music and
their role in helping shape the
structure of each tune is a unique
aspect of the series music that I find
very interesting there's a big wild and
woolly world of Toho music out there and
if either of these pieces piqued your
interest at all I'd recommend going and
doing some exploring for yourself big
thanks to patrons mdc-t and orbital
magpie for requesting Toho music if
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consider joining these two by checking
out my patreon page here if you'd like
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8-bit music theory thanks so much for
watching and I'll see you all next time
[Music]
you
[Music]