Austin Wintory's Themes are Simple, but Sophisticated

[Music] there is a lot that's been said here on youtube about the work of austin wintery hell there's enough info on journey's soundtrack alone to fill a college class that's because wintery isn't just a world-class composer he's a world class game composer the way he intelligently implements his music dynamically into a game's world creates a totally unique and satisfying musical experience that perfectly supports the game itself in a way that's impossible to replicate on a standalone soundtrack his innovative approach to orchestral textures and uncommon musical instruments create unique sonic palettes that are just as important to fleshing out the world and style of a game as the setting or art design his delicate mixing of live instruments and electronics merge into shifting waves of ambient sound that envelope you as you play drawing you into the experience of the game i am not going to talk about any of these things in this video there's a ton of material up on youtube that explores these elements of austin wintery's music much of which featuring the man himself and i'll drop a bunch of links in the description below that you should really check out if you're interested what i want to focus on in this video is how austin wintery writes a main theme the ins and outs of how a score is implemented dynamically into a game or what crazy orchestration idea defines its sound is super interesting but these elements work by building off a strong theme that can support it all it's kind of like how a game can have great graphics and some great ideas but if the core gameplay doesn't feel good to play the game doesn't work wintery's themes are great because when you strip away everything else to just the bare bones there's nothing flashy about them they're just simple solid melodies but they feel somehow totally natural and looking at them all side by side you can really see wintery's personality come through in how they're written and most importantly of all they can support a huge variety of musical treatments without losing their identity as the main theme of a game so let's get into how austin wintery writes a main theme [Music] first of all they're all in a minor key each of these themes kicks off with the tonic minor chord and a melody that very clearly outlines the minor key we're in almost always starting with a big fat root or fifth on the downbeat of the first measure it sounds like establishing the key quickly and clearly is a priority of wintry's themes [Music] hearing them back to back like this i'm sure there are a lot of similarities that you could pick out they each work with a relatively slow tempo and the themes are all very rhythmically similar based mostly on quarter don't movement with some half notes and eighth notes thrown in and this dotted quarter to eighth note rhythm seems to be kind of a go-to of winteries for this kind of thematic writing they also all use a similar melodic structure that i think is important each starts off with a simple but recognizable phrase usually two bars in length this moves into a second phrase that begins the same way as the first meaning that the first and third bars of the theme are typically almost exactly the same this second phrase continues in a different direction from the first though developing the initial idea by showing a new direction that it could go in what i think is unique about winter's themes is that this second answering figure usually continues seamlessly onto a much longer phrase than the first and then kind of trails off at the end [Music] [Music] i think this choice of structure is really interesting it's strong from a compositional standpoint because it's very easy for the listener to latch on to the common elements that get repeated from the first phrase to the second but the lopsided nature of the second phrase being so much longer than the first pulls us into the music and then the lack of a big clear finish makes it hard to pull away here see what i mean with abzu's main theme to no water we have this perfect call and response thing where the two-bar phrase at the start is answered by a phrase that definitely could have worked if it stopped at two bars long but it continues on to this huge major seventh leap up to a held second that eventually resolves down to the root of the key g [Music] banner saga's theme we will not be forgotten stretches this structure out the first four bars give a satisfying question and answer type of phrase and then the start of the following four bars gives us that repetition of our opening idea that ends in a different way this time it moves up into a higher range than before before slowly drifting down our tonic minor arpeggio to land on the root e [Music] can you hear what i mean when i say these themes tend to trail off at the end we never get a big finish instead these themes nonchalantly slip down to the tonic as if to say oh yeah i guess i'm done this actually works hugely in these themes favor when it comes to using them throughout a game's soundtrack as having kind of a vague ending can make it easy to connect these themes with new material that can keep them going in whatever direction you need them to go in it's fair to say that all of these themes are simple which is vital for a good theme a main theme is like a main character you want something that everybody can kind of relate to everybody can kind of see themselves in and you want it to be very clear who they are and what they're after what keeps these themes from being simplistic is the attention put towards the fine details of each theme that capture perfectly the atmosphere of the specific game they're written for in the three examples we just checked out even in spite of the similarities each is made distinct from one another through the details in wintry's approach journey's theme is based purely off a natural minor scale resolving up to the tonic from the flat 7th as a core part of its sound throughout the game the melody is also often played rubato the rhythm being freely interpreted by a solo instrumentalist usually cello or bass flute [Music] [Music] i think both the natural minor sound and the rhythmic freedom of these unaccompanied solo performances help capture the feeling of quiet solitude that the game is trying to evoke abzu's main theme however evokes its more mystical aquatic tone by highlighting the dorian mode with this raised six e-natural in the key of g minor accented heavily in both the melody and the chords laid down by this warm synth pad [Music] underneath the churning bubbling wateresque texture provided by the seven harp ensemble all instructed to play this giant clustery group of notes out of time together obviously does a lot to capture the game's otherworldly energy but along with that the dorian mode gives a much brighter more enchanting quality over the natural minor scale that helps keep this theme distinct from journeys banner saga's theme returns to a natural minor sound but with a completely different approach from journey's theme instead of focusing on a soloist with an open rubato rhythm banner saga's we will not be forgotten features a full brass ensemble whereas journeys about making your way through your adventure with maybe one online stranger at your side banner saga follows a huge band of travelers making their way through the desolate war-torn countryside and orchestrating the theme for brass ensemble captures the roughness of this adventure perfectly the tone of the theme matches the hopeless and depressing tone of the game itself and this is due in part to the use of low clusters in the accompaniment the theme starts and ends on open fifths that's an e power chord for you guitar players out there which sound great played by brass and suit the war setting of the game in the middle of the theme more inner voices are added in to flesh out the harmony with full chords but oftentimes these inner voices will move around to make cluster voicings by adding seconds to otherwise standard triads having semitone clashes and a chord voiced in the lower range like this sounds really dark which is perfect for a game where you have to watch your band of adventurers starve to death this brings us to another common element of wintery's main themes the inclusion of juicy notes in spite of the simplicity of establishing a home key and sticking tightly to it wintry always finds places to insert some serious dissonances that make for some really thrilling moments in the theme in bar 3 of banner saga's theme the horn melody dips down to a g that lands just a semitone above the top note of the accompanying brass chord giving us this juicy half step clash this clash is kept in this stripped-down performance of juno and ivan's theme an offshoot of the game's main theme by wintry himself on piano during an interview at the baftas the fact that wintry was just knocking out a simple version of the theme to show the audience and he specifically added in this semitone clash with the melody shows me how deliberate and important this juicy note was in his mind in erica's main theme know thyself we again get a juicy moment in the third bar of the theme immediately after establishing the key of g minor and our 3 4 waltz time the solo cello melody steps up to an a before plummeting down to an e flat stabbing us in the gut with a jagged tritone interval [Music] the theme continues on to be one of wintery's most chromatic and dissonant distinguishing itself from our previous examples with its gothic horror aesthetic but i love this moment for how it jumps out at you right out of the gate right from the opening phrase this theme lets you know that this game's music is going to have an edge assassin's creed syndicate's main theme bloodlines is scored for a trio of piano violin and cello and the piece is structured as one big crescendo that bounces the melody between all three instruments the piece keeps the lopsided phrasing we talked about earlier with the plummeting octave leap in the violin in the first bar answered with a plummeting fifth down in the cello in the third kicking off the longer wandering second phrase that sees the violin walking up to a great juicy note moment this b-flat while it's technically the third of a g minor chord which you wouldn't think would be too dissonant it clashes against the a and e notes in the piano's right hand as well as hitting a minor 9th interval above this a in the cello the minor 9th is widely considered to be the most dissonant interval between two notes even ahead of the semitone and the tritone and this combines to create a stabbing dissonance on this beat that gets released when the violin walks up to the much more palatable d [Music] i love little moments of crunch like this adding a little jolt that propels the music forward these themes on their own have a lot going for them but at the end of the day a huge part of what makes a great main theme is how well a composer can reincorporate it into different parts of the game's score just like how we want to see a main character change and grow over the course of a story we want to see the main theme develop as we make our way through a soundtrack wintery delivers this development in spades in all of his scores but there's no better example than germany's soundtrack there is only one theme in journey's entire score the theme introduced by solo cello at the very beginning of the game and it gets twisted and varied upon in several ways throughout the entire game let's listen one more time to the theme as we are introduced to it [Music] [Music] in the tunnels underneath the city ruins while you're skulking around trying to avoid these flying snake monsters you might hear this figure [Music] the natural minor sound of the flat seventh moving up to the root that we talked about earlier is gone replaced with a raised seventh that in a minor key has a much more sinister quality the original leap down from the third to the flat seven lands here instead on a sixth giving us a tritone leap to end off the figure in an unsettling way wintry changed only two notes of the theme each only by a semitone but it gives the figure an entirely new feeling perfect for keeping you on your toes as you try to evade these crepos in contrast the game's climactic finale is scored by the track apotheosis which features the main theme stretched out rhythmically into whole and half notes in the viola with the space in between each note filled in with energetic triplet figures in the violins so it may seem like a subtle change but the elongated rhythm gives what were originally passing notes a ton more weight this quick walk up from a to c sharp that leaps up to f sharp in the second phrase now sees each note lending a new color to the underlying chord the second over this a major the sharp fourth over this g and the juicy ninth over this e minor [Music] the track builds and builds as you soar up to the mountain summit getting close enough to the summit cues a shift in the music into this climactic section the theme is played by the violins in a super high register shifted up to start on the third of the tonic b minor chord d the contour of the line is maintained making it clear that this is still the main theme of the game but basing the theme around the key's relative major note d gives it a much brighter more uplifting feeling [Music] the second phrase of this variation of the theme extends the leap up of a fourth from the original into a fifth soaring up to a high b this melodic apex hits just as the harmony unexpectedly shifts to the flat ii chord c major giving us a c major seven chord that totally knocks us on our feet [Music] the flat 2 is a dissonant note to emphasize even more so considering that this is the first note in the piece from outside the key of b minor but the lush major 7 sound in the strings offsets that dissonance into something incredibly moving we've come a long way from the moody cello solo in the desert and this huge emotionally potent string orchestra arrangement feels like a culmination of the player's entire journey up to this point journey's main theme may seem simple but to write one phrase that can support so many different arrangements and emotions from the lowest lows to the highest highs takes an artistry and craftsmanship that puts wintery a step above his contemporaries in the modern video game music space in my humble opinion the careful balance of clarity simplicity depth flexibility not to mention creating something that doesn't just fit the tone of the game but contributes a large part of the game's identity it's one of the hardest things in the world to write a great theme and this guy's just been knocking them out of the park for over a decade now if you haven't already checked out all of the content austin wintry's put out on his own channel you should there are tons of scores to his pieces and loads of interviews and talks where he outlines his thought processes for different sections of different scores big thanks to patrons crispy nick shadell and monique for requesting a video on journey and or austin wintery in general and thank you all for watching you can join these good people over on my patreon here or follow me on my twitter here thanks again for watching and i'll see you all next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 159,915

Keywords: Austin Wintory, video game music, composing music, how to write music, how to write video game music, journey soundtrack, nascense, apotheosis, descent, abzu soundtrack, to know water, orchestral music, classical music, assassin's creed syndicate music, erica soundtrack, banner saga music, how to write a main theme, music theory, 8-bit Music Theory

Id: lBV1Uk5UkJ4

Length: 20min 16sec (1216 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020