Top 5 Traits of Battle Themes from Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal

[Music] you may or may not know that each month I pick one topic from requests made by my highest tier patrons and make a video about it this month I want to combine two of September's video requests into one I know I know I'm criminally behind patron Jamie asked for me to cover the pokemon gold and silver soundtracks and longtime patron Bobby Jane DeForge requested a how to build a Pokemon encounter song video so in order to make sure that they're both just slightly disappointed I'm going to take a look at the top five characteristics of battle music from the second generation Pokemon games number one the first and most obvious characteristic that all Pokemon battle music shares is that toolbar chromatic sixteenth-note noise barrage it may be a surprise to you that composer junichi Masuda wrote a new version of this intro for each of the encounter themes in these games it certainly surprised me when I first found that out because they all achieve such a similar musical effect this is because of a couple of things almost every version uses the 16th note pattern of a chromatically descending 4 note figure that descends itself by whole notes this is usually contrasted by a single 3 or 4 note chromatic motif in another voice many of the themes also use one or more pedal tones as well usually a high one or a low one or both at the same time these pedal tones are sometimes contrasted by a slower chromatically descending line as you can see in the offbeat bass notes in the gym leader battle theme the team rocket battle theme even has two eighth notes in the top and bottom voices that chromatically ascend and descend simultaneously [Applause] in all of these cases it's clear that the goal is to disorient the listener in the trainer battle theme for example you get a high a flat pedal while this chromatic motif appears in two voices moving chromatically towards each other all over the classic chromatic pattern I first mentioned [Applause] [Music] that's hard to parse or take the wild Pokemon theme even though the gameboy color sound chip could only produce three notes at once it kind of implies five different voices an F pedal in the bass a chromatically falling line starting on D our classic pattern starting on C a static chromatic motif moving up to contrast the two falling lines and a high G pedal note to top it all off [Music] there is no part of this that sounds like the voices are working together in any capacity and it comes at you so fast and sudden that it totally throws you off I think this is brilliant in the way that it simulates the fight-or-flight feeling that you'd probably experience if a wild Pokemon actually did up here in front of you to rhythmically each theme makes heavy use of this three note rhythm which can be seen clearly laid out in some form and every single one of these Tunes intros [Music] [Applause] [Music] besides this it also seems to be the rhythmic basis for each main melodic statement see how it's used either directly in the melody in the team rocket trainer or wild Pokemon battle themes [Music] or how it's used in counter lines and transition sections like in the rival and gym leader battle themes [Applause] [Music] you can also find this rhythm implied by this type of bass figure which we see in the gym leader rival and Team Rocket battlefields [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes the base is just playing straight eighth notes but the way the line is structured accentuates this rhythm speaking of base figures this leads us to number three each encounter theme uses a distinct style of bass line which gives them all the same kind of Drive the majority of the time each tune uses this vaguely disco sounding eighth note bass line either jumping from the root of the chord to the fifth or vice-versa it's simple but it definitely gets the job done establishing the harmony of each bar clearly without getting in the way of the busy upper voices [Music] when the top two voices settle down for something a little more subdued like long-held notes or repetitive rhythmic jabs the bass fills in the musical space by transforming into a busier winding eighth note line that outlines the harmony as well as usually highlighting some colorful extensions [Music] these flat ninths outlined by these base figures actually bring us to our next point the battle themes in pokemon gold and silver are all excellent examples of how to use fridgey and harmony effectively Phrygian and its hallmark flat second scale degree is one of the most unwieldy modes being too dark sounding for most musical situations but not quite dark enough for really out there spooky or dissonant stuff which tends to use Locrian or diminished sounds or just jump right into full a tonality usually the Phrygian mode gets relegated to stock Spanish sound duty [Music] but in these battle themes the Phrygian color is used to give the music an edge that's really effective in setting the tone of a tense battle there are two ways that the music brings out the sound of the Phrygian mode through the use of the flat two chord in a minor key like in the wild pokemon trainer and lance or red battle themes [Music] [Applause] [Music] and by using the flat second scale degree over the tonic minor chord like in a gym leader rival and team rocket battle themes [Music] [Music] it's not like each theme is entirely written using the Phrygian mode or anything they all feature a ton of interesting harmonic twists cool modulations or just weird collections of notes that are really hard to label but the Phrygian sound is one that appears so frequently between the themes that it becomes part of the identity of Pokemon battle music in general now finally number five this last one is a little harder to categorize than the others but it's just as important junichi Masuda knows when the music has to take a break yes these are battle teams and they're supposed to be intense but if it was all pounding bass lines and dark Phrygian harmony all the time it would eventually just devolve into noise in each of these themes you'll find at least one spot where the music brings the energy down to a simmer with half or whole note melodies and lighter less dissonant harmony before using that space that it creates to ramp up tension to a climax here listen to these and see what I mean [Music] welp that was my first ever weirdly specific top five list hopefully you found that informative or interesting in some way if you want to follow me on twitter you can find me at 8-bit music theory and if you'd like to support this channel you can check out my patreon page here thanks again to patrons Jamie and Bobby Jane to forage for the suggestions thanks to you all for watching and I'll see you all in the next one [Music]

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 239,290

Keywords: 8 bit music theory, 8bit, 8-bit, Music Theory, Theory, Music, Video game music, VGM, game music, soundtrack, battle music, themes, battle, encounter, pokemon, gen 2, gold, silver, rocket, team rocket, rival, gym leader, trainer, wild pokemon, theme, top 5

Id: fWrcc9VSc5Y

Length: 10min 15sec (615 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 20 2017