Into the Score - August 22, 2008


INTRO

(PROLOGUE ~TO AN ANCIENT LAND~)

"Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation 2 is arguably this year's best video game -- in great part because it so roundly rejects most of what we expect a video game to be." - Chris Kohler

(http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2005/10/69334)

I'm Kenley Kristofferson... and this is Into the Score.

Happy August, listeners! It's Kenley here, from Into the Score, which is the only podcast solely devoted to the academic study of video game music! Hope that your summer has been going swimmingly! Please forgive the hiatus of July from the show, as I was in Japan, but now am back! The trip was a blinding success and now I'm back in Canada, ready to dive into Episode 22 of our edutaining podcast! In this episode of ITS, we'll be studying Sony's release of Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation 2, we'll talk a bit about ambience in music  as well as part one-of-two on the big idea that is the symphony orchestra... and trust me, it's big, that's why it's two parts! But first, let's jog everyone's memory as to how to reach the show!

(CONTACT INFO)

CONTACT INFO

Beauty! The address for Into the Score is www.intothescore.com, as always.  If you would like to reach me, you can always send me a note at Kenley@intothtescore.com, so k-e-n-l-e-y@intothescore.com! We're also on iTunes, so you can subscribe through the site or through iTunes! Also, there is a comment section on every post, so if you want to leave your ideas, comments, criticisms, debates... you name it! Definitely do it! I always reply as well, so if you leave a comment, always come back and check out the response, it's all about discussion in the comment section! 

I've got more emails than ever before between Episode 21 and now, with more comments coming on the board than ever before and I just want to say that I really appreciate you all taking the time to post on your favourite episodes, because then other people post, I'll post too and then we get some serious discussion going on, and that's how we build a community, you know?

Before we dig into 2005, let's get serious and get our blood pumping, this is "~Violent Encounter~ Battle with the Colossus," from Roar of the Earth, which is the name of the Shadow of the Colossus OST.  It's intense, so get on your horse, draw out our sword and get ready.

(VIOLENT ENCOUNTER)

2005 IN THE WORLD

2005 began with in with January's inauguration of George W. Bush for his second term of election in the United States, while Iraq saw their first free parliamentary elections since 1958! Pope John Paul II passes, while Pope Benedict the XVI ascends the position.  The identity of the mysterious "Deep Throat" persona during the Watergate scandal is confirmed to be W. Mark Felt, Blink 182 announces that their band will be on "indefinite hiatus" and the world triumphs at the first successful human face transplant.  Wow...

2005 IN GAMING

With regards to gaming, 2005 was a year of video game controversy, with particular notice towards ratings, censorship and the ESRB.  I mean, this has always been a problem, this year seemed to climax, beginning on the sixth of March when topical news program, 60 Minutes profiled many games since the beginning, including Death Race, Carmageddon,   
And Mortal Kombat, then leading up to Grand Theft Auto, which I'm sure that we're all familiar with.  GameSpot did a stellar study on the history of censorship in video games and the link for that is in the shownotes... definitely worth it!

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6090892/p-1.html

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, GTA: Liberty City Stories came out for PSP that year.  That else came out? Lots and lots.  Most notably: God of War, Lego Star Wars, Nintendogs, Age of Empires 3, Call of Duty 4, Civilization IV, Dragon Quest VIII aaaaand, a re-release of Final Fantasy IV... lots of numbers in that one.  There's just so much to say about this year that I'm not going to dwell on it too, too much.  Though I will also say, that the world received the Xbox this year... which is pretty cool.  

Also, because we're covering 2005 in gaming, it's fairly obvious that Shadow of the Colossus came out in this year as well.  But, we actually can't dive into it quite yet, because there is a little bit of pre-history to this came, particularly with regards to Sony Computer Entertainment (or SCEI) and the ICO project.  To let your brains percolate on that, this is "Commandment," and it plays near the beginning of the game.  It's from the OST and it has a very pensive feel, with the opening played by, what I think, is a shakuhachi, which is a traditional Japanese wooden flute.  Behind the melody, we get this beautiful sweeps of synthesizer, almost like waves coming onto a shore, quenching the thirst of the beach.  It's by Ko Otani and it's called "Commandment."

(COMMANDMENT)

"TEAM ICO" AND THE ICO PROJECT

That was "Commandment," by Ko Otani from the Shadow of the Colossus OST.  Okay, so SotC was developed and published by Sony Compter Entertainment.  More specifically, it was developed by a single studio within Sony, called "International Production Studio 1."  While they've produced a good chunk of games, they are really known for two, Shadow of the Colossus and it's quasi-prequel, Ico.  

For a quick run-down, Ico is a story of a boy born with horns, which his village considers as a bad omen, so they lock him in a sarcophagus and take him away.  However, as he's being carried away, he rocks the sarcophagus and breaks free, but knocks himself out in the process.  While being knocked out, he dreams of this dark castle with a long and winding staircase, and at the top of this staircase, he sees a girl locked away.  When he comes to, he finds himself at the bottom of this same staircase and finds a princess named Yorda on top.  When he rescues Yorda, her evil queen mother locks the doors to the castle, so Ico and Yorda are forced to find other means to escape.

There is definitely a lot more to the game than that, but that's the plot summary.  During GameSpot's video review of Ico, reviewer Miguel Lopez talks very little about the plot or story at all, and says that the real beauty of the game lies in its nuance: Its animation, it's soft lighting, its very subtle and downplayed musical score... sentiments to which I agree.  The review address is in the shownotes!

(http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6375338907169418611&hl=en)

STORY

So now that we know a bit of background, I have a brief paragraph about the game from the wiki - it's very short and after we read the description of the game, we'll find out why.

"The game focuses on a young man named Wander who must travel across a vast expanse on horseback and defeat sixteen beings, known as colossi, to restore the life of a girl. The game is unusual within the action-adventure genre in that there are no towns or dungeons to explore, no characters with which to interact, and no enemies to defeat, other than the colossi.[4][5] Shadow of the Colossus has been described as a puzzle game, as each colossus' weakness must be identified and exploited before it can be defeated."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_of_the_colossus)

Not very much, eh? However, the catch is that there really isn't a lot of information given within the game, so I suppose I'll fill in some blanks, but not without playing some music first.  This is "Grotesque Figures" and it plays during one of the Sixteen Colossus battles.  It's by Koh Otani... "Grotesque Figures."

(GROTESQUE FIGURES)

At the beginning, you see Wander carrying a large object wrapped in a blanket while riding on his horse, Agro.  As he's riding, during the game's introduction, we see this incredibly open world where the game takes place - the environment is really one of the most descriptive characters in the game.  Wander eventually arrives at a temple, enters it and lays the object on an altar.  As he unravels the blanket, we see that it's a human girl, whose name is Mono.  As her face is revealed, dark and shadow-like figures approach him from all sides, but he sweeps them off at all sides with his light-catching sword, which we later learn is "enchanted" and "ancient."  After the figures slip away, we hear this booming voice that comes from the ceiling - its name is Dormin and it says that it will give back the life to Mono on one condition: To destroy the sixteen Colossi that roam the land.  So, that is your task in the game.

Some of the things that make the game special were listed above in the wiki's little abstract there - the only thing that you do in the game is ride around, find the colossus, figure out how to beat it, kill it then do it all over again.  Again, as stated above: No towns, no dialogue (well, some, but not really), no monsters to kill outside of the colossus, no experience points... but I think that this is the game's strength because it puts the focus on two things - the landscape and the colossus.  The lack of other stimuli allow the player to really realize the importance of the game's task at hand, as well as the utter beauty and artistry of the game's world.  Aaron Russin, who runs the blog and podcast "Blue and Brown Books" once quipped to me once that "anyone who does not believe that video games are art has not played Shadow of the Colossus," which I truly believe.

Let's put the environment aside, though, let's talk about these Colossi.  No wait, I have a better idea, let's listen to some.  This is one of the more actively terrifying ones, it's called "A Messenger from Behind" and it plays during the 10th colossus, also known as the Sandworm!

(MESSENGER FROM BEHIND)


COMPOSER

Pretty scary stuff! Before we dig into the music of this game, let's find out a little bit more about the man behind it, Mr. Ko Otani.

Ko Otani was born on May 1st of 1957 in Tokyo, Japan.  After being through university, he became one of the founding members of "Imagine Music," which is a music production company, but has more recently been acclaimed for its film scoring and orchestrations - most of which going through Otani.  He began work as a composer of anime music, breaking out with the 1987 manga-to-anime production of "City Hunters," then gained further work to the series "Spy Games" (not the movie, the series) and one of my favourite animes, "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing."  As well as others, obviously.

With regards to video games, his first project was a 1995 shooter called "Philosoma," developed by G Artist and published by Sony.  While the game was one of the first PlayStation shooter titles, it didn't earn Otani any sort of accolades.  However, some of his more reputable video game scores include Sky Odyssey, which is an action/adventure-type flight simulator for the PlayStation 2, released in 2001.   In terms of gaming, his most notable score is, without question, Shadow of the Colossus.

With that said, it's down to the music.

MUSIC

The information taken for that section was cited from the biography of Ko Otani at SquareEnixMusic.com and the link for the specific page is below.  Thanks for doing your research, team!

(http://www.squareenixmusic.com/composers/other/otani.shtml)

Okay, music time.  Thus far, we've made a few observations: The game is a love story between Wander and Mono - she's died, he needs to bring her back to life.  All that there is in this whole game is a huge landscape, Wander, a temple where Mono and Dormin (the scary voice guy) are and sixteen massive beasts... oh, and your horse.  This was done for a reason and it will lead us into our next section, which is figuring out how the score is set up within the framework of the game.  To get you thinking about that, this "Sign of the Colossus," and it plays before we start a battle... it plays before a few fights that take place on the ground.  

(SIGN OF THE COLOSSUS)

That was "Sign of the Colossus" by Ko Otani.  In this game, there are two important musical atmospheres - there is music and then, there is the absence of music.  The designers of the game have stripped this game down to its most fundamental parts, making each part that much more important.  That is to say, while music can often be powerful, sometimes it's the absence of music that makes a scene truly powerful.  

Excluding the introductory sequence, the ending and when you die in battle, music only plays when you approach a colossus (if there is a cutscene), when you enter into battle with one (as in, it sees you and wants to take you out), then changes when you start to solve the puzzle (by mounting or stabbing it), then when it dies and the idol shatters in the temple.  Okay, that's a lot to figure out, but if you think about compared to scores studied in past episodes, especially RPGs, this really isn't that much music.  

For example, it takes you quite sometime to figure out where the colossus is, so you spend a considerable number of minutes on the world map... on a very silent world map.  Now, for most RPGs, this is breaking the cardinal rule... in those types of games, the Overworld theme is usually the theme of the game, the most important piece! But in Colossus, it's not even there.  

So a question, if you spend so much time on the map, why not have music? To quote Chris Kohler from before, "Shadow of the Colossus for the PlayStation 2 is arguably this year's best video game -- in great part because it so roundly rejects most of what we expect a video game to be." I actually want to quote him one more time from his same review of the game: "Colossus truly excels at manipulating your emotions. You'll go from feeling a sense of loneliness and despair as you gallop through desolate plains to feeling jubilant exhilaration as you cling to the back of a bucking, thrashing colossus and deliver the death blow."  The sense of loneliness really is there, the designers aren't looking to play on the emotions that are present, but rather, they're trying to play on the emotions that aren't there.  This isn't a landscape that's lush with colour with a valiant knight off to save the kingdom, it's the story of a boy who's lost his love and has traveled to the ends of the Earth, a forbidden area, to slay impossibly-strong demons and revive his sacrificed belle...alone.  I'm sure not jealous of him.  No towns, no enemies, just you and 16 colossi.  It's the desolation that this absence of music, coupled with a detailed visuals and tragic story that really convey, and that's what this game is about.

Well... at least until you get to a Colossus.  Alright, I'm going to walk you through that really long list from before.  When you first get a Colossus, a cutscene usually takes place.  Each Colossus is different, coming from a different area of the map, looking different, different weaknesses, very unique.  So, let's pretend that we're going to slay the 7th colossus, which is an undersea serpent.  When we arrive at the scene, a lake underneath a large stone bridge, we hear this... "Lakeside."

(LAKESIDE)

After it's done playing, it's back to silence.  It's okay, we heard it, so we know that we're on the right track.  Okay, running, running, running, jumping, running.  Hmmm... big spiral walkway up a tower, seems like a good idea.  Alright, now there's this little diving board a big lake underneath, with some sparkly dealers in the water.  Well, can't go over it, can't go around it, guess we're going for a dip.  We hit the water, cutscene time and what do we see...those sparkly guys is a huge sea serpent! We haven't tried to attack it yet, but we know it's there (how could you not, it's huge).  It's just swimming, doing its thing, so Mr. Otani has decided that it's music should be more mysterious, as opposed to terrifyingly forceful.  This is "Silence ~Battle with the Colossus~.

(SILENCE ~BATTLE WITH THE COLOSSUS~)

We approach it, and you know what we should do, just to make it really mad... climb on its back! It's not happy, and that means that we're doing the right thing, so here's "In Awe of the Power ~Battle with the Colossus~)

(IN AWE OF THE POWER ~BATTLE WITH THE COLOSSUS~)

Okay, now when the music changes from the first battle music we hear (Silence) to one that's more pumping and victorious (In Awe of the Power), then we know we're on the right track.  When we finally take out the colossus, we hear this music, and it's called  "The End of the Battle."

(THE END OF THE BATTLE)

Hmmmm... you know, I was expecting something...happier.  I really don't feel good after that battle... where's my fanfare? It also begs the player to consider what they're doing... traveling to a forbidden land to wake a sealed god to revive our protagonist's love... something isn't right here.  You can really feel like this is foreshadowing a great tragedy, but you press on.  You travel back to the temple to witness the collapse of the idol representing a colossus crumble, and hear this.  "Idol Collapse."

(IDOL COLLAPSE)

Okay, now this is one vein of SotC that's been taken musically, but there's another that's a bit more intense and happens more often.  There are some colossi that are just really big humanoid giants, existing on the ground instead of in the water.  Let's say that we're going to see the 6th colossus, a huge sasquatch on land.  When we approach, we hear "Sign of the Colossus", we've heard this before.

(SIGN OF THE COLOSSUS)

Then, when we actually start the fight, we hear something very ominous - this is "Grotesque Figures ~Battle with the Colossus~"

(GROTESQUE FIGURES ~BATTLE WITH THE COLOSSUS~)

Not very cool, but the really big bass drum and low brass downbeats give us this sense of bigness and impending doom from someone way bigger than you.  Let's hear that sample one more time just to really get that message across.

(GROTESQUE FIGURES ~BATTLE WITH THE COLOSSUS~)

Now, when you grab that thing's huge beard, the music lets you know that you're on the right track and we move on to music that's substantially more exciting and valiant, this is "Opening Way,"

(OPENING WAY)

Yeah, then you slay the colossus, it dies, we hear "The End of Battle." (CLIP) and "Idol Collapse." (CLIP)

There could also be some of listeners who have played the game and are listening to the music in show, and maybe taking about 10-15 seconds to really "realize" the music that's playing... like that "oh yeah! I know that one!" moment that we all get.  The reason this happens is because the loop in the games often begin in the middle of the actual piece.  The reason why this happens is hide the looping point in the music and create a continuous flow of music for the battle.  Clever man, Mr. Otani.

To know which music plays for which boss, I've made a document that says such things, as well as what each colossus is made to resemble, like our sea serpent or sasquatch that we've just studied.  

At some point in the music section of the podcast, we delve into instrumentation; in other words, which instruments are playing the music.  If anyone remembers the presentation on video game music that I gave to the Winnipeg Video Game Development Group posted quite some time ago, I spoke about two general practices in music from video games with regards to instrumentation.  The first is what I call the "Set or Fixed Ensemble Practice," which means that all of the music is written for a particular group of instruments, so like... brass quintet, symphony orchestra, rock band... groups like that.  The second one is again, what I call the "Flexible Ensemble Practice," meaning that each piece of music is played by a different set of instruments - many (but not all) Square RPGs follow this practice.  It's a bit obvious because there really isn't a third choice - the same instruments play through a score, or different ones do, but what is important is that we understand that the composer makes a conscious choice to do one or the other in his or her score.

Shadow of the Colossuss is the former - "Fixed Ensemble," as it is scored entirely for the Symphony Orchestra.  There are some featured instruments that add to the orchestral colour palette, but first, let's dig into the symphony - in fact, it's our big idea!

(MARIO CLIP)

Mmmm... how about something more appropriate?

(SYMPHONIC MARIO)

That's better.  It's good to start by stating that, as old as the symphony is, it didn't just pop into existence.  Like most things in life, it developed over a period of time into what eventually became the symphony.

As said in the beginning of the episode, this will be a two-part big idea on the symphony orchestra, with the first part kind of describing what the symphony is, what it's made up of and how it came to be.  The second will be more about orchestration and exploiting or expanding the use of orchestral colour in video game music.  

Okay, where are we again? Oh yeah, the first part - what does the symphony sound like again? Let's play something from the OST, this is "Revived Power," and it plays when you do start do damage on a colossus.  It always plays after "Violent Encounter," and it has pretty stock orchestral instruments involved, which we'll talk about very shortly! Ko Otani's "Revived Power."

(REVIVED POWER)

Okay, so it's important to note that orchestral music didn't start like that...half of those instruments weren't even invented yet.  Throughout the Middle Ages with the dominance of the church, vocal music had been developing at a steady pace with the church employing or housing composers who were pushing the limit of music at the time.  However, that doesn't mean that instrumental music didn't exist, it just didn't play as prominent of a role in social culture AND was simply thought of in a different way by the performers, who improvised... well... a lot of it.  To further illustrate this, the next passage is from Donald Grout and Claude Palisca's textbook A History of Western Music under the heading "Instrumental Music of the Sixteenth Century" (yawn)

"During the hundred years between 1450 and 1550, distinct styles, genres and forms of instrumental music emerged.  Independent instrumental music existed earlier, of course, in the form of dances, fanfares, and the like, but since performers played from memory or improvised, the music has not survived.  Much of the early written instrumental music that is extant consists of transcriptions for keyboard.  Medieval manuscripts, such as the Robertsbridge and Faenza codices, which include keyboard arrangements and elaborations of cantilenas and motets (medieval styles of music), undoubtedly represent only a fraction of the music that was written this way.  Moreover, a great deal of music written for voices was often performed instrumentally, and instruments participated with voices in the performance of polyphonic music since the Middle Ages.  So the seeming increase in instrumental music after 1450 is an illusion: It simply means that more of it was being written down."

(Grout, Donald Jay and Claude V. Palisca.  A History of Western Music.  New York: 
W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.  pgs. 205-206.)

And that was from "A History of Western Music," by Donald Grout and Claude Palisca.  The reason why I quote it and not a more readily available source (like, say, a wiki), is that the wiki is really short and I was a bit skeptical, so I double-checked and the wiki just didn't quite have it right and the quote addresses the very discrepancy to which I speak - Instrumental music did not simply appear, it's just that no one wrote it down... However, there are grains of truth in there, so I may use it as a rough outline.

The 15th-century puts us at about the middle-to-end of the Renaissance, where a revived discovery and belief of the Classical Greek and Roman thinkers rejuvenated Western society to delve deeper into philosophy, science, reason, theatre and art.  During the Renaissance, we also see more instrumental music within houses of nobles for courtly affairs and dancing - this is what the wiki got right.  The court provided a sort of incubator for music like this to develop, but the child of instrumental music would be born with the advent of intermedi and intermezzo in Italy circa the late 16th-century!

Whoa, we just skipped a hundred years! Because this episode would be 30 years long, I'm just going to skim over what was happening in that very transitional year.  Composers such as Orlando di Lasso, William Byrd and Giovanni Palestrina (none of which any listeners may have heard of, that's fine, it was 500 years ago) really evolved their skill in a technique called "polyphony," which is writing more than one or two or three lines of music playing in harmony.  I mean, schools of composers had been doing this for a while, but never pushed quite as far as these guys.  In which case, because this music was getting thicker, it became a bit more accessible to different instrumentation - when it's just two or three people singing sacred text, it's a bit harder to hide a viol or a lute in there.  So what was starting to happen was more instruments and choristers (singers) were starting to work together.

With advents both science and music during this time, there began to be a shift in attention and detail with regards to the voice and instruments.  The Renaissance viol, a type of stringed instrument that was played with a bow, had evolved to become a different sort of beast - the violin.  From the violin, a family of violins began to emerge.  Wind instruments like the flute or the natural trumpet were starting to be perfected with regards to tone and pitch and could be used more often in solos... well, could sound good when they're used in solos.  The last thing to change within those hundred years is the concept of the voice and what the voice could do.  Performance-wise, singers were learning more about projection, vocal colour as well as virtuosity... or technical improvement.  To demonstrate virtuosity, I'll use 20th-century guitar players.  

Let's start with the 1950s, this is Scotty Moore from Elvis Presley's band playing "SOMETHING"

Okay, then we get up to Eric Clapton in the middle of the 1960s, who took some of the rock and roll roots and made it his own, especially with a special focus on guitar playing - "Layla"

Now, the late 60s into the 70s - Jimi Hendrix, one of the gods of guitar.  By this time, the guitar solo was a staple in rock tunes and Hendrix was no stranger to the instrument.  His playing, while still full of intensity and soul, became a little bit more technical than what had come before... not necessarily better or worse, just technical.  (SOMETHING)

As time progressed, the medium of the guitar solo was being pushed further and further, especially with bands like Led Zeppelin or __________, who carried very skilled and virtuosic guitar players in the roster.  This is Jimmy Page playing the solo for _________
(JIMMY PAGE)

Now, guitar was on a steady course until so until the end of the 1970s, when something happened that the ring did not intend, so to say...From their self-titled release (1978?), this is Eddie Van Halen playing the first song on their first album... "Eruption."

This changed the way that guitar was played and took playing the guitar to a whole different place.  The ability to move and manipulate an instrument is called "facility," and his facility on the instrument is...well... it speaks for himself.  Now, as long-winded as that was, the concept of virtuosity is important here, because it's one of the hallmarks of the era AFTER the Renaissance, called the "Baroque" era.

The reason why the concept (or idea) of virtuosity is important is because composers started to see that performers were pushing the envelope of their instruments and that they could write music that really highlighted that.  Remember how we said that a lot of Renaissance music was becoming sort of homogenous, like any instrument could play any part...well...

(ERUPTION)

I have yet to meet a vocalist who could do that... though I have seen a fiddler do it.  Anyways, the practice of writing certain parts for certain instruments is called "idiomatic writing," and I stole that term from Palisca and Grout.  As this idiomatic writing progressed, these new sorts of emotions were starting to be expressed through players that were really good and could really incite certain feelings with their instruments - this would be another mark of the Baroque Era: Making people feel things with music...imagine...

Okay, no we're going to get back to the Intermezzo and Intermedi... let's get this ship back on course.  There had been another medium that had been inciting some feelings in its audience - drama.  However, some drama would be long and involved, so you'd have to give the audience a little break, something to lighten their spirits.  This isn't to say that there was never musical drama, or dramatic musicals, because it happened in the Classical Greek times, but then the whole Dark Ages thing happened, the world forgot about them until the Renaissance and then... hey, where did all this Greek stuff come from? Music and Drama? Yeah, let's do that! 

So these Intermedi and Intermezzo were played by those who were fairly virtuosic at their instruments, the music was not a walk in the park.  So here's a question: If it were only played by people who could actually play the parts, wouldn't it have to be written for certain instruments? The answer: More often than not, yes.  So this was not just a solo thing, it was an ensemble performance.  

Eventually, these Intermedi would become standalone performances and evolve into the new Baroque style, called "Opera."  I'm not going to go too in-depth about Opera, but the first "orchestras" were assembled to play the early operas, featuring the works of Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Peri, but most of these composers used only one instrument to a part, which is often called "chamber music," but as this type of music moved throughout Europe, some countries (say, Germany, for example), favoured a bigger sound and added more instruments.  Near the middle-end of the 17th-century, there would be soloists with this very large ensemble background in a new type of composition AND according to our two musicologists (Palisca and Grout), "the most important form of music in the entire Era..."... The "concerto."

Okay, so there's a soloist, I get it... but what about this background group? Think back about 10 minutes in this podcast, there was one instrument that really started to take hold... replacing the Renaissance "viol..." got it yet? It's the violin.  It's been about 120 to 150 years now... we've covered a lot of ground, and by this time, instrument makers really started to figure out how to make some awesome violins.  Now, not only violins in one size, though, oh no... different sizes.  Ones that were a little bit bigger and played a little bit lower (viola), ones that were even bigger (violoncello, or cello) and then I thiiiink the double bass was invented then too... I'm having a tough time finding info on that, but I think that it was.  So we've covered all of the key registers, the double bass as the low end with the bass, the cello with the tenor parts, the viola on alto and the violin taking soprano...

Where am I going with this, these four core components make up the center of the orchestra.  Let's hear some baroque string stuff... this is:



Okay, I'm going to leave the analysis there...that was really intense and thanks for sticking around.  We're going to resume the analysis next episode and focus on instrumentation - how did the trumpet get into the symphony...you'll have to wait and find out. 

So strings are the core... it's true, let's check out, this is "Silence ~Battle with the Colossus~" 

(SILENCE)

There are a few instruments, but everything really focuses around the string parts, which is a general convention in orchestral music - not always, but often.  The strings really pull our emotions here, especially because they only get one motive in the first 30 seconds.  We're going to listen to that section again, and listen for the melody played in the violin, it's about six beats long.  As the violin plays it's last note of the theme, the viola picks it up and does the same thing, so it'll sound the same, just an octave lower.  After that, we hear the theme a third time, this time it's lower still, played on the cello, here's "Silence ~Battle with the Colossus~" by Ko Otani

(SILENCE 0:00 - 0:30)

To me, this is a perfect example of the "less is more" attitude of Shadow of the Colossus, it's very sparse, open, free... just like the world.

However, sometimes things are exactly as they seem, like a really huge, giant colossus coming to crush you and its intense and emotional.  Here, "more is more," most definitely.  We've heard this one before, it's called "In Awe of the Power ~Battle with the Colossus~" and listen in particular for the string parts in the opening, swinging and swirling like a whirlwind over the desolate earth.  Idiomatic writing, this part is perfect for the string players.

(AWE OF THE POWER)

So we've got these incredibly quick parts, and with regards to register... I mean, they're all over the map.  So these string players have, in their hands, this wildly dynamic instrument that can play high or low, long drawn out bowings or quick and fast runs... you name it.  Not only that, but their entire family can do that - violins, violas, cellos and basses.  So Ko Otani is writing "idiomatically" for the string parts with this.  I suppose the argument could be made that every family is like that - any member of the brass family can play long or short, high or low... or any member of the woodwind family... but I think that this is different, I mean... the strings have a bow that can glide smoothly across the strings, or just hammer the strings for a solid punch-in-the-face-style attack.

Now, other instrument families are good transition, because I'm sure that you've noticed that there are more instruments than just the strings in Otani's work.  We've got some tuba, trombone, French horn, oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, maybe some bass clarinet... and that's cool, because they're all in the orchestra too... we're going to talk about that more next episode.

What I REALLY want to talk about are the instruments he chooses that aren't normally in the orchestra.  You see, there's a bit of a catch when writing for orchestra, because everyone, everywhere writes for orchestra.

Let's have a listen to the Prologue one more time...

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

There really isn't a very big footprint of an orchestra, not until about a minute in.  Instrumentally, we start off with a plucked stringed instrument, maybe a koto (or Japanese stringed instrument) overtop of a drone of singing.  Just so you can get that sound in your head, here it is one more time.
(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

Okay, so even from just that little bit, we start to get a picture of where the game takes place.  The oriental instruments give the setting as a sort of "far away land," forgive the stereotype, but composers will often supplement their orchestras with ethnic instruments to create that effect.  Let's just listen to the first couple of seconds of that, then listen for the instrumentation that comes next.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

Did you get that feeling of distance? That's a big part of the story - you're at the ends of the Earth, you know? But the story isn't just about being far away, it's also about love.  Wander has to revive his love in a temple - which during the prologue, is his destination.  Let's hear the next part.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

So, instrumentally, we have a choir and an organ singing/playing in unison.  When I hear choir and organ, I think of church, or at least some sort of liturgical style of music.  Mythology and/or religion is a part of this too, with the spirit Dormin speaking to Wander in the temple and promising to revive Mono.  After which, we have a little flute that seems to chirp like a lonely bird, far away from home.  These three things make up the first half of the prologue, going koto, choir and organ, then flute.

It's also worthy to note that the piece itself is very sparse, meaning that it's not very complicated and there isn't really that much going on at the same time.  I think that that's important because that's the nature of the game itself, including the plot, the landscape, the gameplay... it's important to note.

Let's listen to the first minute and try to really grasp that there are only three things going on, often never at the same time, though there is a low vocal drone underneath everything.  We're listening for sparseness and those three little units (the koto, vocals/organ and little flute chirps)... if you're really sharp, listen for what happens after.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

During the intro movie, we follow an eagle soaring over a river with the sadly beautiful landscape beneath it.  Then over the second repetition, we find Wander and Agro on a mountain side, jumping a cliff.  

Remember how we said to listen to what happens after those units?  We get some thematic material in the string orchestra.  This finds us with Wander and Agro wandering through a forest, so as the orchestration focuses and isn't quite so sparse, we also focus on our protagonists instead of a vague (but beautiful) landscape.  Let's hear where this takes us, this is about a minute in.  Where we find our heroes in the woods.  Do you hear anything familiar about the end of the scene?

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

And that's the scene.  If you'll notice near the end, they take the suspension from "End of Battle" and put it in there, it sounds like this: (little clip).  

Okay, now there's one more tableau of this opening.  The sky is a pale golden and it finds Wander and Agro coming into a huge gate.  Musically, it begins with busy strings, all kind of playing off that little motive at the beginning.  In Classical music, we often call this the "development," where there isn't necessarily a lot of melodic or thematic material going on, but the music gains momentum and gets faster and louder.  This totally happens in the Prologue but, then all of a sudden, it ends.  Let's listen.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~ Tableau 3 - development)

At this point in the movie, Wander and Agro are about to enter a massive stone gate.  The sun is shining and they enter.  Upon their first steps into the gate, we hear the orchestra, the organ and the vocals all come together into a grandiose procession.  The camera swings around and we see them cross a massive bridge into a great temple, and so begins our game.  Let's listen to this third section.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~ Tableau 3)

Alright, and now, altogether... This is "Prologue ~To The Ancient Land~" by Ko Otani and its from the Shadow of the Colossus OST.

(PROLOGUE ~TO THE ANCIENT LAND~)

Thanks so much for listening to Episode 22 of "Into the Score," your comments and listenership is so appreciated and I'm thrilled to share the artistry of video game music together.  This past episode was on Shadow of the Colossus, which was developed and published by Sony and has a score by Ko Otani.  Also in this episode, we studied Ico and the symphony orchestra! 

Our next episode will continue or study of the symphony orchestra with regards to the addition of wind instruments to the strings, tone colour and pushing the envelope with a symphony.  Now, what game could possibly be good for that? Well, I have gotten a few emails about listeners wanting to hear some analysis on a game scored by Square composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, who writes around the symphony orchestra as well.  The game is Square's 1997 release, Final Fantasy Tactics, or Square Enix's 2007 release of Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.  The lineup for the next few episodes is looking quite exciting, so make sure that you stay subscribed and stay tuned! You can always find the show at http://www.intothescore.com, or on iTunes! Feel free to send me a note at any time, Kenley@intothescore.com! Thanks so much for listening and see you next time!



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