This article discusses Nobuo Uematsu’s leitmotivic soundtracks to the 16-bit Final Fantasy role-playing games. I identify five distinct techniques within these soundtracks whereby a game’s main theme is musically connected to a single character theme: eponymous omission, motivic networking, thematic hybridization, associative troping, and the double main theme. I argue that these different techniques demonstrate how a character’s individual journey reflects the story’s underlying literary theme, which is itself represented by the musical main theme. I conduct topical, motivic, formal, and semiotic analyses of the soundtracks to FFIV–VI and discuss how their character themes, though mostly non-transformative, engage in a larger leitmotivic network of inter-related thematic families that interact with their main themes in dramatically meaningful ways. This analysis demonstrates subtle ways in which leitmotivic scoring can heighten one’s narratological understanding of a story, and may be useful for those seeking to arrange video game soundtracks into programmatic music that tells or retells a game’s story.
{"title":"Leitmotivic Strategies in Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Fantasy Soundtracks","authors":"Richard J. Anatone","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article discusses Nobuo Uematsu’s leitmotivic soundtracks to the 16-bit Final Fantasy role-playing games. I identify five distinct techniques within these soundtracks whereby a game’s main theme is musically connected to a single character theme: eponymous omission, motivic networking, thematic hybridization, associative troping, and the double main theme. I argue that these different techniques demonstrate how a character’s individual journey reflects the story’s underlying literary theme, which is itself represented by the musical main theme. I conduct topical, motivic, formal, and semiotic analyses of the soundtracks to FFIV–VI and discuss how their character themes, though mostly non-transformative, engage in a larger leitmotivic network of inter-related thematic families that interact with their main themes in dramatically meaningful ways. This analysis demonstrates subtle ways in which leitmotivic scoring can heighten one’s narratological understanding of a story, and may be useful for those seeking to arrange video game soundtracks into programmatic music that tells or retells a game’s story.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43637914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900–1960 Get access Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900–1960. Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022, ix + 283 pages. Michèle Duguay Michèle Duguay mduguay@iu.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music Theory Spectrum, mtad014, https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad014 Published: 19 June 2023
{"title":"Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900–1960","authors":"Michèle Duguay","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad014","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900–1960 Get access Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers: Concert Music, 1900–1960. Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft. New York: Oxford University Press, 2022, ix + 283 pages. Michèle Duguay Michèle Duguay mduguay@iu.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music Theory Spectrum, mtad014, https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad014 Published: 19 June 2023","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135336408","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal Article Contributors Get access Music Theory Spectrum, Volume 45, Issue 1, Spring 2023, Pages 179–180, https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad004 Published: 26 April 2023
{"title":"Contributors","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad004","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Contributors Get access Music Theory Spectrum, Volume 45, Issue 1, Spring 2023, Pages 179–180, https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad004 Published: 26 April 2023","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135518445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this rejoinder, I elaborate on the uncomfortable and foundational call of “Making a Home of the Society for Music Theory, Inc.”: the necessity of abolition as at once the destruction of our colonial/capitalist worlding and the building of a life-affirming world otherwise. Bringing to the fore a couple of backgrounds to my writing—early career transience and building community with unhoused residents of Norman, Oklahoma—I clarify that my call is not for inclusion (and enclosure) within this colonial/capitalist worlding, but our collective liberation from it. Ultimately, I hope this response might inspire readers to build life-affirming, abolitionist worlds wherever they find themselves.
{"title":"Take Care","authors":"Stephen Lett","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this rejoinder, I elaborate on the uncomfortable and foundational call of “Making a Home of the Society for Music Theory, Inc.”: the necessity of abolition as at once the destruction of our colonial/capitalist worlding and the building of a life-affirming world otherwise. Bringing to the fore a couple of backgrounds to my writing—early career transience and building community with unhoused residents of Norman, Oklahoma—I clarify that my call is not for inclusion (and enclosure) within this colonial/capitalist worlding, but our collective liberation from it. Ultimately, I hope this response might inspire readers to build life-affirming, abolitionist worlds wherever they find themselves.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41509506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction: review of An Unnatural Attitude: Phenomenology in Weimar Musical Thought. By Benjamin Steege","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad002","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45919478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines how changing time signatures correspond with metric dissonance and the flux in metric consonance in Brahms’s songs, with a particular focus on expressive dimensions and Brahms’s relationship with historical metric modes. “Unbewegte laue Luft” is an extreme case of metric dissonance, juxtaposing meters of antithetical metric relations to underscore equally antithetical poetic meanings. Meters in “Wir müssen uns trennen” maintain duple relations but explore metric depth and the relative strength of different metric levels, showing consonant metric flux resembling century-old metric practices such as tempo giusto and changing Taktteile. By demonstrating how dissonant and consonant meter changes set up different degrees of temporal contrasts, this article explores notated meter changes as text-setting tools and how eighteenth-century metric theory can enrich our understanding of these tools.
本文研究了勃拉姆斯歌曲中变化的时间特征是如何与韵律不和声和韵律和的变化相对应的，特别关注表现力维度和勃拉姆斯与历史韵律模式的关系。“unbewete laue Luft”是一个极端的韵律失调的例子，将对立的韵律关系并置，以强调同样对立的诗歌意义。《Wir m ssen uns trennen》中的拍子保持着双拍子关系，但探索了不同拍子层次的深度和相对强度，表现出类似于百年来的拍子实践(如tempo giusto和changing Taktteile)的辅音拍子流动。通过展示不协和和辅音的拍子变化如何建立不同程度的时间对比，本文探讨了作为文本设置工具的记谱拍子变化，以及18世纪的度量理论如何丰富我们对这些工具的理解。
{"title":"Extreme Meter Changes and Tempo Giusto in Some Songs by Brahms","authors":"Wing Lau","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtac020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtac020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines how changing time signatures correspond with metric dissonance and the flux in metric consonance in Brahms’s songs, with a particular focus on expressive dimensions and Brahms’s relationship with historical metric modes. “Unbewegte laue Luft” is an extreme case of metric dissonance, juxtaposing meters of antithetical metric relations to underscore equally antithetical poetic meanings. Meters in “Wir müssen uns trennen” maintain duple relations but explore metric depth and the relative strength of different metric levels, showing consonant metric flux resembling century-old metric practices such as tempo giusto and changing Taktteile. By demonstrating how dissonant and consonant meter changes set up different degrees of temporal contrasts, this article explores notated meter changes as text-setting tools and how eighteenth-century metric theory can enrich our understanding of these tools.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46292489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines a unique family of six-four sonorities in the works of Richard Strauss. These six-fours typically sound with 6^, 4^, or 2^ (or modal variants thereof) in the bass but occur immediately prior to a cadential dominant, and thus impart a sense of predominant function despite their unstable inversion. In examining how the sixth and fourth behave, I suggest that rather than hearing these chords as consonant inversions of a triad, they can instead be interpreted as accented six-fours; in other words, reading the sixth and fourth as dissonances, whose resolution to a fifth and third is deferred to occur over a subsequent harmony. I suggest that the sense of fragmentation that coalesces through the process of suspension creates a conflict between phenomenological and analytic hearings of this music, which reflects a type of modernism typically overlooked in Strauss’s late music.
{"title":"The Predominant Six-Four in the Late Music of Richard Strauss","authors":"Kyle Hutchinson","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtac018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtac018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines a unique family of six-four sonorities in the works of Richard Strauss. These six-fours typically sound with 6^, 4^, or 2^ (or modal variants thereof) in the bass but occur immediately prior to a cadential dominant, and thus impart a sense of predominant function despite their unstable inversion. In examining how the sixth and fourth behave, I suggest that rather than hearing these chords as consonant inversions of a triad, they can instead be interpreted as accented six-fours; in other words, reading the sixth and fourth as dissonances, whose resolution to a fifth and third is deferred to occur over a subsequent harmony. I suggest that the sense of fragmentation that coalesces through the process of suspension creates a conflict between phenomenological and analytic hearings of this music, which reflects a type of modernism typically overlooked in Strauss’s late music.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41621331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article seeks to explain the meaning and function of Mersenne’s exhaustive lists of note permutations. As is true for all of Mersenne’s labors, the permutations are at their deepest level explicable in terms of his religious commitments—in this case, his faith in the ineffable plenitude of God’s creation. Yet, Mersenne also intended the permutations and the combinatorial procedures that generate them to serve as the foundation of a pedagogy of compositional invention. That pedagogy, this article proposes, is tacitly informed by the rhetorical notion of copia, most comprehensively theorized by Erasmus in his influential De copia.
{"title":"Combinatorics, Composition, Copia: Mersenne’s Permutations as Rhetoric of Abundance","authors":"André Redwood","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtac026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtac026","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article seeks to explain the meaning and function of Mersenne’s exhaustive lists of note permutations. As is true for all of Mersenne’s labors, the permutations are at their deepest level explicable in terms of his religious commitments—in this case, his faith in the ineffable plenitude of God’s creation. Yet, Mersenne also intended the permutations and the combinatorial procedures that generate them to serve as the foundation of a pedagogy of compositional invention. That pedagogy, this article proposes, is tacitly informed by the rhetorical notion of copia, most comprehensively theorized by Erasmus in his influential De copia.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42287058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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