7 Teorias Musicais do Tema Principal De "Final Fantasy VII" - Parte II

7 Music Theory Lessons from the Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII - Part II

Lesson III: Cadences

Why this lesson is important:

Most music will do two things very well: create tension, and resolve that tension.  Cadences help our music have a sense of resolution or finality at the end of a section or piece.  If you’re already writing music, you’re already using cadences – you just might not know which cadences you’re using – and how often.  This lesson helps you understand how to bring a piece/section back “home,” using a cadence, how you can trick your listeners and take them in an unexpected direction, and more.

The Lesson:

A cadence usually refers to the chord progressions located at the end of a passage or piece of music, and will often refer specifically to the last two, three, or four chords of that music.  There are a few different types of cadences that we can use depending on the situation or desired effect, but for this post I’ll be talking about two specific cadences that appear in the main theme from Final Fantasy VII.

An authentic cadence is when a passage or piece ends with a V – I chord progression.  This is the most common cadence because it’s a very strong progression that sounds very natural to most listeners.  In the Final Fantasy VII theme, you can hear a perfect cadence at the end of the most familiar section:

Do you hear how the chords and melody work together to gently bring you to the end?  That’s an authentic cadence, baby!  If you play an instrument and know a few pop songs, you’ll find that most of them end in this way.

A deceptive cadence, on the other hand, tricks the listener by setting them up to EXPECT an authentic V – I cadence… but ends on an unexpected chord instead, leaving the listener hanging.  A commonly-used deceptive cadence is the V – vi cadence, during which the listener expects to hear a I chord after the V chord but instead hears the music resolve in a vi chord.  Not only are they tricked, but they are tricked and left to wallow in a minor chord instead of a happy, resolute major chord.  Mwahahaha…

After building up the excitement of the piece for awhile, Uematsu uses a deceptive cadence to end a section on a vi chord.  Since we’ve heard a V – I cadence with this part of the melody several times by this point, the vi is a total curve ball – which makes it interesting.  More importantly, this minor vi chord sets us up nicely for the next section, which is much darker and more ominous than the rest of the piece:

How you can use this lesson:

Obviously, if you’re looking to end a piece or section as resolutely as possible, you should probably use the authentic cadence: V-I.  Having said that, you should also take a look at how often you’re using V – I cadences in your music already.  If you find yourself ending every single piece you write with a V – I progression, it might be time to do a little more reading on cadences and harmonic progression so you can keep things interesting.  Also, gaming music is unique in that a lot it loops – indefinitely!  This creates an interesting challenge, and knowing a bit about cadences can help you manage them more effectively to end sections, pieces, or lead into looping sections.  For a great example of a unique cadence leading into a loop, listen to Barret’s theme.  Pay close attention to the very unconventional cadence which throws a very desperate, pained emotion into the music for about 15 seconds before the otherwise positive-sounding piece repeats itself.

Finally, it’s important to keep the melody in mind when approaching a cadence to avoid a train wreck.  Your ear will probably avoid this problem for you if you’re writing the melody and chords at the same time, but you don’t want to accidentally paint yourself into a corner with a melody that’s very difficult to harmonize at the end of a section.  Regardless of how cool the last 2 bars of melody may sound by themselves, your entire piece may suffer if you’re forced to harmonize them with a weak cadence.  This is especially important when composing the melody by itself before touching the harmony, as it will be more difficult to “hear” how a melody will lead from one section into another (Happily, I’ve found this to be one of those things that you can hear when you’re doing it well, but easily miss when you’re doing it poorly).

Lesson IV: Ostinatos (or, Ostinati)

Why this lesson is important:

If you’ve listened to any video game music, you’ve probably heard several ostinatos. Ostinatos are massively useful – especially in game audio – because they can act as an anchor for the listener while simultaneously driving the rythmic pulse of the music.  Ostinatos probably made up a large percentage of early game audio, which needed to leverage repetitive rhythmic patterns to provide a harmonic progression while supplementing the percussion of the music.  If you’re writing chip tune music, you may already be using ostinatos without even realizing it and if you’re aware of what they are and their function you can make more deliberate choices in your tracks.  For more “modern” game scores, the function of providing an anchor – even for a single section within a larger piece – becomes a powerful tool to create contrast or provide a thematic effect without actually having a theme.

The Lesson:

What is an ostinato, exactly?  Basically, a musical phrase that repeats itself throughout a piece of music – usually within the same instrument/voice, and often at the same pitch.  Ostinatos might take several forms, including a baseline pattern that repeats itself across a chord progression, a stand-out percussion phrase, or the left-hand piano part in a good old fashioned boogie.  This may seem like an extremely broad definition, but hopefully a few examples can help reign us in a bit.

In Final Fantasy 7’s theme, we’re going to focus on the section that follows the 2nd video from Lesson III above.  After Uematsu dumps us into a minor key, the piece transitions from a hopeful, lush sound to a very ominous, foreboding section.  In my opinion, the use of an obstinate in the piano (OST version) or bass strings (orchestral version) creates most of the tension that can be felt during this section, which you can hear below:

Not only does this little phrase reinforce the fact that we’re in a minor key, but it stays on the same pitches throughout most of the section to specifically reinforce the Emin chord (which is a “i” chord, using Roman numerals).  In addition to reinforcing this new tonality, this creates tension throughout the section as the obstinate continues to reinforce an E minor chord while the rest of the music throws in chords like a crunchy-sounding Emin6 (an Emin chord, plus a C# note) or an F#maj chord:

Ostinatos are extremely prevalent in video game music.  In the early days of game audio, the hardware limited composers to a handful of channels and possible sounds to work with.  For example, the NES had 5 available sound channels – two of which were usually reserved specifically for the lead melody and harmony.  That leaves 3 channels/lines to establish the harmonic progression AND the drive the pulse of the music.  Yikes.  Keep in mind that each of these channels were capable of playing a single note at a time, which provided an even greater challenge!