{"title":"Leitmotivic Strategies in Nobuo Uematsu’s Final Fantasy Soundtracks","authors":"Richard J. Anatone","doi":"10.1093/mts/mtad009","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n 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":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/mts/mtad009","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
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.
期刊介绍:
A leading journal in the field and an official publication of the Society for Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum features articles on a wide range of topics in music theory and analysis, including aesthetics, critical theory and hermeneutics, history of theory, post-tonal theory, linear analysis, rhythm, music cognition, and the analysis of popular musics. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary articles revealing intersections with topics in other fields such as ethnomusicology, mathematics, musicology, philosophy, psychology, and performance. For further information about Music Theory Spectrum, please visit the Society for Music Theory homepage.