Something for #TuneTuesday which I have rarely tuned into. #PaletteMusic
Since this is on my favs list, it gets primacy of placement
Condition Green, by Hiroko Kasahara
https://animethemes.moe/anime/mobile_police_patlabor/OP2-NCBD
Watch Mobile Police Patlabor OP2 Version 1: Condition Green ~Kikyuuhasshin~ on AnimeThemes.
This #TuneTuesday 's theme is #MyGoldenOldie - the oldest song on your personal playlist.
Shamefully, even I can't weeb this one up!
I am going to count "things that there could have been an album of when they came out" because otherwise I'd have to spend a lot of time chasing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_classical_music_composers_by_era 😝
Considering when the phonograph came out and commercial recordings could start being sold, it seems likely to be a John Philip Sousa or Scott Joplin?
I'll give it here, as I used to listen to Joplin basically on repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND2rMET4MVw&list=RDND2rMET4MVw
Apparently this #TuneTuesday theme is #NonLexicalVocals
Oh no! Another excuse to post Yoko Kanno and a track from some of the best OST of all time in Macross Plus? Heaven forfend!
For a #TuneTuesday that is #WideOpenSpaces I, for once, am compelled to start non-weebishly. (Which does not mean I will ONLY...)
A composer I leaned into heavily as a young'in, and basically "equates to wide open landscapes" is Aaron Copland. And while everyone knows at least a little from cultural osmosis (like Fanfare for the Common Man), I'm here to convince you to take in a ballet. (Well, the orchestral arrangement of a ballet he composed.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Qt0AIRK-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxd1cmenki8
It's only 25 minutes, what else you got going on? 😝
First link has marvelous wide-open imagery, and the second has Copland conducting, which is super-cool.
It is overall... a lot to take in. Mountains' worth! And well worth it.
...and of course my #TuneTuesday #WideOpenSpaces weeb impulse goes here first. The most-majestic scene in anime, and a really wide-open one to boot.
Holy shnikes, with #TuneTuesday being #BigCrescendos it has happened upon one of my very favorite things, which I was recently discussing with a friend.
My form is not "volume" related, so much as "start out slow and soft, keep adding instruments and phrases, and top out right before the end of the song magnificently" and my first example of this is just a simple background track from Kimagure Orange Road
One others may have heard before is the ending music of Gundam F91, Eternal Wind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPw7lvzTY8Q (Movie version)
https://youtu.be/bPXS-74Vpnk (Kickin' Orchestral version)
...and the most-popular IP but probably a relatively-unknown album, Pray from Final Fantasy: https://youtu.be/glz2S-qWBZ8?si=vQ3bO5RCSGgOCuR5
I'll go hunt for more later, but these are my Big Three
So where did this specific enjoyment start, or rather... cement itself most-thoroughly?
If I were to apply "favorite piece" to a singular work, even today I would put forth Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave
~9 minutes of ebbs and swirls, a maelstrom of different instruments in different short movements, and multiple fantastic crescendos, some with varied held highs.
I will perhaps timecode break these down later, but in the meanwhile it's just a singularly complex but concentrated piece that shows things off uniquely.
An odd path from here to KOR? Probably. 😝
TO CONTINUE
I am not entirely sure where this attaches to other predilections, but I think it relates to my needing songs to have a sense... what I can only describe as "travel." Melodic and harmonic lines that go up and down the scales rather than staying centered around a particular point. Tempos that move, chord progressions that have some mean to them, and yes, appropriate loudness adjustments, including crecendos.
But I tended to look across movements in a single work and enjoy the high points all the more where they land compared to everywhere they've gone.
For instance, in Robert Russell Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances (which I played for Area Band in HS) it goes many places, and the crecendos in the end Rag hit more fully.
Plenty in jazz as well, but I'd want to focus on my favorite work, Central City Sketches by Benny Carter (which includes an amazing piece in "People"), the six songs it works through, and how it ends with Sky Dance (Direct links, but obviously I encourage listening to the Sketches all together, or even as part of the whole album.)
Not so notable within the single song, but much moreso when experienced as an overall work.
And if I were to give something to both a single piece AND the overall work, AND the final crescendo IN that...?
You really cannot do better than O Fortuna, in Carmina Burana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtQjsX98iGQ
The lows-to-highs are mighty, even if it is not a gradual crescendo. And it's reappearance in the Finale...? Transcendent.
...but with #BigCrescendos we would be remiss to leave off what is literally the most famous and lengthy "absolute crescendo" all time.
Maurice Ravel can be a challenging listen at the best of times. But one of his last works would become his most famous, and is essentially the purest musical crescedo possible, with both instrumentation and loudness/dynamics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh9bUD-hC0A (Live Performance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_cHyB1qdM (Scrolling orchestral score)
A simple snare line that will be repeated for the rest of the work, played as softly as possible, alongside a flute melody and plucked low strings.
Two melodies alternating, with each repeat adding more and different instruments to the "percussion rhythm" and "bass rhythm line" and melody. Ending FULL. FUCKING. OUT.
Unmatched.
I have been watching orchestral videos, the score flow, studying the structure and generally listening to Boléro more than is perhaps healthy, since yesterday. That snare ostinato apparently seeped in and took control of my brain, man. (Also, that poor snare drummer, man. 😝 )
It is fascinating to watch the extremely slow crawl through orchestral instrumentation, and how different the melody sounds when played by which leads and then which combinations later on.
And it goes on, one might say... INTERMINABLY.
There is only FINALLY a modulation, a minute before the end!
The "ending" begins in earnest 2 minutes from the end, when Melody A is played only once (instead of repeated with an instrument and volume change), a modulated Melody B, then 30s of "conclusion"
At its very loudest
Also since it looks like this is going to stick in my brain all week, I'm going to add a hugely-formative one with a weird entry point. A lot of people know In The Hall of the Mountain King, but the reason why I got it dug in first was from the first "horror game" I experienced at like 7-8 years old.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtCq53IouHk
The song was integrated into the gameplay, and got louder and faster and LOUDER AND FASTER as you were running out of time.
Meanwhile, the bottom level had a wicked-fast spider that would eat you.
So I had a close connection to this shortest-and-most-impactful-of-#BigCrescendos well before I heard it orchestrated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpUWXz9ptcc
One of the true kings.
The original friend mentioned at the top added these two to the list:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMfcGlHppc4 (parts of)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMeXzqTfNcY (basically the whole movement)
Figured that had to be added to crescendodom. We continue to be looking explicitly for crescendos only, because I did not see the "songs with exciting high points" add-on context. 😝
Also when #Bigging the #Crescendos there is an "it should go without saying" but I figure I'll say it at least once.
Call out to all the numbers--and especially the "medleys right before Intermission, leading into Act II"--of modern musicals, and who to highlight other than the perfect ur example of that, in Les Misérables?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5PzJhU8iI0 (Do You Hear the People Sing?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNNBrg4u9d0 (One Day More)
Also this has definitely not been an excuse for #NoKings posting, but hey while we're here...
A #BlackMagic #TuneTuesday you say?
Looks like I can not resist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIb7Zc-4Xrk
"Finaly: Street Dancer ni Ai wo Komete (FINALY~ストリート・ダンサーに愛をこめて)" by Yuuki Kitahara
Credits music, ending the anime OAV Black Magic M-66
Today's #TuneTuesday theme is #SteppingStonesSongs (or #SteppingStoneSongs) - songs that introduce you to a specific (sub(sub(sub)))genre of music.
This will require a bit more thought than "throwing something up right before I head to work" so to start, I will toss out for #AniSong specifically--anime theme songs, which are usually their own takes within and around #JPop or #JRock or otherwise.
And the one that looms largest for me is "Konya we Hurricane"
from Bubblegum Crisis (1987) - by Kinuko Oomori
It does a marvelous job linking "the MTV Generation" to anime, including titillation and action and sci-fi horror aspects in the opening scenes of BGC, and a fully 80's-captured style in the music video.
Watch Bubblegum Crisis OP1 Version 1: Konya wa Hurricane on AnimeThemes.
Another #TuneTuesday #SteppingStoneSongs that came to mind, for... #MovieScores
That "Hollywood soundtrack" feel? Probably most-cemented by one Erich Wolfgang Korngold, especially from the success and impact of The Adventures of Robin Hood
https://youtu.be/idp_TZBs9Oo?si=1i8HBmSYL52ylLX8
...though you will find his motifs and influence spread all over his works, especially for your smaller composers like John Williams, for relatively unknown scores like Star Wars.
https://youtu.be/sf47W9rXzRM?si=3BF1qqMFXyRysI0F
Original, dramatic scores would proliferate through many influences, but perhaps none so much as Korngold for its adaptability to the modern audience. A simpler sophistication, and with musical queueing more thematically linked to the characters and action on screen.
Another one I think I'll start now, and perhaps explore more later, is with #VideoGameMusic
Video games had sound effects from the beginning, and you started to get things like "level songs" with Frogger, and for years... there was a lot of "this is nice for the first few loops but I HAVE HEARD IT PLENTY AT THIS POINT PLEASE PLAY SOMETHING ELSE" 😝
I am sure for many, the earliest prominent example of "not just a simple chiptune loop, and there is enough variety through the levels" was Super Mario Brothers, and indeed that looms largest.
But I'd like to place up a different NES game which for me hit harder and deeper, and I think more specifically started the ball rolling, in Rygar.
https://youtu.be/xTGxk8rGI-Q?si=xOA3RGjfD-rXT_4G
Something that starts a bit closer to "piece" than "level ditty"
Yay!
I enjoy how you break down the function of a movie score and how it originated.
Bonus props for the "smaller composers/unknown scores" sarcasm.
😂
@lucyruthe 😘😝
Remembered a good video by Sideways on this, and interestingly it migrates into videogames by the end as well. Hopefully will have time this evening to explore further and link things.
For today's #TuneTuesday we are supposed to #RipAndTear and I have just the thing!
Just check out these tears! True! Shining! Secret! Infected! In...... a tiara? We have all the tears!
https://animethemes.moe/anime/true_tears/OP1-NCBDLyrics
https://animethemes.moe/anime/shining_tears_x_wind/OP1-Lyrics
https://animethemes.moe/anime/tears_to_tiara/OP1-NCBD
https://animethemes.moe/anime/itsuka_tenma_no_kuro_usagi/ED4-NCBD
https://animethemes.moe/anime/myself_yourself/OP1-NCDVD480
(It is possible I have misconstrued the assignment.)
Watch True Tears OP Version 1: Reflectia on AnimeThemes.
OOOOoooohhh, wanted rage, eh? I can do something with that, probably.
To start, surely.
#TuneTuesday is looking for sad songs to make you cry. I am going to add a layer of "if you know, you know" to start.
Starting with...
This #TuneTuesday is #ChristmassyStuff and since the Weird Al song was already claimed, we gots to steer weeb!
Or maybe I should be searching for a Chinese song of some sort, like a good Jew should for Christmas. 😝
A #TuneTuesday which either explodes or implodes, you say?
Obviously the only possible answer are Megumin AMVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0_07-JsiNk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGuKqwhV9TE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq59M-hOYRI
...or the original, of course, but it's harder to find Slayers AMVs and there's less-concentrated huge explosions. Someone should fix this!
If #TuneTuesday = #MyNameIs then I shall drop Chika being Chika singing Chika things and dancing in Chikalike fashion
https://animethemes.moe/anime/kaguya_sama_wa_kokurasetai_tensai_tachi_no_renai_zunousen/ED2-Lyrics
...and summon @fujiwara
Watch Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen ED2 Version 1: Chikatto Chika Chika♡ by Chika Fujiwara on AnimeThemes.
@SaberaMesia Amusingly my personal heyday is, like, 1997-2001. Used to grab copies of the Otakon and Katsucon AMV contests when I could. Wish I could find some of them these days to pursue lost media!
Amusingly the last few years, Otakon has been doing Sunday panels of those oldest ones. (Like, “thirty years ago AMV contests”!)
CT
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