Damsel undistress
The rescue party has arrived. The heroes just had to surmount getting the star prize in a game show as opposed to slaying a dragon on top of a volcano in order to save the damsel in distress. And even though the washing machine and the Grunty plushy might be tempting for someone like Kazooie, this whole adventure was for the sake of Tooty; time to go home. Apparently the whole quest took less than a day to complete. Fable time be like that.
We get the tracks in sequence, the winning fanfare, the Grunty lose anthem and the full Tooty theme whose incomplete version was heard during the opening cinematic.
Musical Analysis
Structure: Section 1 / Section 2 {ABA} / Section 3 {ABA’}
Tempo: 160 / 50 / 135
Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C Ionian/Major; C Harmonic minor; C Aeolian/Minor; C Mixolydian
As for being the winning contestants, they are celebrated with a royal fanfare, one tinted with Hollywood jazz harmony pertaining to the branding of the Grunty’s Furnace Fun show. This jazzyfied harmony is certainly something no king of old would have heard back when actual fanfares were performed at the castle, making this cue more akin to the famous 20th Century Fox fanfare heard in cinema, an American show biz fanfare. Even so, the instruments are the standard ones for fanfares. It is an ascending figure with the brass playing a chordal melody and the orchestral percussion reinforcing moments (naturally, the timpani also offer harmony grounding). The trumpets and horns spread a chord across the spectrum and use inversion to climb higher towards more excitement. First manipulating a C chord, then the minor chord between C and G paves the way for the Hollywoodization of the harmony that takes over the bulk of the answering phrase of the melody (the timpani by staying in C are combined with the brass minor chord [Em] to form a Cmaj7). This means adding a lot of color with the cool seventh and sixth chords.
The full harmony embedded in the melody of the fanfare can be though of as
C – Cmaj7 – C – G – C
Fm6 – C
The minor fourth degree chord does not belong to the C major scale, making it a borrowed chord. With an added pleasant sixth, this movement [iv6 to I] has served well to finish many fantasy stories in American media, giving a magical shine to the proceedings; it is basically the Hollywood cadence (IV – iv – I is also widespread). The voice leading makes it elegant due to the economy of movement (the C note stays put, the Ab and F just move a half step to their destiny). These movements are also featured in such cinematic pieces as Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss.
The game then takes the piss out of Gruntilda by playing the most stripped, deflating version of her Lair—or more precisely, the version first hear for the beauty steal machine, which lacks the bouncier mini transposition to Eb major— mocking her defeat with a sad trombone and bored musicians doing the bare minimum to get through the piece with almost no effort. This piece will return later when Grunty is completely conquered.
As for the family reunion, we hear the complete opposite from the musicians, a faster version of the Tooty’s Theme heard in the opening cutscene with a fully open hi-hat bouncing in joy alongside more instruments, like the calliope clarinet added in to celebrate her release. We also hear the missing part from her theme, a more epic B section that uses modal profiles. Whenever these more solemn and grand profiles are heard we can infer that we are in Project Dream territory, the precursor to Banjo-Kazooie which was a more fantasy oriented setting; these classical modes feel more at home in those pirate fantasy adventures than whatever madness is the standard harmony of the Banjo sound. As previously mentioned, Tooty’s Theme began life as the music for the heroine Madeleine—just going by their names we know who is the more cartoony gal— so that makes Tooty end up with loftier music. Nonetheless Grant puts in effort and brings it to a less mythical, bouncy level by employing the cartoon orchestra, calliope like sound and the baritone sax that no fantasy game would ever possibly take seriously, fitting it more for Tooty’s needs.
The harmony is the high sounding back and forth between Gm and C, making it MIxolydian in sound. And how do epic heroic themes have to end? Of course not the wacky Kirkhope one but the Mario cadence, which borrows two chords from the parallel minor and then ends up ascending to the tonic; or sorta, the intention is there but Grant Kirkhope adds the tense dominant chord in suspended form below a thrilling flute ending before restarting the loop in the tonic after just another A Section doubled by the bassoon.
The full progression being
Gm7 – C – Gm7 – C
Ab – Bb – Gsus4 – G
The adventure is finished. The end credits and royal parade await our heroes. Sadly for the protagonists, Rare has a track record for false endings.
Help to keep the rites going around here by supporting the shrine:
Media Files, requests and support for more interactive content
Thou shall donate since this is a cult and you are now a sheep
Help staying awake analyzing game tracks and writing posts or else everything will end up being written by A.I
- Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad
Stairway to hell This one goes out for the masochists who want to spend their evening watching an entire opus that some other masochist painstakingly spent his time making with the primitive sound chip of the SNES (WARNING: the Visuaizer Music Tracks channel, Video Game Music Shrine and Google LLC… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Dancing Mad - Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s ThemeUncomfortable laughter After spending some time with the playfully sinister circus music of the Banjo-Kazooie series, finally we arrive at a character who is the personification of that idea and actually lives up to the sinister moniker, seeing as how this nihilistic psychopath who looks like a comic-relief jester is… Read More »Inside The Score – Final Fantasy VI – Kefka’s Theme
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron KeepOminous stakes The sense of dread around the imposing tower’s lair of the villain sitting atop the highest peak of the Isle ‘o’ Hags is captured by this depressing track that receives the frantic chord change treatment of Grant Kirkhope but within a minor key context; if the C major… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Cauldron Keep
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s LagoonSeamen port Finally, the developers fulfilled their promise and managed to complete the legendary lost game known as Project Dream…sorta. There is a reason that game was called that since over at Rare some of its lead members always had a thing for pirate adventures, being featured on the 8-bit… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Jolly Roger’s Lagoon
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)Duality of bear The duality of man, or rather of bear and bird. Because a series based around the contrasting personalities of its main characters sooner or later had to tackle such a level; the true twin peaks. Because why waste two levels with the generic lava and ice biomes… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Hailfire Peaks (Lava Side)
- Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – WitchyworldCursed clowns We are entering a Banjo-Kazooie spree. It seems that the respective safety authorities have been bribed since now we get to enter the famous park operated by the witch Gruntilda, who truly appears to be a tycoon outside her fairy tail home at Spiral Mountain. This is the… Read More »Inside The Score – Banjo-Tooie – Witchyworld
