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Inside The Score – Banjo-Kazooie – Gnawty’s House

Skipping though the woods

Indeed, another cute animal skipping through the woods, another skipping song required, cut from the same cute cloth as Nabnut’s Theme; this one is even more skipping though due to the complete swing of the rhythm patterns, a swinging, more natural oom-pah unlike the straight ones from Danny Elfman, making Gnawty—a character and name coming directly from the Donkey Kong series Rare also produced— an even bouncier animal. The presence of these unique songs for such small locations in the early musical direction suggests that perhaps Grant Kirkhope originally intended for every single place to have stand-alone melodies before scrapping the idea due to the time constraints or lack of cohesiveness that would produce (most of the game limits itself to new arrangements of the main level theme, or even changing from major to minor tonalities if the situation is dire).

You will also need to help this beaver through the seasons, interacting with the dynamically changing environments in order to enter his house.

Musical Analysis

Structure: { I – A – I – A – I – B }

Tempo: 115

Melodic and Harmonic Profiles: C Ionian/Major

The main accompaniment, sounding as a self sustained cycle that recharges itself is an oom-pah pattern that spends energy when it descends slowly in quarter notes and then takes an impulse with a quick ascent back to the tonic pitch. It is a standard ostinato found in children media that Grant might have heard growing up or referenced from cartoons like the British Thomas and Friends series.

A simple and carefree rhythm

The theme then only needs a barebones cartoon orchestra to develop its delineated question-answer motifs. However, not everything is smooth sailing since there are a couple of passing chords that give extra excitement. The passing chords are defined as those who are usually non diatonic, meaning they don’t belong to the tonality that the composition is centered around; used sporadically it helps to connect harmony in more interesting ways. They are typically short lived and don’t overstate their welcome. The first question-answer block harmony is as simple as it gets, going back and forth between the tonic C and the dominant G (with an added flat 7th for that stronger pull towards the E belonging to the C chord). But then the second, longer question-answer block—itself the answer of the macroscopic question-answer brick— although beginning with the same motif, goes into a different direction, taking us on a detour through a kind of a 50s chord progression except that one of the passing chords is here, the melody roleplaying for a moment as an E major scale when the E major harmony is underneath it. The full progression becoming

C – E – Am – F – G7

The E chord being a passing chord is practically just decoration to add extra color since the melody would not change that much if instead the Am was allowed to take its place entirely. The tune starts with an anacrusis, meaning with a note which precedes the first downbeat in a bar in a musical phrase.

After the first pass of the A section the entire band enters, the tuba limiting itself to play the same ostinato as the lower notes of the marimba, just an extra reinforcement to the low end. Each section will be separated by a reprise of the intro pattern. Section B goes to the IV chord for contrast and then alternates with the tonic C. There is a presence of the tritone chord [F#] yet it cannot be attributed as belonging to the KIrkhopan Banjo sound the project would acquire later in development; instead, it is just another innocent passing chromatic chord that adds a descending flavour commonplace in many styles in order to create more movement, far from the playfully sinister tone it adds in the other Banjo-Kazooie contexts it appears. Otherwise it is your standard I – IV – V based progressions, the major chords of the major scale, pure unadulterated happiness.

F – C – F – G – Gb

F – C – G7

If Grant were to revisit this song he would probably end it with a Kirkhope cadence; the Db between two G7 would go a long way in getting the song closer to the codified Banjo framework. The song ends up being a spiritual precursor to the Bottles’ House cue in Banjo-Tooie.

After all the cuteness, the fiery pits of the lava world await the bear and the bird. Just not the kind of lava world we are expecting.

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1 thought on “Inside The Score – Banjo-Kazooie – Gnawty’s House”

  1. Justin
    Reply

    “the dominant G (with an added flat 7th for that stronger pull towards the E belonging to the C chord)” or, put simply: V7.

    “a detour through a kind of a 50s chord progression except that one of the passing chords is here, the melody roleplaying for a moment as an E major scale when the E major harmony is underneath it. The full progression becoming

    C – E – Am – F – G7

    The E chord being a passing chord is practically just decoration to add extra color since the melody would not change that much if instead the Am was allowed to take its place entirely.”

    Or, put simply: V7/vi . As in, the V7 in the key of Am (vi), not in the key of E.

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