Leitmotifs

[Dragoncat]

I just watched this video on leitmotifs in PMD 2, it was very interesting even if I got lost by a lot of the music jargon. I learned today that leitmotifs aren't just melodies/pieces of music that show up a lot of different places in a movie/show/game, but made to get emotional impact and help tell the story. I wonder if Lost In Thoughts All Alone and Edge of Dawn count?

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by Dragoncat

[XRay]

I do not really understand much of what he is saying either. The biggest thing I got out of it is that repetition helps anchor the listener's emotions, and doing some modifications on that repetition can help mold that emotion.

[ping]

I'm not that familiar with Fates' soundtrack and not at all with Three Houses' (to the point where I used Google to make sure that Edge of Dawn is part of it), so I can't make a fully qualified statement about what they do and do not use. 

However, a motif is just a few recognizable notes and a Leitmotif is a motif that's connected to a character/location/sentiment/concept, not the whole "character themes" as they are common in video games. In Lost in Thoughts All Alone, for example, the conture (to use the term from the video) of the first three or notes is used quite often - long-short-short in rhythm; small step down, then larger step up in melody; then back to the initial long note - and it's pretty recognizable. This would be possible to use as a Leitmotif representing Azura (or maybe Valla) and inserted into a song when a connection to her (or it) is to be represented musically. For example, when Corrin's connection to Valla is revealed, the motif could be added to their own character theme. With context to Anankos, it could be used with more dissonant, unnatural intervals - same recognizable structure, but in a way that sounds "wrong" to the player. But as I said - I don't know if the soundtrack actually does something of that sort.

[Dragoncat]

19 hours ago, ping said:

I'm not that familiar with Fates' soundtrack and not at all with Three Houses' (to the point where I used Google to make sure that Edge of Dawn is part of it), so I can't make a fully qualified statement about what they do and do not use. 

However, a motif is just a few recognizable notes and a Leitmotif is a motif that's connected to a character/location/sentiment/concept, not the whole "character themes" as they are common in video games. In Lost in Thoughts All Alone, for example, the conture (to use the term from the video) of the first three or notes is used quite often - long-short-short in rhythm; small step down, then larger step up in melody; then back to the initial long note - and it's pretty recognizable. This would be possible to use as a Leitmotif representing Azura (or maybe Valla) and inserted into a song when a connection to her (or it) is to be represented musically. For example, when Corrin's connection to Valla is revealed, the motif could be added to their own character theme. With context to Anankos, it could be used with more dissonant, unnatural intervals - same recognizable structure, but in a way that sounds "wrong" to the player. But as I said - I don't know if the soundtrack actually does something of that sort.

I don't think Fates does that, but if it did that would be nice! Your point about having a more sinister version of Lost In Thoughts All Alone to represent Anankos reminds me of what Zelda Breath of the Wild does with its dragon spirits. Normally when one is near, this music plays. But one dragon has been corrupted by malice, and you have to save it. When you are near the corrupted dragon, you hear this. And after you save it, the regular dragon music plays.

[Agro]

All of the games from FE13 onwards have strong leitmotifs, and you can hear it in FE11 and FE12 as well in some of the tracks.

FE12 has the My Unit theme, which plays during One Who Carves a New Destiny, and then is stretched out over double time to create Tearing Shadows (they're the same - took me a while to hear this one!)

Awakening has 3 main ones - there's the game theme (main melody to Prelude), the one I call Emmeryn's Theme, which plays during the B section of Destiny, and then the Avatar theme.

Fates has Azura's theme which is recognisable via the intervals & rhythm. Sometimes the rhythm is stretched out over multiple bars, like in Dark Wastes.

FE15 has a new leitmotif that was written specifically for the remake, which is the bridge from the vocal theme.

FE16 has the very obvious Edge of Dawn motif, and uses both the chorus and the verse melodies for different purposes.

If you'd like to see this in action, I could put together a PDF or something?

[AnonymousSpeed]

Idunn's theme is mysterious, plodding, and sounds like a music box.

It's the same melody as her battle theme.