Follow

Assault of the Silver Dragons
Final Fantasy IX
Nobuo Uematsu

youtu.be/Is2OoPJB-nI

One of the finest pieces of Final Fantasy music, this plays as you approach a particular story boss in IX, even replacing the battle music for encounters in this period.

While percussion does keep the beat, the forward momentum mainly comes from a repeating four-bar melodic phrase in the strings section, while the brass plays a slow, dignified melody.

Music is all about repetition, but this piece takes it to the extreme without being annoying. The main driving force is a four-bar melody from the strings, the percussion doesn't change much, and the main melody is an occasionally-repeated slow brass line only six bars long. Very little changes between repetitions, yet Uematsu manages to make this an _interesting_ feature, not a boring one.

It's a fascinating technique.

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!