About Sakimoto's melodies

[Ovelia]

A common complaint about Sakimoto's music is the lack of 'good' melodies. I always wanted to solve the mystery inside this claim, but I just lack concrete evidence. I've researched a bit about them, and I found that

a) he very often uses Dorian mode, Pentatonic scale, whole-tone scale, etc. in his melodies
b) He uses unusual intervals in his melodies

I think that these may be the reasons why some people cannot accept his melodies as 'good'. But is this really the case? Is utilizing these things really making a melody less 'emotional' or 'moving' or etc.? Or is it just that Sakimoto is not really a Romanticism composer at all? (I don't want to admit it, since Romeo x Juliet features some of the best Romantic passages ever written.)

What do you think of Sakimoto's melodies? Please discuss.

[Jormungand]

The most apparent feature of his melodic writing, in my mind, is the frequency of large intervals. To me, a theme liberally employing intervals as Sakimoto does suggests a mood or idea that is concerned more with the greater picture than the details. A great Uematsu theme might suggest something sad, or something adventurous, or something dire; but a Sakimoto theme typically casts a wider net. The main themes of Vagrant Story are a favorite example of mine. Take the first main theme as introduced in "Opening Movie": we hear it presented in two completely different renditions side-by-side. One is frantic, prophetic, dark; the second is breezy, dreamlike, relaxed. Both invoke different affects, but both are readily expressive of the VS world. Neither arrangement is so simple to produce only one mood, but a series of complex ones. Same idea with the secondary theme, first presented in "Climax of the Graylands Case". It is stately and serious, again prominently employing large intervals (mostly perfect 4ths and 5ths in this case). Whenever I hear it in any of its incarnations, I feel multiple affects at the same time.

Sakimoto's melodies, to me, are more "human" than anything I've heard. With composers like Uematsu for example, melodies are often quite reminiscent of the aria. Traditionally, an aria of an opera would follow an event, and the libretto of the aria would concern reflection on the event--in other words, the plot is frozen in time during an aria. Thus with a typical Uematsu melody, there is usually only one mood or idea being expressed, and there simply is no room for the development of a character's mental state. With Sakimoto, while the melodies may not be as immediately tuneful, they are certainly more capable of merging with a character's mental state. Because, as we all well know, the human mind does not maintain a static state of mind for a long period of time. It is constantly changing.

Sakimoto's melodies are also written so that they are able to be reworked into multiple settings as frequently as they need to be. We all know that we can expect several permutations of a prominent theme of a Sakimoto score.

To recap, the typical Sakimoto melody (to me) generates multiple affects (because no state of mind is static and perception constantly changes) and is infinitely adaptable depending on the current situation.

I'd say it's more difficult for the average listener to appreciate his melodic style because it's often antilyrical. But the less lyrical a melody is, the better it works as a theme that can be reused. Anyway, Sakimoto's music is more about the whole picture that you get from a composition. That said, most of his melodies would be essentially bare without the harmonic language for support. That's another thing about using wide intervals in a melody--you can get away with increasingly complex harmonies.

That's about all I have to say for now, I think.

[Garamond]

Jorm, I apperciate your comment of Sakimoto's melody writing. Essentially explained how his melodies work on different mood successfully. I see that Sakimoto doesn't hesitate to reuse some of his melody development like perfect 4th (do-fa) - major 2nd (fa-so) in both Radiant Silvergun and Vagrant Story. But the chord progression just makes this melody head towards 2 separate direction. This is true magic of melody and chord but I find that most modern game music composers usually don't realize it and only concentrating on the instrumentation or the synthesizing.

[SakiMojo]

he predominantly uses the whole tone scale on the Vagrant Story OST, which gives it the dark/dreamy quality that it has.