Aerith's Theme

The theme song for a character in a video game is a crucial part to developing an emotional attachment to that character.  The most prime example of this in the Final Fantasy series, or almost any video game released to date, is Aerith’s Theme. The character of Aerith is a symbol of purity, and freshness in the surrounding chaos and gritty world. A flower girl in the slums, and also one of the two descendants of the Cetra, an ancient race who were very in tune with the planet, she’s one of the love interests of the main protagonist as well. Aerith’s theme also comes up in many other songs in the series such as Flowers Blooming in the Church and during the ending scene.

Nobuo Uematsu develops this strong emotional attachment by describing the character through the music, in this case, he would have to convey purity and innocence in a bittersweet way. He does this by establishing a strong melody (bars 1-4) that is repeated in different variations through the piece and the timbre of the instruments used, such as violin, harp, piano, and flute, giving a soft flowing texture to the piece. The structure is simply divided into four sections A (bars 1-4 and bars 36-39), B (bars 5-10), C (bars 11-22), D (bars 23-31), and D₁ (bars 32-35). 

Bars 1-4

The simple beginning with the soft piano gives a sense of sensitivity and the simple crotchet and minim rhythm gives a sense of simplicity and purity. The I – v cadence (bars 1-4) is used to convey the bittersweet characteristic, the tonic to dominant movement being the sweet and the minor chord being the bitter. The melody starts at bar 1 with a few arpeggios and then a melody of quavers at closer intervals in bar 3 that finishes on the supertonic so it doesn’t resolve, growing slightly in dynamics with the swell of the melody. 

Bars 5-10

The second section (bars 5-10) adds violins and brass for a full sound, playing a modified version of the previous melody with semiquavers. This one uses more parallel minor modulation in the harmony (bars 7-8), and more dynamic swells in it for a full orchestral effect. The smooth transitions are made with the addition of a moving bass and more instruments, creating a warmer tone and a majestic sound. 

Bars 11-22

After the last note on the tonic (bars 9-10), it moves to the third section (bars 11-22) with a quieter clarinet solo, accompaniment on marimba and soft choral voices for an intimate sound. The texture is more thin but still with some body to it and the dynamics swelling and falling with the melodic contour. The rhythms have a lot more quaver and dotted minim combinations (bars 11-20), with harmonies that alternate between iii – IV and a much higher tension melody than previously causing a lot of anticipation. 

Bars 23-31

It all builds up to have all of the orchestra stop except the violin and flute who play the first three leading notes (bar 22) into the climax where the whole orchestra comes in for a rich, thick texture and homophonic rhythms that are declarative crotchets and minims on the beat (bars 23-24). The texture turns thick with some movement of the tuba with a quick modulation to the dominant (bars 25-26) and the melody builds dramatic suspense with a perfect fourth jump up to the submediant (bar 25). Uematsu then repeats the three dramatic notes one more time before the ending, where he heightens the drama by making a perfect 5^th jump up to the tonic (bar 29) and then playing the minor second chord (bar 30). The minor second replaces the major 5^th found in the V – I cadence and thus he ends the dramatic section with a few quavers resolving on the I. 

Bars 32-39

In the last section (bars 32-35), the flute plays a melody much like the one in  the previous section while the rest of the orchestra drop back to just the strings for a thin texture in contrast to the thick section just before. A major dominant arpeggio leads into a reprise of the introductory piano part (bars 36-39), and thus the song repeats.

Through the entire piece, it pushes and pulls to evoke emotions, in dynamics, melody, harmony, texture; to stimulate the audience to be attached to what this song is attached to, this character. This song needs to be bittersweet however, because it’s also played right after the main antagonist kills the character permanently without warning. It is one of the most reproduced songs from the series, perhaps because of its memorable melody and orchestral sound. This scene and the song’s ability to capture people’s hearts made this song one of the most memorable songs from this video game and of Uematsu’s work. 

Introduction

This blog is an investigation into the use of compositional techniques in three selected pieces by Nobuo Uematsu: Aerith's Theme, Final Fantasy VII Main Theme, and One Winged Angel to determine how the composer portrays a person, a place or an event within the music.

Nobuo Uematsu, a Japanese composer, did his first published compositions with the small video game company Square back in 1985 for a video game with little success called Genesis. For the next few years, their video games continued to have moderate success and financial troubles plagued the company with potential bankruptcy. Then, as a last ditch effort made by the company, they made a game that would either make or break the company, and aptly named it Final Fantasy. Luckily, the video game was a huge success and it catapulted the company, along with the team that worked on it, into fame and reversed their previous fortunes. Ever since then, Nobuo has been a legendary composer, composing for Final Fantasy's one through nine and most recently, fourteen. He's also written music for Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssy, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as well as several motion pictures that generally tie into his video game compositions.

His musical style is very distinct from other composers, having a very clear, repeated melody over classically influenced harmonies that don't go to the extremes of the Romantic Era,

but uses dramatic dynamics, creative instrumentation, and diverse textures in the Romantic style. In his writing method, he writes the melody first, which explains his melody heavy song writing. The particular game of Final Fantasy VII is one of the finest examples of Nobuo Uematsu's implementation of his writing technique: it ranges across multple styles and moods of music from western style fiddle music, to music based on Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. Some of these pieces include Aerith's Theme, which portrays the character of Aerith, Final Fantasy VII Main Theme which represents the world in which the game is played, and One Winged Angel, representing the dramatic final clash between the protagonist and the antagonist.