Eighteen: Keeping Time

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping.

You probably can't. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie.

Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check it's watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays.

Man alone measures time.

Man alone chimes the hour.

And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures.

A fear of time running out.

~Anonymous (not me)

Seventeen: [Review] My Jams - HalyconicFalconX

Finally back online! Literally been locked out of my G+ account for the last month. <_> But we're back. Woo.

What better way to kick it off than with some music? Here, click this link and start playing the music, then come back here.

In fact, you know what? Let's just talk about some of my favorite music, artist by artist and style by style. I'll be using a bit of technical jargon every now and again, but if you don't know much about music, stick around – you might learn something.

If this post seems too long for you (and it might), consider reading it in sections! Read about #3 and 2 first, and the come back for #1 later, if that suits you better than a wall of text all at once.

HalyconicFalconX

AKA Phyrnna. Gal composer, if you couldn't tell. Made the music you're listening to, primarily for the purpose of this great computer game called Epic Battle Fantasy V (EBF5). But that's beside the point.

Alright. My Top 3 list of Phyrnna's music, all of them from EBF5.

3. Elfin (click to listen)

If you know anything about self-composing, you can recognize when music is done locally – i.e. not with a band or an orchestra. I can identify no more than 5, maybe 6 instruments, all from a keyboard, playing at the same time at any point in this song. And to create such a rich sound, that's pretty impressive.

There's something about the percussion in this song – the drums – that make it iconic to Phyrnna's music. They sound hollow, like they're kinda a ways down the road but you can still hear them... I'm not sure if it's due to an audio filter or just reverb, but it's pretty dang cool.

The other interesting part of this song is that it has no carrying melody. Many songs have that one instrument – the violin, electric guitar, piano, etc. – that plays the notes that someone would sing if the song had words. This song has no melody; instead, it's ambient. Ambient music is simply songs that (surprise, surprise) have no defining melody. Therefore, they tend to blend into the background a bit when you listen to them, and they make for great listening music when you're concentrating on something.

I could turn a shadowed eye to the fact that this song has some uncomfortable pan to it. Pan is when sounds come only out of one ear or the other. Like, put some headphones on if you have em and listen to the first bit of this song. You feel that humming buzz where the electric piano pulses rapidly between your ears? That's called a pan. A rapid pan, for that song.

Elfin is a bit different in that the pan is more subtle, but if you listen through to the different sets of strings, you'll hear that some seem to be coming from the front left, some from the front right, and some from almost behind you. Was this intentional? Yes, it was meant to add some flavor to the song. Is it inherently bad? No absolutely not. I just don't like it. It doesn't feel like it fits for me, especially since the strings spend a lot of time in my right ear more than my left. It's just distracting, I guess, since I almost always listen to music with headphones.

2. Crystalis Fantasia (press ze hyperlink)

I have a question for you! Is this song ambient or not?

Do you have an answer? Seriously, come up with one, cause I wanna compare my answer to yours.

In theory, there's no melody to the song, and yet if you listen to it a dozen times like I have, you can definitely sing along, which is usually less defined in ambient music.

I think the reason this song is so tricky to identify is because it uses runs. You know, the bell things that go high to low "du-nuh-nuh-nuh" over and over, just changing patterns. These are four notes which make up a chord, like C, F, G, or Aminor. 

And then there's a second run going which is deeper and rolls up and down.

And then the pounding percussion.

And then halfway through the song, the electric guitar kicks in (played from a keyboard by the way, I can promise you), which only strengthens the fact that the song is being played in chord blocks. The C section, then the Aminor section than the Eminor section and on and on.

So does it have a melody or not? Ambient or not? My answers respectively are no and arguably yes, but I won't hold tight to my claim. It's a beautifully crafted driving winter song – a jarring shake in our usual expectations of joyous belled Christmas music, yet it still manages to carry a happy demeanor. And I think that while the song doesn't have the melody, the simplicity of the chords makes it hummable. Not melodically, but hummable. Let me know if you think the same or different.

One complaint I might make against Fantasia is... I'm honestly not terribly sure. I think the high bells start to get a little annoying after a while, but I can't suggest a bit with a lower register (bass guitar or something), because that's already present. Maybe the fact that it's always running with no definite melody is what makes it feel so repetitive and generic and ultimately annoying after a very long time... but even that's not a very strong complain. As you can see, I hold this tune in very high regard.

1. Weshdoor Concert (cliiiiick!)

Listen to it for a bit... listen... you identify that the strings are doing some modified chord pluck... smile, cause you know you like it.... drums kick in... oh wait, maybe electric guitars aren't your thing. Oh well, that's fine by me. I still love it, and I'm still gonna talk about it.

This song is different than the other two! Take a guess why.

It has a melody! It's not necessarily ambience! No this song has a definite single note cantable running all the way through it, expressed either through the flute or the weird psychedelic electric guitar, both played on a keyboard, I promise.

The melodic tune is catchy! The background run is unique and iconic! The buzzing bassline makes your head bob. Signs of a great song. 

If I had one complaint, it would be the lack of variety. I understand that the song is meant to be the theme for a certain area of EBF5 – in fact, I think it's extremely appropriate seeing as how I've played the game, and I can see myself running through a forest littered with stone idols and volcanic caves.

Even so, there's that one flute/electric guitar theme and then there's the constant "drun-drun-drun-drun" on and on and on in the bass register for the entire rest of the song. 

Cool part about that is it gets those two parts stuck in your head a lot faster than a diverse song does, but it just keeps the replayability down a little – that is to say, you can't listen to the song for too long or too many times before it loses it's appeal, and then you have to wait a while for that appeal to return (a day or two for me, usually).

I'm not gonna say that this is a better remix, but EliteFerrex, another talented artist, redid the song and added a little more flavor to it. Melody and harmony, and a bridge thing (you should recognize it cause it's not in the original). Which do you like better?

Honorable Mention: Van al Tag and Van al Tag (Extended)

Two mixes of the same memorable song. The first Van al Tag is heavier, due to the heavy bass and snare drums and beeping bass synth all through the song, while the second only has that driving bass drum from Crystalis Fantasia, which makes it seem more lighthearted.

Yet, a paradox. The first Van plays the melody in a higher register, while the Extended Van runs a deep far away guitar. So... really, do the two cancel each other out?

Which do you like better? The first, heavier (or is it really?) Van? Or the more excited Van al Tag (Extended), whose energy is only helped by the fluttering violin coursing through the whole thing and coating it in life?

I think I like the second one myself, just because there's more instrumental variety. They're both really good though, just not good enough to make the list.