Part 1 of 3 of the “Chrono Triple Tech”, studying Chrono Trigger with some crazy musical analysis! Get in your Epoch and let’s do this!
the only podcast solely dedicated to the academic study of videogame music!
Part 1 of 3 of the “Chrono Triple Tech”, studying Chrono Trigger with some crazy musical analysis! Get in your Epoch and let’s do this!
Well, le me start with the regular stuff: as I remember, the chrono podcast mini-series is all awesome in the analysis and moderation, so whatever else I say, take that for granted.
That said, a few comments on the episode:
- The first 10 minutes go a little to long without score music, even though the joke is better than the first time around.
- You claim that in opera and RPGs, the story is the most dominant element. I’m not so sure. I agree mostly for RPGs- even though for some “hardcore” players the ramifications of the gameplay mechanics seem to be of equal interest; this I guess is not what the games are about. But with opera, well, some composers do not even bother to write their own librettoes: if I remember correctly, Wagner had sold the Flying Dutchman and then composed music for it himself anyway, and quite sometimes there is music written to an existing piece of in adaptation. The stories such as Macbeth (Strauss) or a Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) I guess were well-known already when the operas were composed, so the music is the thing. But, this isn’t really an important comment despite taking so much room.
The section on the romantic era is fine- as always, and so is following the theme through the game.
I did not remember that the Victory Fanfare doubles as Lucca’s Theme- a strange thing I don’t think I have ever encountered anywhere else.
That, however, is all I’ve got to add, its been a pleasure listening to this.
PS: The audio file’s length is ten minutes off from the actual length; if encountered this before but I have not idea what is the problem with such files.
Hey again, Onto!
Good comments, as usual - you’re pretty on-the-ball with this stuff, I always love hearing from you! I know that gameplay mechanics play in a lot, but it’s hard to play a game with JUUUUUUST gameplay mechanics (except for maybe the “Advance Wars” games… that’s mostly mechanics). With regards to opera, most operas had librettists and the composer and librettist would get together and put the music together.
I don’t quite agree with the point of opera not being plot-driven, mostly because the average person would go to the opera (because average people do that, lol) and follow the tale, allowing the music to enrich the story (like the death of Carmen in “Carmen,” for example). I see the merit in your argument, though - I go to operas to hear the music AND follow the story.. I suppose that it’s different for musicians… I should’ve clarified on that…
With regards to the length… weird… no idea how to fix that. I’ll do some research.
Pleasure as always!
Kenley