#Leitmotiv

[judith-orshalimian]

Leitmotiv Spring/Summer 2017 Details!

[twinhood-2dot0]

A Shallow Dive Into: Leitmotifs

Good morning Alex. Another music quirk, yep. According to Wikipedia: A leitmotif or leitmotiv[1] (/ˌlaɪtmoʊˈtiːf/) is a "short, recurring musical phrase"[2] associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It’s German for “guiding motif”. Leitmotifs are prevalent in video games and movies alike. As you may know, I’m a huge fan of sound design and scoring and such of any piece of media, so today we’re gonna be dissecting leitmotifs.

Richard Wagner

The earliest usage of the leitmotif is attributed to this man, Richard Wagner. A song we’ve all probably heard, Rise of The Valkyries, from Der Ring des Nibeldungen is a leitmotif, as I found out while researching for this post. Der Ring des Nibeldungen contains hundreds of leitmotifs, apparently. I’m way too young for 1800s stuff like this so let’s move on to the modern age.

Undertale

I was introduced to the concept of leitmotifs by my favorite game of all time, Undertale. Undertale is famous for its tracks. Toby Fox is a musical genius, and I’m not the only one who thinks so probably since he was also asked to make the soundtrack for the latest entries in one of the biggest franchises ever, Pokemon. I could sing praises of Toby Fox, but we’d be here forever, so let’s look into the music itself.

Undertale has a soundtrack of 101 songs, and a slew of characters.Every major character has a leitmotif that can be found in every track they’re related to. There’s an excellent video that I’m going to reference but won’t link to since I ***need*** you to play Undertale without the slightest hint of spoilage. (also i didnt know that was a word i just typed it and expected it to red underline but apparently it exists 💀). Thank you to Circlejourney on YouTube and the Undertale Fandom Wikia for compiling the songs so I won’t have to listen to the soundtrack for hours to find every single one. I am going to however compile a playlist with all the main songs and related songs featuring the leitmotif. The songs in the brackets are the songs denoting the starting of the tracks containing the leitmotif.

Undertale (First song: Once Upon A Time): This is the main leitmotif that appears in the Menu, intro, and main plot points. The title theme, Undertale is one of my favourite songs. I also included a Nora Van Elken cover of Undertale because it’s awesome :P

Flowey (Your Best Friend, Your Best Nightmare): This leitmotif is for an important character, Flowey, who appears throughout the game intermittently.

Toriel (Fallen Down, Heartache): Another character specific theme. Heartache is a track that also appears in ASGORE because goat. 

Underground (Ruins): This leitmotif appears in several areas in the underground, the main setting for the game, and also, curiously, for another character.

Monsters (Anticipation): This appears first in Anticipation and Enemy Approaching, but is also used in non-battle themes, so I’m just going to name this category Monsters.

Ghost (Ghost Fight): This is the leitmotif for a few related characters. I didn’t know they were related until I found out they were leitmotifs. Undertale has a ton of awesome tiny details.

Sans (sans.):  Leitmotif used in the tracks where Sans appears. Also, he talks in comic sans >:)

Papyrus (Nyeh Heh Heh!): Leitmotif for Papyrus. He talks in, you guessed it, Papyrus >:)

Snowdin (Snowy, Snowdin Town): Double leitmotif, the second appearance of Snowdin Town is the starting of the second leitmotif. This is the leitmotif for an area of the Underground named Snowdin Town.

Undyne (Undyne): The leitmotif for Undyne, my favourite character in the game. Can’t wait for you to meet her.

Hotland (Waterfall): Theme for the Hotland area of the game. Also appears in Mettaton’s themes, a character encountered here. (also, a funni note, the track CORE is marked explicit in Amazon Music. This song has no lyrics, and it’s marked explicit. It’s not the only one, but it’s the one I noticed first.)

Alphys (Alphys): Alphys’s theme.

Mettaton (It’s Showtime!, Hotel, Metal Crusher): Theme for Mettaton, the hottest (and possibly trans) character.  The bassline for It’s Showtime! also appears in Hotel.

Asgore (Determination, Bergentrückung): Theme for Asgore

Asriel (Memory): Themes for Asriel.

Note: You’ll find Bring It In, Guys! contains like literally every leitmotif, that’s because it’s the credits song.

Some tracks contain leitmotifs sped up, reversed, slowed down, like every modification possible done to them, but they’re there. There are also many easter eggs concerning a character you may never meet and has been mentioned, like once, and he’s become a creepypasta in the community in the audio files.

John Williams

The legend himself, he’s used a lot of leitmotifs in movies he’s scored. Music is a very important part of Star Wars. In fact, the inspiration for this post was the flute leitmotif for the Mandalorian that plays when Mando makes an entrance in The Book Of Boba Fett.

 The most famous track in Star Wars, The Imperial March, is the leitmotif that plays anytime Darth Vader is referenced or is in the scene, and also appears in the fight themes. I’m watching videos of how music is used in Star Wars and god, is John William a master. I’ve never seen scoring so masterfully used to tell a story. I’d share videos but you haven’t watched the movies yet :(. There’s also the Force theme, which is really important to signify the use of the Force in the movies. (Granted, I’ve only mostly watched superhero stuff BUT STILL) The main theme is also a leitmotif, used for triumphant and heroic and Luke stuff. 

I could talk about Harry Potter but now it just makes me sad, however, I will link this excellent video:

Man, why does everything I hold close to my heart get sullied? Anyways sorry, back to topic.

From Wikipedia:

In the Jaws franchise, the main "shark" theme, composed by John Williams in 1975, stands out as a suspenseful motif that is a simple alternating pattern of two notes, E and F.

I haven’t watched Jaws, and probably never will, but I watched the video, and according to it, the shark is not seen very much, so viewers are only alerted to the presence of the Shark by the music.

DC (this section was titled Batman but I wanna talk about Wonder Woman too and I’m too lazy to update the text below so I’m just gonna tell you this :P)

Batman has a lot, like exponentially more than any other superhero, so he has a lot of scoring that goes with it. One thing I’d like to mention is that repeated string melodies have inextricably linked to Batman music (Also, yes, everything I do has to do with Batman. Now, shut up and listen). Take a look at this:

According to Wikipedia, this is the track that possibly linked Batman to sweeping strings in the 1989 Batman movie:

Yes I haven;t watched it, yeah, I know, what kinda of batman fan am I if I haven’t even watched the Michael Keaton Batman movies I’m sorry 😭. Although, I just might have to, since The Flash movie 👀.

This is the theme for Wonder Woman composed by Junkie XL, Hans Zimmer and Tina Guo for Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice which became her leitmotif for every movie she appeared in since:

In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, however, the theme is almost the same, except with a different intro, which the subtitles call [ancient lamentation music] and I call OooooooOaaaaAAaaaAAaaaa. This change was heavily memed upon since it’s used so much and so frequently. So while BvS (even if she appeared for just one scene.) and Justice League used it as pretty much a leitmotif, in ZSJL it was relegated to a fight theme. (As for Wonder Woman, the movie, the theme was also used as a fight theme, the reasoning being in BvS she’s a pre-developed character, and WW is about her growing into the role.) Take this scene in Justice League for example:

And the same scene in ZSJL:

Except for the ZSJL one being almost painfully longer, the music is also different.

In the same scene at 1:42 we hear the music again, and its transition to the BvS theme when she starts fighting the henchmen, and in the 2017 movie, we hear it after she’s yeeted the bomb away and returns to stop the suicide bomber at 2:42. (Also, I checked, the 2017 movie checked out at 2:13, and ZSJL 4:57. Yeah. Zack Snyder looooooves slow-motion). Also, I guess this should be an Amazonian leitmotif, since it also plays in a scene where Amazonians are present, *sans* WW, but *sans* epic cello.

Funny comment in a compilation of every time OooooooOaaaaAAaaaAAaaaa plays.

Also, I have something special for you:

This is apparently the leitmotif for Uma Thurman’s anger.

Signing off,

Alia

[wrongweaponsdrawn]

The Narrator

Hey if a guy's leitmotif starts building up again but this time it's got like a church choir chanting in Latin it's because he's decided to cool it and be friends right

[leehamwriting]

Cercles d'onde - Roger JUDRIN - 2023 - Serge Safran Ed.

Quatrième de couverture Roger Judrin, discret par méthode, a laissé à sa mort quelques trésors dans son écritoire constituée comme un balcon au-dessus du monde. On délivre aujourd’hui l’un d’entre eux : mosaïque d’aphorismes portant sur Dieu, l’amour, les écrivains, l’histoire… Ces réflexions lapidaires jaillirent dans un mouvement poétique « à sauts et à gambades », selon les mots (Essais, III,…

[redrosecut]

I know people aren't at fault here but damn am I annoyed when people use the loan word leitmofis. Not because of its meaning but because its spelling has been morphed to fit English and it just looks so off to my native German brain.

In German, it is Leitmotiv (singular) or Leitmotive (plural). I get the s plural but why did you fuckers exchange poor v for that lazy sucker f?

[craft2eu]

Schmuck auf ganzer Linie: München vom 28.02. bis 10.04.2024

Wo fängt Schmuck an? Die aktuelle Ausstellung der Galerie Handwerk zeigt, wie sich aus den Ursprüngen von Schmuck – einer Schnur – ein breiter Variantenreichtum an Bedeutungen und Formen entwickelte, der bis heute Gültigkeit hat. Die Verwendung einer Schnur ist quasi der Nullpunkt unserer Schmuckkultur und lässt sich in archäologischen Funden wissenschaftlich nachweisen. Seit diesen Anfängen in…

[izziexd]

I love musical leitmotif. I get so caught up in them the way I do scores for shows and soundtracks. I love getting in my feels.

leitmotifs never get old to me like holy shit dude there’s this melody that corresponds to this one guy and if you hear the melody it means the guy is there. holy shit. and sometimes it refers to ideas too not just guys. has anyone heard about this

[eluniversodeyuraq]

He estado trabajando en dos ideas para mi blog:

Un análisis superficial del leitmotiv de mi gata Chandra Vicenzo y los temas que he encontrado que lo contienen, ya sea como está compuesto o variado.

Y un relato no muy extenso, espero, de mi paso por algunos juegos mmorpg.

Espero terminarlos esta semana.

Dejaré por lo pronto un tema que contiene el leitmotiv Chandrita como adelanto y una foto antigua de ella.

[minimatika]

Einhalt der Einfalt - Vorrang der Vielfalt

„Unsere Gesellschaft wäre sehr viel ärmer, sehr viel einfältiger ohne solche Künstler und Bürger, die ihr kräftig einheizen – aus Interesse an ihrem Erhalt und ihrer Vervollkommnung.“

[keebokuun]

Falling with you <3

[metach]

I couldn't get this out of my head

[judith-orshalimian]

Leitmotiv Fall/Winter 2017-18!

[eeb-rody]

I'm thinking about the little violin that plays whenever spock is having a rough one on tos. His gay boy leitmotiv. It's so distinctive and it conveys the character so effectively and I'm always drawn in by the melodrama of it.

They could have done that with modern trek if they weren't pussies about the tng score after s1. Give me more characterization through music I am begging on hands and knees.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Gantober Bomb #7-8-9

Hellooo I am slacking behind and I don't have a ton of time right now, so have two frames and a piece of music!!

[randomnameless]

I noticed in "Lady of Hresvelg" that there's a heavy use of EDM beats, which normally wouldn't be weird since it's a pop song for a modern video game. But since only the Mole People have EDM to indicate when they're hanging around in the soundtrack, the use of it in Edelgard's song stands out to me as a little bit of extra soundtrack foreshadowing.

Oh!

That's nice!

My musical ear is shit so thanks for finding this out lol, but it's nice that in her opening song, we already have clues that she's associated with the Agarthans!

[castleonahillasthestorygoes]

Am I actually the only one who actually loves wiggle?