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sourpatchsquids · 10 months ago

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I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IN STARS AND TIME FOR A SECOND

Okay i just finished watching my girlfriend play ISAT and I felt the urge to dig into the music a little bit and lost a whole day to it. So i think i have to post about it. General spoilers below, read at your own risk.

Ok so Im gonna talk about the title theme and one other song here, which is a secret for later. (This part took like 2 hours to cobble together ill post the other one tomorrow)

In the first statement of the melody, we have a very bog standard i -> III -> IV -> Cadential 6/4 moti-- wait a second.

With where these lines intersect, the A in the middle voice actually dips below the bass voice for the statement of this chord, which means that the chord lands in a second inversion. You wouldn't normally put a i6/4 just after a cadential 6/4 unless you were actively trying to make the resolution feel weaker for some reason. As if you intentionally wanted the listener to not feel a strong sense of returning to the tonic.

When the strings come in we are treated to lush root position 7th and 9th chords to really feel magical and detached from ourselves. Just as well, that cadential 6/4 turns into an entire tonicization for A major! I adore the way the strings milked the motion down from D to C# to C, its a perfect suspension of the old tonic into the tonicized dominant :>. The themes of not feeling at home continue from here. We get the briefest glimpse of a happy A major chord in measure 8 before we lose any sight of an A that feels at home in the harmony. Measure 10's A in the melody is completely unsupported by the G major chord underneath, and the only A's to play in measure 11 are in the bass and the frenetic synth line bouncing between left and right panning, as the upper string descend to a G and the melody completely skips over the A in otherwise stepwise line. I wonder why home is so hard to latch onto in this piece? You're only ever able to grab onto it for a little bit at a time, when you even know what you're listening for.

As we approach the end of the phrase, we finally get a reasonable resolution to the tonic! We made it! However, it is nowhere near as harmonically pleasing as it should sound. Even with the faster pulse flipping back and forth between the ears and the actual stepwise enclosure of the tonic, when a tonic chord finally rings it quickly darts back, and what we get is empty. The 3rd of the tonic is played for the length of a eighth note and is quickly kicked out of our aural memory by the staccato E in the same instrument. And then all previous accompaniment leaves, save for the strings, as the piano enters to play one last statement of the B theme. The title theme makes very clear, we are allowed to approach home, but we are not allowed to linger. As quickly as a taste of it comes about, we realize how much it tastes like nothing.

Finally, we are rewarded with another cluster of A's and E's to leave us feeling empty and full of ennui. Truly we are meant to interpret this piece as Siffrin feeling lost and alone, no home to return to, nowhere to truly rest. That about wraps up my analysi-- hey wait a fucking second.

HEY WHAT THE FUCK.

youtube

If you listen at the very end, the strings jump back up to a D chord at the very end of the piece. D, the key we originally thought we were in. This single chord completely recontextualizes the entire piece and im not kidding in the slightest. If everything that happened while we thought A was the home key was actually just elaborating the dominant, then what does it actually mean? And more importantly, why is it so quiet? What is the purpose of the final D chord, the actual end chord of the piece, when it is so removed from what feels like the real ending of the piece. It's as though it's being intentionally kept at bay, as if we as listeners are actively pushing it away. It's like song itself doesn't want to really end.

Oh.

Studio Thumpy Puppy, if any of you ever read this, please know that I am in absolute awe of your ability to bake in the themes of the story into 42 seconds of music.

Not only does the title theme convey Siffrin's emotional pain from not being able to remember his home country, it manages to tell the listener the crux of the plot before a single line of exposition hits the screen. Siffrin doesn't want his party to leave him alone, he doesn't want their journey to end. He is so desperate to prevent his party from returning home without him that he breaks the structure of the piece, hides the final chord, from his own god damn opening theme. To stop the journey from ending.

If you've gotten this far, please support the artists behind this amazing game. If you haven't bought and played ISAT yet, go do it, and while you're here, also buy the soundtrack. Give these people money!! They're really good at what they do!

Next up: We're With You! Look forward to it, it's also amazing.

#isat #in stars and time #in stars and time spoilers #isat spoilers #music theory #holy shit #studio thumpy puppy #Youtube #Bandcamp

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sourpatchsquids · 10 months ago

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Hi I talk about In Stars and Time again!!!

Hi it's been like a week since i posted the last transcript! I am simply keeping the train rolling and going right into the next piece from the In Stars and Time OST that I wanna talk about: "We're With You!"

Just like last time, I'm gonna allude to/discuss the events of the game in moderate depth, so reader discretion is advised. Spoilers below the cut.

"We're With You" will play during moments such as Mirabelle's speech before leaving for the House of Change and a few other places where the focus is on Siffrin and how he relates to the party. Keep this in mind as we go forward.

As we open the piece there is already plenty to talk about! A small orchestration of Piano, Plucked strings and a plucked bass perform just about the strongest tonic harmony you could ask for. The figure in measures 3 and 4 where the left hand supports the right in the stepwise ascension to E is the first time I've ever thought to call a phrase of music adorable, and it really creates this air of togetherness and joy. You're with your friends! They're here to support you! Hey what's with that leading tone in the bass

The next chord to enter the progression is a iii7, which is a motion that I would best describe as Noncommittal. Essentially, putting a iii7 after a root position tonic chord is like splitting the tonic into its two neighbors. Things feel more or less the same, but it's like you've lost something that was keeping you grounded. Now that the quality of the chord is minor, it all comes together to creating this tender, vulnerable feeling. You aren't on sure footing, but it's okay. This is further elaborated when the line from the previous phrase's left hand returns in measure 7. The same support from the beginning is still here, your friends are still here.

As we continue, we move down to a ii7. iii7 -> ii7 is a nice mellow stepdown progression that doesn't shake up the harmony too much. As a predominant chord, it's setting us up for an expected dominant to take us back to the tonic and resolve this uneasy tension that has built up in the last phrase, and it delivers on that front. It takes the phrase from the first 4 measures and brings it down by a step, while keeping a little bit of that tension by having the left hand of the piano jump from the 5th to the 7th of the chord, as opposed to a simple arpeggio like last time. From here, the line repeats the beginning phrase and begins a nice gentle stepwise descent to set us up for that nice E major to make us feel all nice and happy hey what's going on here,,,,,

This isn't a dominant chord that will bring a satisfying resolution to the harmonic tension and take us home, this is a Neapolitan chord in 2nd inversion! To break this down a little, a neapolitan chord is a fancy name for a major chord built on the flat 2nd scale degree. Because of how much it can warp the harmony around it, it's typically used for very strong moments in music with a lot of emotional weight. Which is to say that compared to the choices in progression made previously, this is very potent. To make things even more jarring, the chord plays with the 5th in the bass, which is the most unstable voicing this chord could have. Even with the motion of the previous line, it still is striking when the Bb plays in the melody.

Because the strings have been following the same pattern this entire time, as well as the melody slowing down after this chord change, we are able to rest a bit as listeners while we adjust to this strange new harmony while we wait to be taken to the next section.

In the last measure of this 4-bar phrase, we get an Ab that pops in right before the change back to the tonic. This Ab turns the bII64 into a dominant 7th chord, which has a few implications. Namely, this chord becomes a secondary dominant into the key of Eb, which is a full tritone away from the original key. We have had a sudden jarring change to the harmony, and now we are about to go as far away from where we started as possible. So what do we do? We go back to the beginning of course! The V7/bV resolves to a I7 chord in a way that would make my old theory professors' skin crawl, but works perfectly.

See, dominant 7th chords like to resolve certain ways. The 7th wants to resolve down by step, the root wants to resolve to its tonic, etc. This chord resolves in such a way as to break those rules and more. Every pitch resolves to A, with the exception of the top voice, which resolves to E. This leads to multiple direct octaves, a phenomenon that occurs when multiple voices resolve to the same pitch across different octaves, which is typically frowned upon because it can sound as though the orchestration has lost voices. Perhaps we can make some connections to a certain main character failing to see his party members as people after a little progression through the story.

Regardless of how we got there, we are back at the beginning of the loop, so onwards we go!

Now that we are retreading old ground, we're gonna primarily focus on the things that have changed. Hey! The supporting friend line has moved to the melody now! Hey! The material that this line was supporting is no longer playing! I'm not sure how I feel about the implications there! Now that the right hand is playing what was in the left hand, there is new material in the left hand: A melancholy descending line with a strong focus on the 7th, which adds a new extension to the tonic that wasn't as pronounced in the first passage. Because the right hand is only playing the figure it took from the original passage, there's a couple measures where this line is able to ring out unimpeded.

First, we hear it as A-G#-C#, a nice way to add the leading tone into the bar to turn the old major tonic chord into something new and interesting. I could belabor the point here and talk further about how putting the leading tone in the first measure of this passage really digs into Siffrin's feelings of wanting to find home with his family, but I think you understand by now. What I really wanna belabor is how in the second measure of this example, the left hand's line changes to G#-E-C#, the triad for the following chord. The music is beginning to anticipate the changes further in the loop. The melody is skipping ahead to complete the motions of the last loop in the hopes of getting something different this time, just as Siffrin returned to the beginning of the loop and used his knowledge of his friends to try and make them stronger, more able to tackle the challenges of the House. But what if things still don't work out this time?

To our surprise, the left hand still plays their supporting line this time! Even when they think they know everything, Siffrin still can show new vulnerability, and their friends will still be with him in support. However, this little joy isn't enough to defeat break the loop. Despite the right hand's best efforts to change the momentum of the line in this second iteration of the ii->bII64, the change still comes. Once the line is forced back into the stepwise motion to Bb, the right hand makes no more effort to continue playing. This isn't how it was supposed to end, so the only option is to go back and try something different.

And oh boy do we go somewhere different! We have accepted that the key change is happening. We are thinking about how if things do not change from their predetermined course, we will end up going as far away as possible from where we want to be (home) (the place we feel safe and secure) (the place where we feel happier than we have ever been before). Hey look! It's the main theme of In Stars and Time making an appearance in the left hand! Hey look! That means the supporting line that I mentioned feels like it's helping the right hand light itself up has been lost! God I love music and its ability to tell you the themes of a story without saying a goddamn word!

What really gets me about this passage is that it feels far more natural than the Bb -> A progression, despite being so far from the previous tonic. It feels less jarring to confront the thoughts than it is to stew in them. This key changes carries such an immense weight because it represents the little voice in the back of Siffrin's mind. (They don't want to see you again.) (They'll go back to their homes, without you) "We're with you!" (But for how long.)

The variations continue in the left hand as we approach the next loop point. Now that we have changed keys, the lines are becoming more chaotic. Previously, the left hand would hold a pitch on the last measure of a 4 bar phrase (other than the first ii->bII64 in measure 12), but this time it is wildly jumping around in contrast to the strange ascending line in the right hand. We have looped many times now, and it is beginning to wear us down. Siffrin is failing to remember his lines, and perhaps in desperation is trying anything new to make headway against the time loops. No such luck yet. I should also note that while i didn't mark it in the example image, the same voice leading errors occurred as in the key of A. Despite all the changes, when we loop back into Eb it carries the same feeling of suddenly being snapped back, rather than any kind of a satisfying end.

Finally, we have reached the end of the piece. I only have 2 things i want to discuss here. First is the circled pitch cluster in the bass. I haven't talked much about the bass in this analysis because after the first loop, it runs as an ostinato for the duration of the piece, until right here. It plodded away exactly as it needed to the entire time, providing a wonderful, grounding figure to help warm up the instrumentation and balance out the harmony as it took us around to the strange places it did. So when I heard this the first time I was a little shocked.

At first, I thought it was an error that managed to slip under the sound team. However, after thinking about the piece, I am confident that this was a 100% intentional choice by Studio Thumpy Puppy. Up to now, "We're With You" has shown a slow, progressive decline in stability to represent Siffrin's growing anxiety about the end of his adventure with the rest of his party. Little things hiding away in a happy, tender piece meant to play when their family is together and enjoy each other's company. While Sif has always shown doubts about how genuinely everyone cares about them, it is undeniable that they have given him their full support and care for their entire time together. So, what if he made a big mistake?

One that really made them withhold their support, if even for a second?

Next, I'd like to talk about the final measures of the piece. We are treated to an unbelievably sparse harmony. All E's, then a lower E in the base, and finally E-B-E to close out before relooping to the very beginning. There is no sudden jerk back to the loop, we have to sit with this empty, transitional feeling.

When I was first learning to play piano, I had a very bad habit. Whenever I would make a mistake during practice, I would always leap back to just before I made the mistake, rather than simply allowing it to happen and moving on. In my frustration, I would end up playing the lead up to where I made the mistake, unbelievably slowly, as though I were trying to grind the failure out of my body.

My mistake was not in redoing a section that I clearly hadn't perfected yet, practice is important after all. My mistake was that I treated it like a blemish. That because I performed incorrectly, there was no point in continuing with the piece until I could perform correctly. The thought of making a mistake in front of those whose opinions of me were so important filled me with dread. This is what goes through my mind when I listen to the very end of "We're With You!" When faced with the prospect of losing their family, Siffrin's reaction is to go back and do it right this time.

Every time.

Only took me a week to get this one out :3 This was a way bigger write-up than I thought it was gonna be! This music has themes in it y'all!

As always, if you haven't supported Studio Thumpy Puppy yet, go do that. They make good music!

And if you haven't played ISAT yet, then uh,,, I warned you at the top about spoilers, go buy it and learn why I love it to death :>

I won't promise a time for the next one, but keep an eye out for my next transcript, stardust :)

#in stars and time spoilers #isat spoilers #in stars and time #music theory #studio thumpy puppy

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