#the hatchetfield leitmotifening

[aibafiles]

hello leitmotif enjoyers. finished editing this thing in time for the npmd release today

[aibafiles]

so there are two big musical throughlines in npmd, which i was mostly aware of from the digital ticket but it's nice to listen through and confirm it:

the first is the "hatchet town" piano motif, which you can hear in the trailer, hatchet town (the chorus of course, but it's also the bass in the verses if you listen for it), and npmd/ddmd in the "who will pray for you" verse. i feel like i remember hearing it in the digital ticket before the opening (during the police bit) but maybe my brain is just making things up? idk, we'll find out. BUT we actually heard it for the first time in the bridge of axe man, very appropriately accompanied by the "watchin nerds run for their lives" lyric. it seems to be associated with the imminent threat of death, particularly if you're a nerd.

the other is right at the beginning of the opening (leading into "I'm dead"), and we hear it again in cool as i think i am ("I'm not a loser") and its reprise, and of course npmd and ddmd ("darkness will spare my soul"), neatly bookending the show. i think this one is more associated with The Nerds growing and asserting themselves, in contrast to the other theme. it reminds me a bit of black friday having two distinct themes that don't come together until the finale, one associated with wiggly and one with family (remind me to make A Post about that too) - it makes the act 1/2 closers really hit home and the show feels more musically cohesive for it.

uh, in conclusion:

[aibafiles]

current source of agony: this absolutely gorgeous lautski theme that we never hear again after abstinence camp

[aibafiles]

hi hatchetfield fans. i'm working on a video essay and i'm trying to figure out if the nightmare time motif at the beginning of TGWDLM's opening number (in the cast recording) was added for the streaming release or if it was there from the start. obviously it isn't in the filmed version of the show, but if anyone downloaded the original soundtrack back in 2018 i would love to know if it's there!

[aibafiles]

excuse the audio crunch but i had a Realization.

ive been doing a very intense comb through of the score and i had vaguely noticed the if i fail you/black friday similarity but what if tomorrow hit me halfway through witch in the web. i wonder if there are any other instances of this motif…

[aibafiles]

hey check this out. witchwood forest theme

(this is far from every instance of it, i just noticed it in witch in the web and tracked down some more examples in nmt2, but there are definitely more!)

[aibafiles]

okay this is my last attempt at posting this in the hopes that it indexes in the tags properly 😭 ANYWAY.

please excuse the crackle but ive been very normal about the npmd soundtrack release all day today so here's a little WIP of the opening! being able to hear everything clearly for the first time i knew i had to get those harmonies down and there's a few other songs i want to try and transcribe...

unfortunately musescore gliss sounds like shit or i would have used it on "so long." alas

[aibafiles]

okay i have seen the npmd proshot and this is mostly me being in my leitmotif era but

i was going Ape Shitt recognizing all the nmt-exclusive music and i lost my mind when the witchwood forest theme played while they were on the way to pick up the black book. chomping biting et cetera. im making a supercut of that theme first thing when the youtube version goes live

[aibafiles]

two episodes into nmt2 and there are a Lot more characters with themes of their own - gerald, roman (i THINK, might have only heard it twice), grace (not related to anything in npmd as far as i can tell), and i only just started trawling abstinence camp but it would not surprise me if steph & pete have their own music as well. there's also an original bit of music in perky's buds that seems to come up in the context of emma's dream!

witchwood theme count is up to 8 and climbing. always a treat to recognize it

[aibafiles]

just picked up a fun little thing on my hatchetfield leitmotif hunt! matt dahan has several musical ideas floating around nightmare time that aren't tied to any character or idea in particular, just used to set the mood, one of which i've nicknamed "spooky arpeggio" (proper name pending) in my doc. we hear it here and there, typically with little variation other than instrumentation (traditional acoustic piano sound versus more synthy electric piano) - here's a good example of it timestamped: (@ 1:08:29)

I was content for that to be all it was - a recurring bit of ambient music for a specific mood - when I noticed this later on in time bastard: (1:30:08)

it's an upbeat variation on that same arpeggio - we've got a transforming idea on our hands! i haven't finished dissecting the entire nmt score yet so i can't say for sure that this is the only instance of it, but i think it's very interesting that the first time we hear a tonal difference, it's before shit goes wrong and the timelines split, as if this is the original form of this theme and it's about to get warped into the spooky hatchetfield music we know.

i don't know that this was intentional on matt's part, given that (iirc) nmt1's score was largely improvised because of the live nature of it. but, intentional or not, it's a part of the musical narrative and i'm having a fucking ball reading into it

(time bastard also establishes a leitmotif for tinky that i think may have also been intended for kilgore because good god it is everywhere - and it gets a little callback in killer track when holloway mentions him!)

[aibafiles]

the hatchetfield leitmotifening begins

[aibafiles]

im going to have to rename these eventually when i set the leitmotif doc loose but i think it would be so funny to just leave them in. arpeggio 2 my favorite theme

[aibafiles]

once again killed dead by love theme that is only ever heard in single nightmare time episode

[aibafiles]

getting my ass beat at google drive

[aibafiles]

good god. cant wait to be able to hear all the music

[aibafiles]

i started this entire project because i wanted to make a supercut of the nightmare time leitmotif but im honestly debating putting together compilation videos for as many nmt themes as i can. becoming the changyuraptor of hatchetfield