# Help with orchestral soundtrack analysis



## cmp (Jul 12, 2014)

Hello everybody!

for exercising, I'm trying to make some analysis of this soundtrack, which sounds a little weird to me: it's taken from the God of War ost (listen from 0:50 to 1:20)






The low cellos seems to play a pedal with these notes: D - D# - C
While in the choir and the melody I hear the notes: D Eb F Gb A Bb and C#
At the beginning it sounded to me like a D phrygian but I can't explain the major seventh and the 4dim
and by ear, it doesn't seems to modulate until 1:20

Someone could help me with this??


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

All said and done, I confess to: 
finding analysis only helpful to a small degree.
having no lost love for this type of music, no matter how well done.

But here is the most salient thing I get from your question. Once the theory is learned, any composer worth anything is no longer writing by textbook theoretical definitions, but _they are using their ears as to what sounds apt, good, right, without worrying about the textbook analysis fitting any particular scale or premise._

Sure, you can Roman numeral the ______ out of it, but I would advise before you label something as a chord first considering if that odd member out is actually a member _of a functioning chord_ or whether it is just used for color. "We" do not slap a roman numeral on just any composite vertical unless, old school, we can justify it as _a functioning chord within the key or mode._

Remember "Chroma" = color, ergo, "chromatic," whether persistent or a touch here and there. These do not get Roman numeral assignments, and within academe, a little written comment that it is merely color is enough.

That it may not fit neatly in one particular mode is the type of worry / mentality of the theory bound, an occupation we all have - had while trying to get the theory down. Once that is learned, musical taste and intuition are expected to kick in, ergo what appear as 'anomalies' are there for a good reason (if they work, lol) and just lesser quality writing if they don't.

The best thing I hope you get from this is that theory is theory, it is a collective bunch of working principles, _but there are no "rules."_

Best regards.


----------



## cmp (Jul 12, 2014)

Hi Petrb and thank for your response...
I totally agree with you: music theory is nothing else than a bunch of notions that only helps to "codify" what you hear.
As Charlir Parker said: master music, then forget all and just play!
However very often I have to improvise, play a melodic bass or just rearrange a score and I need to be able to tell what key a progression belongs to by means of the chords alone. In these situations listening to the piece and finding the key by ear for me is the most difficult approach and generally causes me some mistakes or unwanted results. I know the importance of chromatism, but in this case those note don't sound as passing tones to me.

In this case, I'm still confused and I feel like I'm missing some notions...


----------

