# Elfen Lied's theme is amazing. But is it truely original ?



## display

Original or riped off or inspired from another composer ? ...i'm surprised that such a great theme was created for a japanese anime series.

composed by Yukio Kondo 
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2h43h_elfen-lied-lilium-opening_shortfilms

about the lyrics:
"uses lyrics taken from biblical passages in Psalms and the Epistle of James, as well as the Renaissance hymn Ave mundi spes Maria, in Ecclesiastical Latin. "


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## mueske

That opening is the only good thing about Elfen Lied... I'm curious as well though, hope someone can figure it out.


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## Rasa

Don't see what's so great about it.... some lame minor chords, small progression and then deceptive cadence. Big deal.


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## mueske

Rasa said:


> Don't see what's so great about it.... some lame minor chords, small progression and then deceptive cadence. Big deal.


Compared to the usual opening ie. something like this 



 , that opening is pure genius. -_-


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## display

Rasa said:


> Don't see what's so great about it.... some lame minor chords, small progression and then deceptive cadence. Big deal.


Well , when i say "amazing"...i'm not talking about the complexity of the composition itself but more of the emotion it exudes. Then again , it's just afterall...a matter of personal taste. But i really love the melody of this song.

Obviously if you're a hardcore classical music snob type , you're not gonna enjoy it...you'll simply think it's ****.. Not everything has to be as complex as Brahms , Chopin, Bach , Bartok or Ravel etc...to be enjoyable.

Take Brian Eno for example...Ambient-minimalism at it's best....Yet very emotional music. (or not..)






or boards of canada


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## display

mueske said:


> Compared to the usual opening ie. something like this
> 
> 
> 
> , that opening is pure genius. -_-


that too..


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## Dim7

The classical snob part of my brain says the same thing as Rasa; that there's simply nothing interesting going on there. And certainly it is a fact that this piece isn't anything original or innovative really. But for some reason, I do find this opening kinda moving. The same thing kinda applies to the anime itself; when I watched it was very intense and touching but when I now think about it, it seems very silly. Examples of how too much analytical thinking can spoil the fun.

Oh and here's the full version, it has a beautiful middle section:


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## Argus

display said:


> Well , when i say "amazing"...i'm not talking about the complexity of the composition itself but more of the emotion it exudes. Then again , it's just afterall...a matter of personal taste. But i really love the melody of this song.
> 
> Obviously if you're a hardcore classical music snob type , you're not gonna enjoy it...you'll simply think it's ****.. Not everything has to be as complex as Brahms , Chopin, Bach , Bartok or Ravel etc...to be enjoyable.
> 
> Take Brian Eno for example...Ambient-minimalism at it's best....Yet very emotional music. (or not..)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or boards of canada


I own and thoroughly enjoy _Here Come the Warm Jets, Evening Star, Another Green World _and _The Campfire Headphase_, yet I still found that Elfen Lied song pretty awful. It's just written in a style I don't really like.


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## display

Argus said:


> I own and thoroughly enjoy _Here Come the Warm Jets, Evening Star, Another Green World _and _The Campfire Headphase_, yet I still found that Elfen Lied song pretty awful. It's just written in a style I don't really like.


fair enough...but like i said above , it's afterall , just a matter of personal taste.
Still , i had to mention the likes of Eno or boards of canada (as examples) , "just in case" because it seems like this forum is filled with a lot of "music snobs"..

Some people even say that certain pieces "sound like film music"...(insinuating that it's mediocre)...But here again , there's some original soundtracks which are fantastic to listen to.

(wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack comes to mind or maurice Jarre's jacob's ladder soundtrack for example)


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## Argus

display said:


> fair enough...but like i said above , it's afterall , just a matter of personal taste.
> Still , i had to mention the likes of Eno or boards of canada (as examples) , "just in case" because it seems like this forum is filled with a lot of "music snobs"..
> 
> Some people even say that certain pieces "sound like film music"...(insinuating that it's mediocre)...But here again , there's some original soundtracks which are fantastic to listen to.
> 
> (wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack comes to mind or maurice Jarre's jacob's ladder soundtrack for example)


That reminds me of this thread.


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## display

Argus said:


> That reminds me of this thread.


 true...

Notice the guy hasn't posted a lot of comments since he first started this thread. No wonder..Buyt unlike him...i'm not vexed. If someone tells me that the song is "****"...Oh well. We can't all have the same taste in music.

Still , there's some interesting similitudes between these two threads...

well , first of all the guy posted his question in the " Classical Music Discussion > Identifying Music " section of the forum.

I didn't. Mine is part of : " The Movie Corner: Music for Cinema and TV"...I knew i had to post it there in order to avoid comments such as:



Polednice said:


> Well, it's better in the sense that now you know what it is, but that doesn't mean we can answer your question because this is a forum for Classical music, and that is _not_ classical music. It's stock music. It's not art.


or



Rasa said:


> Heh. OP's piece is still ****. And random stock music, which I believe isn't this forum's topic.
> 
> So breaking it down:
> 
> 1) Instrumental does not mean classical
> 2) Art is still an elitist engagement, and there's nothing wrong with that


But we were both asking a simple question though... The other guy just wanted to know the name of the song. & i just wanted to know if the elfen lied song was inspired or copied from another original composition.

And yet the only person who contribute anything relevant was this guy:



wor033 said:


> It does sound like Library/Production/Stock music to me, but could have been a modern classical composer.
> 
> This company http://www.unippm.com/ has thousands of library tracks - the search engine is pretty cool in that you can search for keywords like orchestral, tribal, uplifting. (I wouldn't search for 'instrumental' though because there's singing in it). There are some really good pieces in there. Some of the CDs pop up on ebay.
> 
> It's unfornuate it's not on the BBC channel otherwise http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/match_of_the_day/7523384.stm
> might shed some light - that was a great service where you could ask about any piece of music played on sports TV. (But they've given up now !)


Being a music snob is not necessarily an insult or a bad thing.. And they can criticize all they want...But it would be preferable if they could at least contribute to the topic or simply ignore it. (if you don't know the answer or don't recognize the inspiration of another existing composition why bother ? )...

In the other guy's thread...Only 1 person tried to give interesting infos..


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## KaerbEmEvig

As for anime openings, I love Moete Hero from Captain Tsubasa - 




Nostalgic, I grew up on this anime. To top that, I'm a japanophile.

As for other anime I've enjoyed watching - Baccano! It, too, has a great opening (in my opinion, that is):


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## display

KaerbEmEvig said:


> As for anime openings, I love Moete Hero from Captain Tsubasa -
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nostalgic, I grew up on this anime. To top that, I'm a japanophile.


ah the memories..  i used to watch it as a kid. Kenshiro (fist of the north star) was my fav though.


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## Rasa

Maybe I'm spoiled by appreciation and knowledge of the past composers (who have been selected by time and thus represent a very small minority of their day's composers)


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