question about resident evil 2 or 3 soundtracks

[ConanBlade94]

hi everyone, the question may be stupid but I have a doubt about the soundtracks of resident evil 2 or 3, I noticed in some scores that the chords are missing. Can you tell me if most of the soundtracks were built only on bass and melodies?

Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2v8v7r6PkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53aDI5K49F4

[jancivil]

why exactly should there be chords

[ConanBlade94]

why exactly should there be chords

because I always thought that these soundtracks also had chords so I doubted that maybe they don't use chords

[vurt]

why exactly should there be chords

because I always thought that these soundtracks also had chords so I doubted that maybe they don't use chords

some do, but doing something different, gets you noticed.

the resident evil games, particularly the first 3 were designed to unsettle the player, so its to be expected things would be different to most games.

part of the charm was the feeling alone and hearing your heartbeat.
overly epic music would have got in the way.
later when they became more action shooter like the rest, the soundtracks got all "hollywood epic" taking a hint from the movies.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I hear chords in form of the voice leadings in the strings in both examples. It is not like the strings are unisoned all the time, or that there are only a bass figure and melody, listen to the harmonizations and the chords arising with the rest of the instruments (piano in the second examples). Modern ways of using chords as "moving blocks" are preceeded by such voice leadings, especially from classical music.

[jancivil]

Yeah, music which does use, let alone wholly rely upon chords is probably in the minority on this planet.
so, music for picture is probably going to look for mood, and like that... and a more expansive view as available, seems to follow

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I am not going to miss the chord block approach should it decide to hit the road. It has its charm in Jazz for sure, but I am not into jazz as such. We use harmonizations, polyphony and mainly keep sustained intervals, like choirs, open (no thirds) to make room for the voiceleading. Blocks can be such killer of the good old magic of voiceleading, leaving room for one melody only on top of them that has to cut through all the crap to have an effect.

[jancivil]

Jazz likes chord names a lot, but the assertion the practice eschews or kills voice leading is mistaken.

for example, and this is as early as I can remember about jazz progression, from a Mickey Baker booklet I picked up at 15 or 16 (my father called it 'Johnny Smith key' hearing me work through it):

Start with say a ii of C and move down stepwise sequentially;
Vertically top-to-bottom, D C F G (ii7 11); to Db Cb (B) F G (bII7#11, cf. b5 sub for dominant); (arrival is C, but C is the new ii) C Bb Eb F; to B A Eb (D#) F, keep going. That entire thing is voice leading-driven. It's very probably the first voice-leading I had ever noticed. Common tones are 3 and 11 while a minor seventh moves down a semitone. These are known principles in jazz harmony voice-leading, it's a thing.

[jancivil]

I personally don't start with a block chord name in my own music really ever.
In Fraudulent Romance there are very clear chord names to be derived (except when there ain't) but my entire harmonic practice is part-writing. Some people like to bandy the chord names about but it's extraneous mentation to me. I go with intervals in the flow of time and tension/resolution may be belayed or subverted at will.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Jazz likes chord names a lot, but the assertion the practice eschews or kills voice leading is mistaken.

As I see it, there will always be voiceleading in chord blocks too. It ain't relative which chord tone is on top. Neither which are below. I really like the ways the tetrads of jazz can "interpret" the same melody line in several ways. Besides, when you write for big band, you work with voiceleading too for e.g. the brass section. Imo, the bane of blocks is that even when voices are led in wonderful harmonies, we deal with parallel or similar movement only and the exact same rhytmical structure between the voices. Compare with the richness of voiceleading in form of parallel motion/similar motion, contrary motion and oblique motion that end up in different rhytmical structure and accents of the voices. The stepstones of counterpoint and polyphony. Thus, the preference for blocks also become a narrow repetitive selection of voiceleading techniques, including rhythm structure.

[jancivil]

block chords as used by your average pop or rock guitarist* isn't in the least concerned with voice-leading. So the statement on jazz would conflate pop use of with jazz use of, and not so much. the use of 3 and 7 in the seventh chord realm tends to voice-leading, the economy of say the keyboardist's handling rather demands it actually.

"the bane of blocks* / we deal with parallel or similar movement only and the exact same [rhythm]...'
*:
https://youtu.be/rYu3UsNIXMM?t=186
cued up by the URL at 3:06

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Great interview. He seems very serious and genuine about the questions, very experienced, nothing hidden under the table.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

block chords as used by your average pop or rock guitarist* isn't in the least concerned with voice-leading.

No, I did not mean the voice leading is made consciously, but the upper voice of a chord progression will usually be percieved as the main melody and thus technically a led voice. The lower voices are technically melodies too, thus when you decide which inversions to use in a chord progression, you are consequently dealing with the voice leading whether you are aware or not.

Basically my objection is simple, namely that a chord moving in one direction where the voices' rhytmical structure is identical really just resembles the first species of counterpoint, namely the basic excercise where you just have to write a second voice to the cantus firmus with the same rhythmical structure. Even when extended in four part writing, it is just an elaboration of the first species.

[jancivil]

well, no intent to do any yet it *is* voice-leading seems a bit _specious_ to me. pun intended

I took up classical guitar so I would have that kind of thing as a guitarist.

[jancivil]

IV V I in G for your average strummy strummer: C E G C E / D A D F# / G B D G B G
you can haz 6 - 7 - 8 on top and roots on the bottom but this is a low grade for voice-leading, and yer parallels mean it ain't fux neither