One Winged Angel / Final Boss Battle - Final Fantasy VII Instrument Visualization

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Musical Analysis The original ‘Why do I hear boss music?’ moment. It’s the end of the world as (the music let’s) we know it. This is what happens when you fight a biblically accurate angelical being, or rather fallen angel, in the figure of Sephiroth, the titular one winged angel who has ascended to godhood. Obviously this moment needs a piece to match these dramatic heights and Nobuo Uematsu goes to town by delivering a multi part, driving orchestral piece that sounds as if Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Carl Off’s O Fortuna just had a baby. It is also the missing link of video game music that is destined to unite the old world of MIDI sequencing with the new paradigm of recorded music that will follow thanks to the addition a real life choir recording on top of the sampled orchestra. Even though Sephiroth already had a musical theme for him (Those Chosen by the Planet) he will forever be associated with One Winged Angel as his theme song, song since this now has lyrics that even proclaim his name. Of course they are obligatorily written in Latin since how would you be divine otherwise. Uematsu had already employed the holy organ card to convey the divinity of his previous villain Kefka so now the only option left on the table for this fantasy setting is the classic ominous Latin chants. You then surround it with loudness on all fronts and you get yourself the ultimate final boss battle of your series. Somewhere over the past few centuries, Latin became the language of doom; not only is it the dead language of a once-mighty civilization that collapsed over a thousand years ago but it's also the traditional language of the Roman Catholic Church and, in the same way as the church organ, thus associated with divine power, spirituality, mystery, death and all things high and mighty. It is also a mysterious, uncanny language that sounds like many others we currently speak since they share it as an ancestor; so it has the perfect ingredients to become used for the supernatural and mythical. Even though the actual meaning of the words is not important in order to convey epicness-you could be singing a Latin nursery rhyme, read from a Roman phone book or jut add 'us, -icus, or -ium' to any word you like for all we know and nobody would notice-Uematsu took on the work to actually take meaningful words from the same source as Carl Off’s O Fortuna, the Carmina Burana medieval poems, in order to convey the state of mind of Sephiroth, an entity now full of dread, threat and malevolent, manic violence; the main choir lines say something like: Burning inside
with violent anger Burning inside
with violent anger Sephiroth With the name Sephiroth screamed at the top of the lungs serving as a hook and motif that will occur throughout the piece. Sephiroth could be seen as as the Biblical Seraph, a celestial or heavenly being with six colossal wings that literally means Burning Ones. He has a seventh wing in place of his arm which is how we get the name of the piece. Even though this Latin choir seems huge they were just 8 people (2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and two basses); their names are listed on the liner notes of the soundtrack CD. Uematsu initially wanted to feature recordings of vocals throughout the entire score but decided against it due to how the memory needed for the real audio affected the load times of the locations; so since gameplay comes first he only used it for the final boss theme, inadvertently creating an even bigger impactful moment when players hear for the first time a real choir on their synthesized game. Nobuo Uematsu explained that he composed this cue not in his usual manner but rather by creating various motifs and little phrases first and then piecing them all together like puzzle pieces. He wanted it to be different from his previous battle and final boss music and this was a way to create a suite where short bursts of dissonant melodies come and go, creating the frenzied tone of the final battle and reflecting the fragmented state of mind of the villain; this was the first and only time he tried this method of composition, doing some 2 to 4 bar phrases each day for a period of over two weeks and then sitting down to put them in a coherent manner. This in classical terms would deem the piece a Fantasia form, perfect for the name of the series. and the fact this is the final battle means this is the final fantasia, capisci? The main influence of the piece was specifically Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" in terms of form and orchestration, down to even use a version of the "augur chord", one of the most famous motifs Stravinsky came up with, at the beginning of the piece with the same aggressive staccato rhythm that made the Russian ballet so disquieting for audiences back in the day. Uematsu has also said he wanted to create something that would sound like '60s or '70s rock music performed by a full orchestra, and for the piece to have the same destructive impact as rock music; he still thinks of the piece as a rock song, saying that the culmination of it was when he performed it with his progressive rock outfit ‘The Black Mages’ and an orchestra. The rock influence is mainly the driving rhythm in 4/4 which became a staple of rock music thanks to featuring prominently the drum kit and the time signature changes of the piece must certainly came to Uematsu from his progressive rock influence rather than classical. The stomping rhythm was taken by Uematsu from the intro to the Jimmi Hendrix song ‘Purple Haze’. We also have the Carmina Burana Latin choirs and finally the fear inducing Psycho strings which Uematsu himself said he took from the Afred Hitchcock film. So structurally, it means we have multiple sections followed one after another, with just the main choir chorus and the Sephiroth motif being the anchor points. The piece has an extended intro just for this over the top battle with the highest stakes possible (it comes to the point that the animation for one of Sephiroth attacks lasts for an extravagant 2 minutes; a "blast of such despair that it can send destruction even into other dimensions” because destroying just one dimension is not enough for a Final Fantasy boss. When physics equations appear on-screen breaking the mathematical reality of the spacetime continuum that's how you know Sephiroth is the real deal). Uematsu throws in all the possible hallmarks of despair: loudness, Psycho strings, choirs; even when confronted with the difficult decision of choosing between the Western timpani or the Eastern Taiko drums he did not hesitate to say he wanted both and added a rimshot snare and an orchestral bass drum in good measure if maybe you felt it was not big enough. In general the instrumental sections follow E minor profiles while the choir sections flutter around D minor ones one step down. There is also a section later that flirts with the Bb minor profile. Having said that, tonality is not what this piece is going for, using dissonance, the tritone and chromaticism at every opportunity it can to convey the tone and despair of this battle. It would be closer to the E and D octatonic profiles due to the amount of dissonance of this scale that emphasizes minor seconds and diminished fifths....................................

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Chapter I: The Rip of Spring We hear the first section where The Rite of Spring, Psycho and Purple Haze are mixed together. Instruments begin the call and response dance that bring to mind the heavy steps of a huge beast and the alarming sounds of high pitched instruments that hint at Sephiroth’s insanity by suggesting a mind spiraling out of control. The stomping is done by the alternating steps of the timpani and taiko drums. After two measures of this dissonant march-like figure in the low brass, high woodwinds give the contrasting siren-like response. The march figure returns once again and then the upper woodwinds respond with a rapidly descending, whirlwind chromatic outbursts. The main attributes of the piece are already apparent, the composer must convey the fear and threat in the most theatrical way possible. This is achieved by establishing several musical ideas such as the diminished intervals born out of the octatonic/diminished profiles, extreme dynamics, and the use of extreme ranges as well. Being a sequenced MIDI track Uematsu is able to ask his virtual musicians to play outside their conventional ranges. The flute is the only representative of the woodwind family since this is all about that brass and the strings, where Uematsu takes his string arrangement task seriously; this is not anymore about just low strings and high strings but the entire language of the string section composed of violins, violas, cellos and double basses. You can hear the composer giving separate voices to what would be the different string sections. The brass and strings are doing the poor man's version of the Rite of Spring Augur chords, which originally was basically an E major chord combined with an Eb7 resulting in a lot of minor second intervals and thus dissonance ensues. This one tries to do the same with arguably Bb and A but is content with just using the notes E, A, Bb and D plus the same rhythm to convey the reference. The flutes’ play chromatic appoggiaturas leading from D to E as another set of strings play a disturbing ostinato. The second flute response is colored with a piano playing very high notes, almost sounding like a magical spell being cast; it rapidly alternates between what would be two broken chords, Em7 and A7 without the third. The first melodic lines start to appear in the form of aggressive sounding brass that have that raspy tone in the timbre, being answered with short burst of descending notes on the strings and ascending notes in the case of the horns and flute. There is also some rhythmic displacement since you would expect phrases to last four measures but there is an additional measure of string outburst before the next phrase which is the ascending fanfare. The fanfare in question is a passage of triplets played on the trumpet and strings that gradually ascend chromatically in the upper strings and trombone before being answered by a descending two-bar response in the horn and viola. the fanfare is appropriate to cement the militaristic tone of the battle brought by the snare; thus it works as a melodic idea early in the piece signaling the start of the combat or the introduction of Sephiroth new form. The music remains locked around the pseudo augur chord drone throughout but for the fanfare the only supporting harmony is the two note E and D, resulting in tonal ambiguity. After this moment the piece throws a curveball by abruptly changing the time signature, as if Uematso is fitting his musical puzzle pieces by force. The drone texture goes away and is replace by a contrapuntual one between an upper voice and an independent bass line. The time signature shifts from steady 4/4 to the unstable 7/8 the instruments playing a fugue like pattern that repeats the same melodic line at different points in time. The short ascending section serves to prepare us to the change of key to a D minor. The 7/8 does not last long, returning to the stomping beat shortly after where the strings get crazier going up chromatically from F to its tritone note B and then down in rapid fashion. The underpinning harmony are just a bunch of stacked D note drones on top of which the composer will bring an unorthodox chord progression meant to climax on the choirs that are about to enter the piece. Thus, the harmonic progression in the new key of D minor materializes over a D pedal tone: Dm - Cm - A - G# - Dm -Ebm - F - B” Notice that there are tritone intervals between several of the chords: G# to Dm, as well as F to B. This propels the harmony into unusual directions, further accenting the unstable concept of the piece. The only rhyme and reason is that the root notes of each chord fall into the D diminished profile and that pretty much every note of the chromatic scale is used in those chords. The call and response theme of a battle between two parties is still going strong with flutes and brass echoing the string chords. Chapter II: No Fortuna At no point until now has the player encountered a live recording until the ominous Latin choirs blast in; It was likely very surprising for players in 1997 to hear human voices coming from their TV speakers considering the rest of the soundtrack only included artificial tones. Sephiroth so powerful he connects the dimensions of MIDI and live sound bridging upon mortals the transition between game music into film scoring. The piece finally arrives at its main section after the long intro, the harmony finally stabilizing somewhat into the D minor profile. As can be heard on this visualization, the strings that are underneath the choirs accompany them almost in heterophony, retaining the overall melody of the piece even when the choirs are not present-which is, sadly, what happened to some players of the PC version of the game which featured different sounding instruments-they play stabbing syncopated chords leaping an octave higher adding embellishment to the simpler vocal lines. The snare drum now goes full military form and the timpani play now on beats 1 and 3; the snare accents on beats 2 and 4 in turn is what Uematsu means by this being a rock song. The chords are something like Dm - Bb7(b5) Dm - Bbm Dm - Bbm It all ends with the Sephiroth motif which are three contundent chords F5 - Bbmadd11 - Dm Se - Phi - Roth! The one lyric that non-monk players will understand is accented and ends up on the tonic chord. Only desperate pleads from the strings echoe the Dm after the fact and then the chords Gno3 5/6 - Gm - Dm before the repetition of the Sephiroth motif. The main chorus repeats with additional countermelodies by the horns that also play in fugue like manner. The cross-rhythms between the horn’s triplet profiles and rest of the ensemble’s duplets provide a new, complex texture. The Sephiroth motif is also reinforced by the fanfare responses that call to mind the original fanfare that opened the intro, signaling that the party of adventurers is now finding strength to fight this otherworldly threat. Then the choirs go into a different section which takes its melody from what is the true official theme of Sephiroth-even if this one took all the spotlight-‘Those Chosen by the Planet’ which is itself a motif Uematsu took from his own Final Fantasy V score, The Book of Sealings’ which was brought back for this character named after the angelic Seraphs of the Bible or the sefirot from the Jewish Kabbalah. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnmUqWCkgqt5kMU The motif is also used for the previous boss battle against Sephiroth. The lyrics for this part are: Fate - monstrous
and Empty
 Fate - monstrous
and Empty. Within this section, various musical features heard earlier in the piece return. The Purple Haze percussion ostinato fromt the start of the cue makes a reappearance as does the minor-seventh double-pedal drone (first between E and D and then between B and A). The piece is now closer to Bb minor profile. The horns continue their fugue game with the second one following after the other in an echo fashion. The change of tonality brings down the piece voices to a lower register, creating the impeding sense of doom about to explode. The piece bubbles up before coming back to the main choir section with additional countermelodies on the brass. The second bunch of Sephiroth motifs are made more intense thanks to the unrelenting percussion that becomes even more loud. Even though the snare is militaristic, it still accentuates even more beats 2 and 4 which is another element that makes Uematsu say this is just a progressive rock song roleplaying as an epic romantic orchestra. The song escalates in order to go back to its original E minor key by way of a Dm chord and a chromatic ascent on the bass from B to E.....................................

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Chapter III: Dancing Madder The rock backbeat continues with the snare accenting with rimshots that could sound like handclaps at a rock concert. The melodic phrases become longer and are also echoed with different instruments in fugue like manner. The Em7 is now complete and establishes the new Em tonality going from Em7 to B7 to form an harmonic minor profile. This part is the more reminiscent of the harlequin theme song for the villain Kefka from the previous entry. The melodies keep using chromaticisms but this time in melodic fashion a opposed to just using them for dissonance’ sake. Then we get to the most panic inducing section with the dissonant C7(b5), a chord that is composed of two tritone intervals, while the strings unnervingly climb to the contrasting C major chord; the melodies play a diminished tetrachord ostinato that is then transposed a semitone up with the underlying E6sus2 chord, altering this ostinato to a Phrygian tetrachord. The string ascending countermelody is now doing an Em chord. The orchestral cymbals join the backbeat to make this section more dramatic. It culminates with the chromatic triplet feel descent that then goes back up towards an Em with its sixth note on the highest register which serves as the leading tone to yet another transition to the D key for the calmer flute section. The piece now transforms into a different instrumental interlude that is the calm before the storm, where a combined flute and violin melody shines on top of a C7 to Gdim harmony. The pianist makes a brief return after going for snacks when the intro was done. The piece is at its most tonal, finally employing a humble natural minor scale on the melody. you would think we are now on stable territory But the phrase is not even finished when the composer one again decides to abruptly change the time signature to 3/8 creating a waltz like om-pah feel. This was just another of the puzzle pieces from the composer jigsaw that he thrown it and fitted unexpectedly. The waltz uses the extended chords Dmadd9 - Cmadd9 - Ebmadd9 - Dmadd9 - Cmadd9 - Fmadd9. Another zany harmony and rhythm; you are not allowed to become comfortable when battling a fallen angel. The flute melody returns with the power of military snares in 4/4 and then to another lift with a Dsus4 to a climatic Ab6/9. The basses are pretty much doing their own thing harmonically, first descending and then ascending, changng the color of the harmony with them in the process.The diminished profiles continue to be featured by Uematsu’s consistent use of the Eb and Ab notes. Epilogue: For Whom the Bells Thorn Time for the tribal ostinato as the last piece of the puzzle that sounds as an evil medieval ritual. This section serves as a culmination of almost all the elements that Uematsu has employed within the piece. He employs layering to gradually thicken the texture in four-bar phrases, beginning with a low and ominous atmosphere where the piano and male vocals play together in octaves, based around the definitive tonal center of D and mainly moving up a semitone to Eb or down to C#. The taiko drums perform steady as if the ritual is just taking place. The piece is recharging and slowly, more instruments are introduced. The Psycho strings return and then the aggressive horns that sound the alarm in dissonant seconds. The sopranos and altos sing a quarter note countermelody within the harmonic minor profile. The whole orchestra culminates with the Sephiroth motif this time with interjection of the funeral church bells that are always a signal of death and doom-and ones that hark back to the Sephiroth theme ‘Those Chosen by the Planet’-and the lowest piano note. This is the end at which point the piece loops back to the first main choir section until someone dies. The last set of lyrics are: Come, come, O come,
do not let me die Glorious
Noble The puzzle like way of composing the theme serves so the player cannot predict what will happen next in the music just as the player cannot predict what the character Sephiroth might do next in the game-like literally destroying the entire solar system in the midst of the battle-At 7:20 seconds the song is the second longest in the soundtrack-albeit not as ridiculously long as Kefka’s 17 minute opus from the previous game-that hopefully nobody will ask for- It is always considered one of the obligatory highlights of any of the Final Fantasy concerts and has been remixed multiple times. As has been said, it displaced Sephiroth’s original theme as his signature music for any appearance. The piece sits at the interjection between old video game music and new cinema style video game music. One-Winged Angel" is the favorite tune from the soundtrack of the composer and also his favorite battle theme from any Final Fantasy game. The entire score for Final Fantasy VII amounts to more than 4 hours of music and the soundtrack release spanned multiple CDs showing how serious Square takes the music of the series. As with the previous entries, the game pushed production values of the time to their limit, going so far as abandoning the Nintendo 64 in favor of the new PlayStation whose CD-Roms allowed more storage and permitted the team to tell a more ambitious, cinematic story with pre-rendered videos inside the game, which allows us to see Uematsu incidental music skills when producing movie like scenes. It is also thanks to the CDs that we were able to hear a long real life choir for the final battle-which is not visualized since I’m still researching how to best present recorded audio-despite consisting of 85 tracks the music was composed in less than a year, as opposed to the two-year period that the game’s predecessor FFVI had undergone. Uematsu's approach to composing the game's music was to treat it like a film soundtrack and compose songs that reflected the mood of the scenes rather than trying to make strong melodies to "define the game", as he felt that approach would come across too strong when placed alongside the game's new 3D visuals; another aspect that brought video game music closer to film music. The soundtrack has a feel of "realism", which also prevented him from using "exorbitant, crazy music " or too many catchy video gamey music. The soundtrack covers a wide variety of musical genres, including rock, techno, orchestral, and choral since the story takes on some modern, technological topics, cementing the signature hybrid of fantasy and science fiction of the series. While the Super NES only had eight sound channels to work with, the PlayStation had twenty-four-that is if you wanted to use the internal sequence as opposed to live recordings- Eight were reserved for sound effects, leaving sixteen available for the music. And thus the cipher of Sephiroth has been deciphered. ♫ Support the Channel: www.buymeacoffee.com/musictracks ♫ Media files, requests and support for future interactive tools (Patreon): bit.ly/officialmusictracksmedia Or join as a member.

[@unfortunatefall]

You honestly put to shame other theory channels. these are like dissertations. This is a complicated piece!

[@visualizermusictracks]

Im aided by compiling all kinds of information already out there. From books, videos and blog posts to even some insights from youtube comments and forums

[@thebro4994]

The legend did it! The legend diiiiid iiiiiiiit!!! 🥳🥳🥳

[@yesilovenachos]

Yessss we're getting to Final Fantasy stuff. Sometimes it's hip to be Square