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  #1  
Old Dec 8, 2012, 10:50 AM
Manolito Mystiq Manolito Mystiq is offline
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Default Any idea what’s going on with this progression of A Link to the Past?

I transcribed all of A Link to the Past note for note exact, and am a very analytical thinker, wanting to understand everything that I touch. However, I don’t understand how this progression works. I know it does work. I know that sometimes progressions can’t really be analyzed vertically, but are delayed movements of tension and resolving. With that way of thinking, I do have some ideas of how it can work, but I’d still like your thoughts.

It’s about this part of The Dark World


Horizontally thinking, the ‘A’ in bar 4 is a delayed resolution of the third chord of the previous bar, which makes the ‘Bb’ a suspension of the Adim7 chord. The ‘F’ in the third bar then is nothing more than a neighbor of the ‘Eb’.

In that sense, the 4th chord is really Fm7 or Fm13 (if you add the ‘D’) with this delayed ‘A’.

Also, bar 3-4 is a pseudo-sequence of bar 1-2, which is another reason why it works.

Bar 5, 6, and 7 are chromatically downward progressions. Bar 6, 7, and 8 are completely understandable, but bar 5 is a bit odd. A bII of the bII of D7 would sound okay, but maybe you’ve other ideas?

Sincerely,

Mano
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Old Dec 8, 2012, 11:54 AM
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Blitz Lunar Blitz Lunar is offline
 
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From memory, I thought the progression in the first section went a bit like Cm, F, Cm7, F (repeat) then AbM7, Bb and back to C minor, essentially. I would say that is at least the skeleton of it (though there's obviously some held notes, parts of the strings & counter melody, etc. that I'm not factoring in.) To be honest it doesn't sound too unusual in the earlier parts. The chromatic parts in the last section are way more interesting to me (and great )
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Old Dec 8, 2012, 12:54 PM
Manolito Mystiq Manolito Mystiq is offline
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I’m talking about ‘the last section’, just check the notation.
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Old Dec 9, 2012, 03:47 AM
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Sorry, when I saw your thread before the image hadn't loaded, and by Bar 4 and so on I assumed you actually meant the 4th bar from the start of the song. In any case, it's a fascinating section. I can think of quite a few Kondo songs where he uses that kind of chromatic progression (various incarnations of Ganon's theme in particular.)
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Old Dec 9, 2012, 08:55 AM
Xenofan 29A Xenofan 29A is offline
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Thanks for the analysis. I'd like to have more of this kind of discussion from time to time here.
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  #6  
Old Dec 10, 2012, 09:35 AM
Manolito Mystiq Manolito Mystiq is offline
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Then I have another one.

Take a basic progression in major:

IV | III | II | I
IV | (II V7)→ | II | V7

In F, that makes:



Spice it up by adding diatonic 6ths:



Spice it up even more by adding 7ths to every chord that doesn’t have one and alter the subdominant cadence:



Make a melodic motif of hitting the 7th, the 6th, and a tone leading to the 6th:



Looks familiar? Why, it is Fairy’s Fountain Theme (a.k.a. Menu Select, The Goddess Appears, and Beginning of the Journey).

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Old Dec 18, 2012, 05:18 PM
flamestalker flamestalker is offline
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Great analysis.. Good to see it all on one page.
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Old Dec 18, 2012, 06:07 PM
Manolito Mystiq Manolito Mystiq is offline
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Glad that you like it.
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koji kondo, link to the past, music theory, zelda

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