OTDOTS Chapter 10: 15,648 words and about two-thirds done. The main word document got so huge that it started hanging up whenever I saved, so I started splitting the thing.
Today, Teachers' Day. Much enjoyment there! In a very brief summary:
Guy and I skipped ACES day by acting as diarrhoea victim and helpful victim, upon concluding which we proceeded to the amphitheatre for a performance in which artgym was awesome, Caucasian male Biology teachers cross-dressed, Ms. Tay was baaad, and I burst my diarrhoea-ridden guts laughing. Then came class party, in which I successfully delivered all eight of my cards, seven in person, during which I discovered that in fact it is true, though expected, that most men prefer breakfast bars to bead flowers--after which we sang our hearts out and I burst my guts again, eating this time, then broke my knees having class photos taken, though the pain was quickly remedied by seeing Mrs. Teo's and Mr. Yeoh's children.
Went home with Guy once again, and we had a good read at the library about Alice in Wonderland. I also managed to find the sequel of Flora Segunda!! It's a series by Ysabeau S. Wilce that I just started reading this Friday. That's four days ago, and I've already got the sequel. YES. I don't think I've ever caught on to a book so fast before, and that's just how perfectly wonderfully perfect it is. The world created inside was so vivid, so pretty and so exotic. And the guys have long hair. LONG HAIR. YES.
Alright, so I wasn't happy about the lack of romance, but that can't really stand in the way of enjoyment of a good book. It would have been Flora x Valefor if I had had my way, but NO, she ended up hating him for doing what he did, and locking him back where he came from.
Never mind though; there's a sequel, and maybe that'll change things.
Thanks to this book, I also picked up Lapis Lazuli, which I abandoned about a year back, because I thought the story was going to fall flat. I'm glad I waited, though; it's surprising how much my writing has changed (and I suppose improved) in less than a year. It currently sits before me at its 117th page.
In other unrelated news, Cobalt appeases. Rubidium deals with candle-stand-fetishists. Ketara/Potassium surf in floral print boxers. Cobalt and Inspector Javert have hat wars. Memes are fun, very fun.
...
31.8.10
21.8.10
for sharing purposes
Filler
Text
Black rectangles = confirmed
Grey rectangles = not confirmed (will be either of two)
It seems that Thursday is a bad time. Tuesday is best for meeting, and it seems we'll all be here on Monday too.
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20.8.10
stained glass
People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun’s out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light within.
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
18.8.10
and this is the fame.
As posted on LJ. Quote from Lady Gaga. I found it really, really beautiful.
"There's something heroic about the way my fans operate their cameras. So precisely and intricately, so proudly, and so methodically. Like Kings writing the history of their people.
It's their prolific nature that both creates and procures what will later be perceived as the "kingdom".
So, the real truth about Lady Gaga fans lies in this sentiment: They are the kings. They are the queens. They write the history of the kingdom, while I am something of a devoted jester.
It is in the theory of perception that we have established our bond. Or, the lie, I should say, for which we kill. We are nothing without our image. Without our projection. Without the spiritual hologram of who we perceive ourselves to be, or to become rather, in the future.
When you're lonely,
I'll be lonely too.
And this is the fame."
-Lady Gaga
"There's something heroic about the way my fans operate their cameras. So precisely and intricately, so proudly, and so methodically. Like Kings writing the history of their people.
It's their prolific nature that both creates and procures what will later be perceived as the "kingdom".
So, the real truth about Lady Gaga fans lies in this sentiment: They are the kings. They are the queens. They write the history of the kingdom, while I am something of a devoted jester.
It is in the theory of perception that we have established our bond. Or, the lie, I should say, for which we kill. We are nothing without our image. Without our projection. Without the spiritual hologram of who we perceive ourselves to be, or to become rather, in the future.
When you're lonely,
I'll be lonely too.
And this is the fame."
-Lady Gaga
13.8.10
in time with your heart
As posted on Facebook.
This is to you, artists and dreamers and people who make worlds of their own :D
---
This is the house I built myself.
This is my world. I paved the roads with rainbows, and wrote the trees to life on the backs of my hands. And it was this, my little treasure for the times when handkerchiefs and hugs wouldn't dry my tears. It was sincerely my own, and all I longed it to be.
This is my creation. It is a song—but the ocarinas play effortless glissandos and the cellos harmonise with the stars. The apples float away when they fall from the tree, the doors open in four directions, the stars draw pictures in the velvet night. I'll jump from the hundredth floor, and land on the thousandth—and under the dust in the attic, I'll find a river that will take me to the sea.
Everyone tells me: let go. Leave. Throw it away. Because this Fantasy of mine, it'll never be any more than what it is now: a wish. Pointless, being servant to a wish. But how can I deny that this wish brings me laughter? How can I forget that there are souls here, souls like butterflies that sing with me; that there are roads waiting to be walked, sunrises waiting to be coloured?
I love this world so. Here, it doesn't matter how silly, how unorthodox, how crazy I am—because this world will always be sillier, weirder, crazier! Isn't that what we all want? Isn't it what we need—a place where you can dream, and draw, and build your card house as high as you want without fearing the limit of the ceiling, because there is no ceiling?
I wish there were a front door.
I wish I could invite you in and show you the stars. We could sail streams made of lyrics—and share a world of wonders that will vanish by sunset tomorrow! I wish it could be yours, as much as it is mine. I wish you could watch the apples float into the sky, then we could laugh at Newton as we have a rainbow picnic on the riverbank. And we could take the lift to the thousandth floor, and have conversations with the stars about things that never die!
But I can't take you inside, because there isn't a front door. How I search, yet I cannot find the gates to my kingdom!
I can only give you impressions. I can sing a strain of the stars' song to you. Or perhaps dance out, for you, the shifting dapples from under the cedar tree—or paint you a fraction of the river we'll never sail together.
That's art, after all, isn't it? The dancer on-stage, scoured by the spotlight—she has a tale to tell to you, a tale that can't stay in chains forever. And her, that girl who doodles on the margins of her worksheets, as if she doesn't give a damn:
Because she has a world, and she wishes you knew how beautiful it really is.
No, they'll always and forever be a mere shadow of what you see and taste and breathe in that world called Fantasy. You'll never do your wonderland justice, because the cages of reality won't let you.
But this what an artist is meant to do. She is a rebel, who will keep dreaming and keep dreaming however many times she is told to let it go. She will keep trying and fighting to bring her wondrous creation into light, because she knows the beauty of things that will never, never be. She knows that special joy like the back of her hand.
And she knows that if she draws, dances, writes long enough, you will someday know it too.
But we'll find the back door someday.
This is to you, artists and dreamers and people who make worlds of their own :D
---
This is the house I built myself.
This is my world. I paved the roads with rainbows, and wrote the trees to life on the backs of my hands. And it was this, my little treasure for the times when handkerchiefs and hugs wouldn't dry my tears. It was sincerely my own, and all I longed it to be.
This is my creation. It is a song—but the ocarinas play effortless glissandos and the cellos harmonise with the stars. The apples float away when they fall from the tree, the doors open in four directions, the stars draw pictures in the velvet night. I'll jump from the hundredth floor, and land on the thousandth—and under the dust in the attic, I'll find a river that will take me to the sea.
Everyone tells me: let go. Leave. Throw it away. Because this Fantasy of mine, it'll never be any more than what it is now: a wish. Pointless, being servant to a wish. But how can I deny that this wish brings me laughter? How can I forget that there are souls here, souls like butterflies that sing with me; that there are roads waiting to be walked, sunrises waiting to be coloured?
I love this world so. Here, it doesn't matter how silly, how unorthodox, how crazy I am—because this world will always be sillier, weirder, crazier! Isn't that what we all want? Isn't it what we need—a place where you can dream, and draw, and build your card house as high as you want without fearing the limit of the ceiling, because there is no ceiling?
I wish there were a front door.
I wish I could invite you in and show you the stars. We could sail streams made of lyrics—and share a world of wonders that will vanish by sunset tomorrow! I wish it could be yours, as much as it is mine. I wish you could watch the apples float into the sky, then we could laugh at Newton as we have a rainbow picnic on the riverbank. And we could take the lift to the thousandth floor, and have conversations with the stars about things that never die!
But I can't take you inside, because there isn't a front door. How I search, yet I cannot find the gates to my kingdom!
I can only give you impressions. I can sing a strain of the stars' song to you. Or perhaps dance out, for you, the shifting dapples from under the cedar tree—or paint you a fraction of the river we'll never sail together.
That's art, after all, isn't it? The dancer on-stage, scoured by the spotlight—she has a tale to tell to you, a tale that can't stay in chains forever. And her, that girl who doodles on the margins of her worksheets, as if she doesn't give a damn:
Because she has a world, and she wishes you knew how beautiful it really is.
No, they'll always and forever be a mere shadow of what you see and taste and breathe in that world called Fantasy. You'll never do your wonderland justice, because the cages of reality won't let you.
But this what an artist is meant to do. She is a rebel, who will keep dreaming and keep dreaming however many times she is told to let it go. She will keep trying and fighting to bring her wondrous creation into light, because she knows the beauty of things that will never, never be. She knows that special joy like the back of her hand.
And she knows that if she draws, dances, writes long enough, you will someday know it too.
But we'll find the back door someday.
9.8.10
Vanessa Carlton: Ordinary Day
I love love love this video. Plus the awesome lyrics. I was having this awesome wind-blowing-past feeling when I watched it. Amazing :D
8.8.10
nostalgia...
Currently re-listening to all my compositions from the past. I'm in the middle of one of the many versions of Dragon's Pride I have. Right now I'm at the weirdo version where I converted all the instruments to orchestral instruments. Still sounds very tropical--grandly tropical.
I still take pride in Firebird's Fury (which is the random composition on the right btw).
And now I am listening to the various versions of Fly Away (the thing I composed for our class' graduation video). Speaking of which, I must start on those lyrics soon.
Almost done with my creative writing portfolio for that course I'm being forced to go for during Sec 4 Options. Which is...AFTER EXAMS.
ARGHHH whyyy I don't want to do the exams! I don't understand why my parents suddenly care so much about my scores. It's killing me, it really is. And I don't understand HOW my classmates have the strength to pay attention during lessons!!
Every time I think about the exams, I feel like crying. Sudden stress like this is not good for anyone.
Hm, how many versions of Memories in the Snow DO I have? I have chanced upon another, which I, strangely, like a lot more than the original OR the YME album version.
Alright. This is VERY strange. Why in the world do I like my Sec 1 version more than the present one?
I have found YET another, all-strings version of Memories in the Snow. Strange, very strange.
This list sure is long. I wonder how many MIDIs I've composed... *checks* 123. Wow. Never noticed. Then again, about half of them are about 15 seconds long and unfinished...
Sigh, now my old old theme music for OTDOTS is playing. And bam, I'm getting this very nostalgic feeling...it's sort of funny that my original impression and feeling of OTDOTS is so different from it is now...I used to think of it as a grand adventure where people from different parts of the world become unlikely friends and save the world. Now it's more like an emotion story, where all the love and hate is tied inexorably with the storyline...
I think I'll end here, mainly because I'll keep rambling if I don't. Plus I have a Chapter 10 to continue. See yaaa.
I still take pride in Firebird's Fury (which is the random composition on the right btw).
And now I am listening to the various versions of Fly Away (the thing I composed for our class' graduation video). Speaking of which, I must start on those lyrics soon.
Almost done with my creative writing portfolio for that course I'm being forced to go for during Sec 4 Options. Which is...AFTER EXAMS.
ARGHHH whyyy I don't want to do the exams! I don't understand why my parents suddenly care so much about my scores. It's killing me, it really is. And I don't understand HOW my classmates have the strength to pay attention during lessons!!
Every time I think about the exams, I feel like crying. Sudden stress like this is not good for anyone.
Hm, how many versions of Memories in the Snow DO I have? I have chanced upon another, which I, strangely, like a lot more than the original OR the YME album version.
Alright. This is VERY strange. Why in the world do I like my Sec 1 version more than the present one?
I have found YET another, all-strings version of Memories in the Snow. Strange, very strange.
This list sure is long. I wonder how many MIDIs I've composed... *checks* 123. Wow. Never noticed. Then again, about half of them are about 15 seconds long and unfinished...
Sigh, now my old old theme music for OTDOTS is playing. And bam, I'm getting this very nostalgic feeling...it's sort of funny that my original impression and feeling of OTDOTS is so different from it is now...I used to think of it as a grand adventure where people from different parts of the world become unlikely friends and save the world. Now it's more like an emotion story, where all the love and hate is tied inexorably with the storyline...
I think I'll end here, mainly because I'll keep rambling if I don't. Plus I have a Chapter 10 to continue. See yaaa.
1.8.10
analysis of the flight theme in full detail
Yeah, from LJ again. I put so much heart into this analysis, I just HAD to post it.
This is probably the melody I adore the most in the world, at present.
(Click to enlarge)
Now, there are many, many explanations I can find for why I love it--but because no one's going to listen to that, and because it's just my style, I'll split it into main points for simplicity. If you need reference, check the video in the previous post, 1:35 - 1:56.
1) E. Major. Most know (well at least believe) that flat keys, because of their comparatively lowered tonality from C major, tend to sound more sentimental and subdued, while sharp keys tend to get increasingly happier the more sharps you add. This is really true with E major, which, if you think about playing it without any sharps (i.e. C major key signature, but taking E to be the tonic), is a very depressed key. This takes quite some imagination, so don't expect to understand. All you have to know is: therefore, when you play it in E major, the result is a shockingly happy tonality upon a tonic that we expect to carry a painful key.
All this E major whatnot ultimately doesn't end up shouting "happy", unlike B major or F# major would, instead bringing a more sublime "uplifting" feel. Which is wonderful, because that's what the scene was all about--both of flight, and of finding something new and wonderful. It's about soaring and never looking back.
2) Instrumentation. If you listen through the entire soundtrack, this melody is almost always orchestrated to the brass section. Everyone knows the brass section's effect of turning everything grand. Once again, grandness is perfect for the subject matter, which is flight, which is the most magnificent thing in the world, methinks. The outright glorious flare of each note is like a wing beat (that's how I feel).
3) The chords. Just, purely, the chords. I don't think I can even begin to scrape the surface on this. Get ready for some really heavy stuff.
The line preceding this melody (click to enlarge):
As you can see, no minor chords. This is where the "uplifting" of E major reaches its full effect, with an eight-bar melody of constant rising and expanding. It brings to mind the beat of dragon wings (and that IS what we're seeing in the movie at this point) as they ascend gradually but surely into a world unknown.
Then in comes the melody, with a C# minor chord (chord vi). I wish I could just describe how it makes me feel, but I can't. I'll try. It's the sound of epiphany. It speaks of a realisation that has suddenly been reached, a wondrous thing that has not been discovered till now. It's like...major, major, major--then suddenly, minor. So moving, so painful, and it falls so deep into the heart.
The music then falls further, into the expectant, almost-awaiting chord of A major (IV): something suddenly falls into place, then; something strong and beautiful and perfect, but somehow still unresolved. It speaks of pure possibility.
The next pair of B major-E major is like an ascertainment that great things are to come--before the sudden moving fall to B major-on-D#--a flurry of movement, a dash towards the future.
It leads straight into another C#m-A-B-E sequence that, this time, feels like a vast, hopeful resolution never to regret, never to fall again. It's about shaking off the pain, and embracing the new world, with C#m representing the past, A, the shedding of sadness, and B->E, the embrace of the future.
This next line is wrought with pain-- C#m-G#m-B-F#. This part is so, so moving, in just so many ways. Firstly, it begins with the vi-iii line that has always, always represented falling deeper and deeper into sorrow, because such a progression traditionally never ends with a perfect or plagal cadence. But then again our expectations are played with--the music takes a sudden turn, rising to a V instead of an expected IV (which would inevitably lead into an imperfect cadence) and shifting instead into the dominant major, B major, and closing with the much-more-satisfying imperfect cadence there...
Okay, more basically put: you'd expect the line to end sadly, but it takes a shocking, wonderful twist and changes key, ending higher and more gloriously than ever, in the IV chord of B major/ II chord relative to E major. And have I ever told you about my love affair with the II chord? There's just something about its one-step-higher relationship with the tonic that makes it just so heavenly.
Linking this back to the movie: This section, to me, is a reminder of the losses that both main characters have suffered--but ultimately these losses are merely physical, and the emotional journey they have made during their tribulations together (represented by the key shift), and the joy of the destination they have arrived at, conquer all pain.
The next (and last) chord is a bit hard to explain, but that's the magic of it. It's the A major chord, and has the same relationship to the present key (B major) as, say, the Bb chord has to C major. There's a sense of vagueness to it--you don't know where it'll proceed after this--and when you end a melody with this and chord V (just like here), you just can't help but feel sad--but hopeful. So hopeful. After all, the movie's ending wasn't one of perfect joy, yet it was the best I could have asked for. This is a bittersweet ending to the music just fits.
4) The melody! The pair of minims at the start sound like they are heralding the arrival of something great. And holding the same note across a major AND a minor chord always has a wonderful effect. The rising melody 2. 3 3 - makes me think of simple flute tunes in dance music. Then there's the next phrase, which begins on the second beat of the bar--it's like a breath held, and released as a great swoop into the sky begins...
5) Context. Just watch the ending. Watch it. And listen to the background music, and tell me they don't fit together like two lost halves of a locket. A really beautiful locket.
The weather right now is awesome, by the way. In an equatorial country like mine, 24 degrees Celsius is like night-time temperature. Except it's 3pm right now. Ahhhhh.
This is probably the melody I adore the most in the world, at present.
(Click to enlarge)
1) E. Major. Most know (well at least believe) that flat keys, because of their comparatively lowered tonality from C major, tend to sound more sentimental and subdued, while sharp keys tend to get increasingly happier the more sharps you add. This is really true with E major, which, if you think about playing it without any sharps (i.e. C major key signature, but taking E to be the tonic), is a very depressed key. This takes quite some imagination, so don't expect to understand. All you have to know is: therefore, when you play it in E major, the result is a shockingly happy tonality upon a tonic that we expect to carry a painful key.
All this E major whatnot ultimately doesn't end up shouting "happy", unlike B major or F# major would, instead bringing a more sublime "uplifting" feel. Which is wonderful, because that's what the scene was all about--both of flight, and of finding something new and wonderful. It's about soaring and never looking back.
2) Instrumentation. If you listen through the entire soundtrack, this melody is almost always orchestrated to the brass section. Everyone knows the brass section's effect of turning everything grand. Once again, grandness is perfect for the subject matter, which is flight, which is the most magnificent thing in the world, methinks. The outright glorious flare of each note is like a wing beat (that's how I feel).
3) The chords. Just, purely, the chords. I don't think I can even begin to scrape the surface on this. Get ready for some really heavy stuff.
The line preceding this melody (click to enlarge):
Then in comes the melody, with a C# minor chord (chord vi). I wish I could just describe how it makes me feel, but I can't. I'll try. It's the sound of epiphany. It speaks of a realisation that has suddenly been reached, a wondrous thing that has not been discovered till now. It's like...major, major, major--then suddenly, minor. So moving, so painful, and it falls so deep into the heart.
The music then falls further, into the expectant, almost-awaiting chord of A major (IV): something suddenly falls into place, then; something strong and beautiful and perfect, but somehow still unresolved. It speaks of pure possibility.
The next pair of B major-E major is like an ascertainment that great things are to come--before the sudden moving fall to B major-on-D#--a flurry of movement, a dash towards the future.
It leads straight into another C#m-A-B-E sequence that, this time, feels like a vast, hopeful resolution never to regret, never to fall again. It's about shaking off the pain, and embracing the new world, with C#m representing the past, A, the shedding of sadness, and B->E, the embrace of the future.
This next line is wrought with pain-- C#m-G#m-B-F#. This part is so, so moving, in just so many ways. Firstly, it begins with the vi-iii line that has always, always represented falling deeper and deeper into sorrow, because such a progression traditionally never ends with a perfect or plagal cadence. But then again our expectations are played with--the music takes a sudden turn, rising to a V instead of an expected IV (which would inevitably lead into an imperfect cadence) and shifting instead into the dominant major, B major, and closing with the much-more-satisfying imperfect cadence there...
Okay, more basically put: you'd expect the line to end sadly, but it takes a shocking, wonderful twist and changes key, ending higher and more gloriously than ever, in the IV chord of B major/ II chord relative to E major. And have I ever told you about my love affair with the II chord? There's just something about its one-step-higher relationship with the tonic that makes it just so heavenly.
Linking this back to the movie: This section, to me, is a reminder of the losses that both main characters have suffered--but ultimately these losses are merely physical, and the emotional journey they have made during their tribulations together (represented by the key shift), and the joy of the destination they have arrived at, conquer all pain.
The next (and last) chord is a bit hard to explain, but that's the magic of it. It's the A major chord, and has the same relationship to the present key (B major) as, say, the Bb chord has to C major. There's a sense of vagueness to it--you don't know where it'll proceed after this--and when you end a melody with this and chord V (just like here), you just can't help but feel sad--but hopeful. So hopeful. After all, the movie's ending wasn't one of perfect joy, yet it was the best I could have asked for. This is a bittersweet ending to the music just fits.
4) The melody! The pair of minims at the start sound like they are heralding the arrival of something great. And holding the same note across a major AND a minor chord always has a wonderful effect. The rising melody 2. 3 3 - makes me think of simple flute tunes in dance music. Then there's the next phrase, which begins on the second beat of the bar--it's like a breath held, and released as a great swoop into the sky begins...
5) Context. Just watch the ending. Watch it. And listen to the background music, and tell me they don't fit together like two lost halves of a locket. A really beautiful locket.
The weather right now is awesome, by the way. In an equatorial country like mine, 24 degrees Celsius is like night-time temperature. Except it's 3pm right now. Ahhhhh.
coming back around
Okay, of course it's already appeared on my livejournal (which, by the way, is NOT responsible for blog murder), and so I'm reposting here.
Enjoy!
This is a complete and very gushy expounding on why I love the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack. The piece I chose to look at is the finale piece (Coming Back Around), which plays during the last scene of the movie.
Simple movie summary: A dragon-slaying Viking settlement called Berk changes its mind about dragons after wimpy main character Hiccup secretly nurtures an injured one (Toothless) with a broken half-tail. During the movie, the pair develops a symbiosis in which Toothless cannot fly unless Hiccup is riding and controlling its replacement tail with his foot. Epic final battle with the mother dragon (the small dragons terrorise Berk at her ruthless dictation), in which Hiccup wins, but loses a leg. So now both have lost...argh, I can't do this part justice. Watch it yourself.
Anyway...here is the video:
0:00 - 0:27:
Scene: Hiccup gets up to leave the house, being praised on the way (I think).
Unrecognised theme (?) Begins with a few harp glissandos, which always have the effect of magic-ising and lifting the mood, especially when they are upwards with no semitones (i.e. pentatonic!). Quickly rises into what appears to be a compound time rhythm.
0:28 - 0:40
Scene: Hiccup sees his fellow citizens playing with the dragons.
A 3/4 reprise of the theme that was first introduced, so beautifully, in Forbidden Friendship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ96LGGP6w). In all ways, this scene seems to recall the day when Hiccup himself first met Toothless--the day he realised that dragons weren't really enemies. The same thing is happening here, all over again. <3
0:41 - 0:47
Scene: I think he's seeing Toothless and his destroyed replacement tail.
A transition with no resolving cadences. The strings and flute carry the music forward as if floating on, and the music is somewhat expectant and a little doubtful, but completely joyous.
0:48 - 1:01
Scene: Toothless helps Hiccup walk a little (I think). ;_;
The solo violin recalls the calm musical theme that symbolises everyday life in Berk, and it's absolutely beautiful when you think of how amazingly poetic the mundane act of walking can be.
1:01 - 1:08
Melody shifts to the flute, which reminds one of the more joyous scenes of the first half, where Hiccup was suddenly becoming popular in school. :D
1:09 - 1:17
THIS is where the awesomeness begins. He straps the new tail flap to Toothless, and hooks the control belt onto his own artificial leg replacement. Sounds so silly in text, but really it was the bit that made me cry...
Scene: Here he is being given his gift, for defeating the mother dragon: a new artificial tail to replace Toothless' old one. And it's professionally-made.
The music is, again, a reprise of the musical theme that represents Hiccup and Toothless' first meeting--but so much more glorious, with the bagpipes replacing the softer vibraphone from the initial version.
1:19 - 1:35
This is the theme that began the movie, and came again in full force during Hiccup and Toothless' first flight. Moving, and so grand, with that slightly-swinging drumbeat. Sigh...
1:35 - 1:56
Actually a continuation of the above theme, but this is the single tune that brought the entire soundtrack to the next level of awesome. I shall have to go deeper into this tune next post.
1:56 - 2:03
Four-bar phrase of the meeting theme, again! <3<3
2:03 - 2:41
Scene: The flight begins, and I am crying in my theatre seat. This is where the reprise of the introductory narration comes in, and it fits SO WELL. Because the melody in the background isthe same too!
The flight theme returns, in the brass this time, with a contrapuntal flute melody that just positively soars. And a march drumbeat that will forever break my heart with love, because it brings such purpose to the most beautiful movie soundtrack theme I've ever heard.
The movie opens and closes with the very same melodic theme--so different, one gentle and one brilliant--but inherently the very same. Like every good story told, the end links to the beginning--and at once we are brought to consider all that has happened since the story began, how much has changed, how much is still the same, how much will always be. The narration makes it even better.
Enjoy!
This is a complete and very gushy expounding on why I love the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack. The piece I chose to look at is the finale piece (Coming Back Around), which plays during the last scene of the movie.
Simple movie summary: A dragon-slaying Viking settlement called Berk changes its mind about dragons after wimpy main character Hiccup secretly nurtures an injured one (Toothless) with a broken half-tail. During the movie, the pair develops a symbiosis in which Toothless cannot fly unless Hiccup is riding and controlling its replacement tail with his foot. Epic final battle with the mother dragon (the small dragons terrorise Berk at her ruthless dictation), in which Hiccup wins, but loses a leg. So now both have lost...argh, I can't do this part justice. Watch it yourself.
Anyway...here is the video:
0:00 - 0:27:
Scene: Hiccup gets up to leave the house, being praised on the way (I think).
Unrecognised theme (?) Begins with a few harp glissandos, which always have the effect of magic-ising and lifting the mood, especially when they are upwards with no semitones (i.e. pentatonic!). Quickly rises into what appears to be a compound time rhythm.
0:28 - 0:40
Scene: Hiccup sees his fellow citizens playing with the dragons.
A 3/4 reprise of the theme that was first introduced, so beautifully, in Forbidden Friendship (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ96LGGP6w). In all ways, this scene seems to recall the day when Hiccup himself first met Toothless--the day he realised that dragons weren't really enemies. The same thing is happening here, all over again. <3
0:41 - 0:47
Scene: I think he's seeing Toothless and his destroyed replacement tail.
A transition with no resolving cadences. The strings and flute carry the music forward as if floating on, and the music is somewhat expectant and a little doubtful, but completely joyous.
0:48 - 1:01
Scene: Toothless helps Hiccup walk a little (I think). ;_;
The solo violin recalls the calm musical theme that symbolises everyday life in Berk, and it's absolutely beautiful when you think of how amazingly poetic the mundane act of walking can be.
1:01 - 1:08
Melody shifts to the flute, which reminds one of the more joyous scenes of the first half, where Hiccup was suddenly becoming popular in school. :D
1:09 - 1:17
THIS is where the awesomeness begins. He straps the new tail flap to Toothless, and hooks the control belt onto his own artificial leg replacement. Sounds so silly in text, but really it was the bit that made me cry...
Scene: Here he is being given his gift, for defeating the mother dragon: a new artificial tail to replace Toothless' old one. And it's professionally-made.
The music is, again, a reprise of the musical theme that represents Hiccup and Toothless' first meeting--but so much more glorious, with the bagpipes replacing the softer vibraphone from the initial version.
1:19 - 1:35
This is the theme that began the movie, and came again in full force during Hiccup and Toothless' first flight. Moving, and so grand, with that slightly-swinging drumbeat. Sigh...
1:35 - 1:56
Actually a continuation of the above theme, but this is the single tune that brought the entire soundtrack to the next level of awesome. I shall have to go deeper into this tune next post.
1:56 - 2:03
Four-bar phrase of the meeting theme, again! <3<3
2:03 - 2:41
Scene: The flight begins, and I am crying in my theatre seat. This is where the reprise of the introductory narration comes in, and it fits SO WELL. Because the melody in the background isthe same too!
The flight theme returns, in the brass this time, with a contrapuntal flute melody that just positively soars. And a march drumbeat that will forever break my heart with love, because it brings such purpose to the most beautiful movie soundtrack theme I've ever heard.
The movie opens and closes with the very same melodic theme--so different, one gentle and one brilliant--but inherently the very same. Like every good story told, the end links to the beginning--and at once we are brought to consider all that has happened since the story began, how much has changed, how much is still the same, how much will always be. The narration makes it even better.
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