I do not think it is a stretch to say that Nobuo Uematsu is one of the greatest composers the world has ever seen, but the reason I say that has very little to do with his more well known works.
I love final fantasy. I grew up with VI (or III if you're old), and I understand why those soundtracks have been scrutinized to heck and back, but none of that music could say that they single handedly made me a music theorist. The two pieces of music that skyrocketed me from human to musical mutant was "Wandering Soul" and "Mysterious Thing" from Final Fantasy Legend II (SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu) on gameboy.
Now, you are probably wondering how music that could only utilize up to 3 voices could have made such a difference in my life, but believe me when I say, solving the puzzle of these two pieces was the greatest achievement of my childhood.
It really took until I was nineteen or twenty to put the piece to rest for good, but I still think about whether my solution is truly sufficient. It requires an almost impossible level of ingenuity to come up with these themes that I'm not sure if it was divine inspiration or Uematsu actually thought this deeply about it.
When it comes to the master composers, it is safe to assume that they compose within their own framework and set of rules for harmony and counterpoint. For example, a couple of Mozart's sonatas are complete form palindromes. Each small grouping of measures is given a function that reappears in a similar fashion if you go to the opposite side of the piece.
When I uncovered this fact with one of my professors in my undergrad, I asked the question, "how do we know that Mozart did this on purpose?", and he said, "because he is a genius".
I had to make a similar concession about this piece. It is so carefully constructed that changing a single pitch would make the piece sound unfinished. Even so, the piece retains readability and lacks any highly jarring moments.
The piece I am talking about is Wandering Soul.
Take a listen and behold its perfection in glorious LQ (because I couldn't find a higher quality version):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM9JFncp5Mw
If you want a cleaner version, here is my cover,
https://youtu.be/WdxnxADgOFM
For once, I have to bring out score because we need to analyze individual pitches to gauge what the harmony even is.
The First Half; The First Time Through
The first chord is an open voiced major chord which we will assume implies a I chord.
The second chord raises each pitch a half step. This creates parallel fifths, but because of semitic and spanish traditions, I-bII has been slowly destigmatized over the past century and a half. The third measure has the entire chord move up a whole step which suggests bIII. This would further support the idea that this progression calls upon characteristic Paso Double harmony; however, there is a seventh added in the melody that recontextualizes it as a dominant function V7/bVI chord.
The V7/bVI chord resolves properly to bVI for the first two beats of the next measure before moving to V6/bVI in the second half of the measure.
At this point, it is clear that the bII chord in the second measure was functioning as a pivot between keys. With this in mind, it would function as IV/bVI which makes measures 2-4 IV-V7-(I-V6) in Ab major.
This clarifies measure 5 which sounds like vi because of how many chords have implied the key of Ab major so far.
Measure 6 takes us out of Ab major with a G major triad in the lower voice and a seventh appearing in the melody. This chord is V7/iii in Ab major, but V7 in C major which is where we previously presumed the piece begun because of the first measure.
Measure 7 confirms this suspicion as the V7 resolves properly to C major. This completes the tonal loop and ends us where we started---in C major.
The last measure of the first section is really ambiguous and unhelpful. It doesn't feel like it should come from C major or land on A major in measure 9. It is also weird because of its quality and voicing.
The quality is that of a lydian trichord ("Fa" "La" "Ti") which is a substitute for the dominant trichord ("Fa" "Sol" "Ti") which is more common. Both of these trichords imply dominant function, but the lydian trichord almost always moves to some sort of major chord. It is interesting that he chose the lydian trichord of Ab major which was the key he referenced earlier.
The voicing of this chord is also unusual. It is open, which further obscures what he is doing with it. There also does not seem be a good way to explain how he voice leads it to A major. None of the voices move smoothly to prepare the movement, so it is hard to tell what or how these chords are related.
Perhaps more scholarly research needs to be done on the lydian trichord. It is not as rare as it would seem. Whenever there is a piece in two parts where one voice goes "La" "Ti" "Do" and the other goes "Fa" "Mi", this trichord can be seen. This happens in something with as simple of a progression as "Starship Mario" from Super Mario Galaxy 2. It happens at 0:33 seconds:
As I eluded to earlier, Ab was a key center that was established in the first couple of measures, and the lydian trichord he chose would take the place of a V7 in that key; but instead, it resolves to an A major chord on the down beat of measure 9. A major is a half-step above Ab major which is why I think Uematsu intended a direct modulation up a half-step between the two halves of the piece. If you begun the second half of the piece in Ab major instead of A major, the phrase actually makes more musical sense until the loop.
The Lead-up to the Loop
The first measure of the latter half of the piece is the aforementioned A major chord.
Measure 10 is a standard ii chord in A major.
The next measure is V65/vi.
The V/vi resolves properly to vi and moves to VII of vi.
Because of all of this attention given to vi, measure 10 can be recontextualized as iv/vi with vi being F# minor. This makes the progression from measures 10-12 iv-V65-(i-VII) which parallels the progression of measures 2-4, even though it goes to a different place. The order of functions is maintained which is how the progression calls back to it without being otherwise similar (as long as you can admit that VII is dominant function which it is).
Uematsu than heads to f#: VI (which is also A: IV) in measure 13.
Measure 14 returns to f#: VII (which is also A: V).
The next measure is f#: bVI/biii, a movement that is common in Japanese music to get to biii. The progression this is based on features major or minor chords moving in parallel up the octatonic scale which creates a series of IV-Vs or VI-VIIs depending on how you look at it: natII-natIII-IV-V-bVI-bVII-bVI/biii-bVII/biii and then it loops.
Just like this progression suggests, the last measure is f#: bVII/biii, except bVI/biii (m.15) and bVII/biii (m.16) from these two measures are immediately recontextualized as IV and V of C respectively upon the loop. This confirms that the C major chord at the beginning of the piece has tonic function.
Now I am going to showcase the two chord charts I made years ago to analyze the piece.
This chord chart tells the the function of every chord in the progression in at least 2 keys, but sometimes more when applicable. It is sort of a mess, but I was using an application that was not designed for analyzing Uematsu, so give freshman in college me a break.
I invented the term "Leading Tone Major Chord" to describe a V/vi that deceptively resolves to IV instead of vi like a V-VI cadence in minor. You would think there would not be music that required a chord like that to exist, but lo and behold, I guess. Another way you can conceptualize the chord is by thinking of it as position 2 in the major octatonic progression I stated earlier.
If the chord is a secondary dominant and I was not sure whether it would resolve to a major or minor key, I put a roman numeral with both uppercase and lowercase, eg. V/Vi.
This version of the chart was made less for performance and more for readability. I got rid of the instructions and spaced of the chords which lets you appreciate just how many symbols is required to really grasp this piece.
I included the pitch class set theory name for this lydian trichord as well as the normal form for those who have no life, but that's why those numbers are there. 157 literally means C#-F-G and 046 is how you would build the trichord starting on 0, which means C, but no one actually cares about that stuff.
If you liked this piece and wondered is there any other pieces this complicated left in his repertoire to look at, the answer is no, but there are some that are close. In two weeks, we will talk about one of those. Until next time...
Good evening,
Evan Davis
All chord charts and diagrams created and owned by me. If you would like to use any of my figures, contact me at evandavispiano@gmail.com for permission.
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