~Hakurei Shrine~ > Touhou Addict Recovery Center
Characters, music, personalities.
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Helepolis:
Also calling Remilia's last part of her song 'not improvised' is also a shame. If you think the piano drowns the music you are not listening correctly :V

Fightest:
Flandre Scarlet - U.N. Owen was her

This piece actually creeped me out first time I heard it. It spelled gothic doom. Still does, if I'm in the right mindset. Actually thinking about it, it's far easier to work with than Septette, simply because UNO has pretty much one style that it clings to with manic persistence. Instrumentation remains consistent throughout with some sort of organ-thing on the melody supported by a bass that sits in the lower octaves to remind you, in case you forgot, that this ain't no flowers-and-bunnies piece, occasional punctuation by bells, with a thumping, oppressive drum beat in the background. Oh, and a bit of xylophone... I'll get to that one in a bit.
There isn't much point in analysing the piece bit-by-bit - the objective seems to be to unashamedly blast you with diminished chords until your brain collapses, and UNO does exactly that - every section comes back to the same manic obsession on diminished chords and oppressive beat and bass. A part that actually stands out, now that I think about it, is the little xylophone transition part at 0:55. This bit gives us a break from the mania, establishing a somewhat different character, strings us along, pulls us into a cadence... Sound familiar? This bit really reminds me of Septette's transition, if not in melody, then, at least, in style - clearly Flandre is more similar to her sister than her usual behaviour lets on. Then again, the cadence, instead of a satisfying conclusion, breaks the flow and falls back into mindscrew mode.
And here I have a question - Flandre is crazy (in a poorly-defined manner). Where (canonically) is this established? I honestly can't remember, and it'd help if someone could point it out.
Assuming she is, indeed, not sane, then this piece might give a version of the nature of her insanity - I believe it can be described as chronic obsessive-compulsive sadism. She shows a manic fixation on hurting things, doing so with no degree of shame. Occasionally she'll give sign of snapping out of it...but it's too hard to tell if it's genuine, as she could just be doing so to mess with you some more. And she will most certainly continue messing with you in an equally nasty manner. In fact, considering the vast majority of the piece is the nasty bit, I think it's better to describe her mania as chronic lack of obsessive-compulsive sadism.

That finishes EoSD! I don't really have many remixes of the pieces here, although I'll trawl through IaMP and SWR, they have some nice ones, and McRoll seems inevitable, also I welcome people to post a link or two to a remix that they feel really captures a character (don't link remixes just 'cause they're awesome - I'm sure they are, but that's not why we're here). Unfortunately, I'm going to be away from the internets for the weekend, but I hope to have a full review of PCB themes at the end. That said, next up: Perfect Cherry Blossom!
Letty Whiterock:

--- Quote from: Fightest on September 04, 2009, 07:07:57 AM ---Heh. Far, far too elegant and melodic for the Cirno we know and love.
--- End quote ---
Back when her theme was composed, she was not "the Cirno we know and love," she was "the ice fairy boss from Stage 2." There was no ⑨ meme, and the only hint at her apparent lack of intelligence were assumptions from her dialogue and Icicle Fall -Easy-. (In fact, Hong's statements about her last stand (and the fact that she lead Reimu/Marisa to the entrance of SDM) should've put her leaps ahead on the "baka" meme, but whatever.) Cirno was just some girl who shot icicles.
Fightest:

--- Quote from: Iryan on September 04, 2009, 01:14:21 PM ---So, you write posts about how the characters are reflected thorugh their themes and you don't think of mentioning that Luna Dial uses the ticking of a clock as percussion? For shaaaaame.  :V

--- End quote ---

Does it? *listens* I don't hear it. One might interpret that particular beating I think you're talking about as sounding ticking-like, but it sounds like a regular bass drum with some sort of dampener to me. Now, of course the intention could well be to make it sound like a clock ticking... but clock ticking is regular. This sure ain't, so I didn't get the association. You could be talking about something else though, so you might need to clarify.


--- Quote from: Helepolis ---Also calling Remilia's last part of her song 'not improvised' is also a shame. If you think the piano drowns the music you are not listening correctly.
--- End quote ---

Are these two different points? The piano part clearly sounds like it has been improvised. I would think that ZUN wrote it down before playing it though, hence making it actually not improvised, but intended to sound so. Of course he could have actually been improvising during the recording. Regardless, the point is that it sounds thus. As for the second part - eeeh... I might not have been clear about that - the melody is firmly put into the background to let the piano do its thing. It's still audible, but the piano riff is by far the most important. Unless you're specifically listening for the melody and ignoring the piano, this is what you should hear.
Fightest:

--- Quote from: Ruri Hoshino on September 04, 2009, 02:05:05 PM ---
--- Quote from: Fightest on September 04, 2009, 07:07:57 AM ---Heh. Far, far too elegant and melodic for the Cirno we know and love.
--- End quote ---
Back when her theme was composed, she was not "the Cirno we know and love," she was "the ice fairy boss from Stage 2." There was no ⑨ meme, and the only hint at her apparent lack of intelligence were assumptions from her dialogue and Icicle Fall -Easy-. (In fact, Hong's statements about her last stand (and the fact that she lead Reimu/Marisa to the entrance of SDM) should've put her leaps ahead on the "baka" meme, but whatever.) Cirno was just some girl who shot icicles.

--- End quote ---

Sure, my commentary has been biased by my current perception of Cirno's character. On the other hand, as you say, she didn't really have much character back then at all, forcing me to fill in some gaps. But it's true, the Cirno-as-then does not give much evidence for lack of elegance. I believe my other points still stand, however.
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