Today, I was fantasizing (as I often do) about the upcoming game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, when the theme music popped into my head. I've got it practically memorized at this point, after watching the trailer so many times, yet it's still as awesome as the first time I heard it. The huge choir knocks me flat each time, though they're singing in a 'language' (lacking syntax or grammar) present only in the realm of the game. After I had played through its final decrescendo and wiped the tears of awe from my eyes, I realized just why this music was so amazing: it connected with what I had listened to in my earlier years - to be more specific, a game earlier in the series.
My friend Brandon got me started on the Elder Scrolls game series when I was but 11 years old, and then, the latest Elder Scrolls game was Morrowind, the third installation. Its opening theme used a rumbling bass, coupled with a piccolo, that struck up an epic melody with a symphony as the title of the game appeared on the screen, and it was the most awesome theme I'd ever heard (which was saying something - I'd played through Super Mario Bros Deluxe and Pokemon Silver plenty of times by then, which are both classics, in the realm of music and games). The next installment of the game, Oblivion, brought the melody from Morrowind back in its introduction theme, though much more subtly, focusing instead on themes that sounded more imperialistic and filled with doom.
Skyrim's introduction throws back to Morrowind's, but in a much more obvious way than the Oblivion intro had. It preserves the melody almost perfectly, using a full symphony with choral accompaniment. There are many differences, however, that are used to portray the nature of the game: the staccato notes in the brass and the choir are much more intense than the legato phrases played by the piccolo and the symphony in the Morrowind theme, the choir emphasizes the importance of language and vocabulary, and the general feel of the two songs are very much different. While the Morrowind intro piece is calm and beautiful, Skyrim's theme is (artistically) chaotic, loud, and more explosive.
I absolutely love the way that these
pieces connect the series together. The games are in the same series,
and are connected by this and the lore they share, but also are
strung to one another by this music, giving the series a sort of
fluidity that not many other games have.
Skyrim Theme
Note: it's highly likely that, in the near future, I'll be doing another blog about these games focused mostly around gameplay mechanics.
The Elder Scrolls Series and all that stuff are copyright Bethesda and such and such. I take no credit in creating any of the media I present, nor do I make any profit from presenting it.
(2nd Note: This blog is similar to another post made by another music blog I had started, The Eerie Noise, because I changed my blog's theme.)
Have fun, good gaming, and remember - don't feed the trolls.
-Toast
(Blogging Week 1)
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