Note: You can/should read along while listening to the track, the actual analysis starts at "Now to my own theme"



This blog post will be about my Final Fantasy XV Fan theme 'Lux in Obscuro'. Final Fantasy has always had a special place in my heart, it took me quite a while to figure out how much it actually affected me and my musical language. The first time I actually realized how much of it translated into my own music was when I first heard an orchestra play my music. I felt the same thing I feel when I listen to Final Fantasy orchestral recordings. It is, and will be for a long time, a dream for me to actually work on a Final Fantasy on my own and write music for it.

Before we delve into the nitty gritty of my own theme we have to understand what Final Fantasy music makes so appealing and easy to connect to. The most important thing in FFs music is its simplicity. The music doesn’t try to be overly complex, but instead tries to use very simple ideas that are then orchestrated effectively. You can compare it to a children’s song, most of them are really simple but very memorable for this specific reason. The same applies to Final Fantasy music, it is very easy to remember since the melodies aren’t complex(from both a harmonical and rhythmical point of view), it allows us as listeners to get an easier grasp of them since our brain has'nt much to digest while listening.

Another important part is the utilization of piano. In many of the main themes a piano will play solely before the rest of the orchestra joins in. One reason for that is that it's way easier to showcase a melody in a soloistic context. If you start with the full orchestral force our brain might be overwhelmed by what is happening and will lose touch with the melody. That’s one of the reasons why the menu music often starts with just Piano, it evokes a feeling of familiarity.

I don’t want to talk too much about musical terms (such as harmonic or rhythmic ideas) but another reason for FF’s great music is its actual harmonic language. The music utilizes simple chords such as ordinary minor or major chords but also the use of chords that feature a seventh or even further than that. Eventhough the difference between a simple minor/major chord and a seventh chord is just a single note, the overall sound and feeling of the chord will change dramatically. These ‘more advanced’ chords allow the music to have more ‘room’ since these additional notes make the sound more ‘spacey’. For someone not familiar with these sounds, below you can listen to an example of how a seventh can change the sound of a single chord.

As an example listen to the audio file below. First you will hear a simple major chord(C), right after you hear the same chord but with a major seventh added(Cmaj7). You can clearly hear how much aditional space/room is gained just by adding one note to the chord.

