I'm terrible at names and I used to call this one "Crossing Those Jungles" since early version of this track was heavily inspired by FF9s overworld theme. I felt like that's too on the nose so I dunno what to call this. Like all the others I have no clue what the game is called so I just referred to it as "Fire Cat Game" on my folder.

This was one of those tracks where I was asked to make something and I just give them something nearly complete 2 hours later. It's a miracle how I'm able to shit out decent quality things fast when the stars align.

Around this time I wanted to experiment with pedal points so the entire A section is just a pedal on F. If you're doing a pedal point, an idea would be to avoid your iii and vi chords since they all share a tonic function. Long story short for those that don't understand that, your I chord, iii chord and vi chord more or less share simillar notes and they all sound the same and sound like "home". You might want to try sticking to your sub-dominant and dominant function chords since they give a bit more push. Your bass is already anchoring on the tonic and having that solid foundation while the chords ontop want to go somewhere is an interesting texture.

For this song I had used F > BbM/F > Bbm/F or I > IV > iv. I think most people can agree that IV > iv is just nice especially when used right. The third and the fifth of the iv chord just voice lead back down to your I chord GOOOD.

When arranging the A section I really liked the sound of a marimba playing an arpeggiated line but felt like it clashed with the melody so I just used it kind-of like a call and response with the main melody. For a teeny tiny bit of development I repeated the A section but added strings to give it that "Final Fantasy" vibe. Those PS1 Final Fantasy games just sound so right with the midi strings haha.

My friends told me that the plot of the game revolves around there being an erupting volcano and you gotta save all the animal friends before they all die a fiery death. I wanted to give that idea some gravity by having the B section sound both dire and beautiful somehow. I didn't quite understand what I was going for at the time but it came through in the music I think.

I feel like nowadays I forget how to modulate to a different key and how effective it can be. The B section sounds so good because we shift to C Major from F Major. The difference between those two key signatures is 1 accidental or in this case Bb turning into a B natural. While I DO modulate, I don't land on C but instead I land on D as my first chord. The B section is just built on a ii > V > I > vi chord progression. Landing on a minor chord makes it sound "sad" but not as sad as committing to an A minor key which I feel adds that dire nature. That idea of beauty was maintained by having the melody land on the 9th of the chord (which is E in a D Minor chord) which is how you get that nice soft sound.

The ending is a hard decision because since it's a videogame loop it needs to go back to the start. You can't just repeat the song in this case because we left F Major and we're firmly in C. There's a bunch of ways to go about it but I felt that going to Ab (Dm > GM > AbM) adds that little bit of "huh where the hell is the music going" feeling. By doing this I'm able to land on BbM, kinda like a dominant chord substitution by going bVII7 instead of V7 bla bla bla. then by landing on our IV(BbM) in F Major we can easily go to our V chord (CM) to firmly bring us back to F.

I don't understand how the fuck I wrote this in like 2 hours since usually thinking of a modulation makes my brain explode trying to make it sound natural. Maybe natural shouldn't be what I'm going for but confidence that it will sound good even if it's a bit weird.

I'm strangely attached to this piece because I have no idea how it sounds so good. It has every element I'm trying to incorporate into my present day writing and I got it pretty good first try. I only had to revise at the start to get an idea going. What the hell happend to me in between this project and now to make me forget? Maybe it's just fatigue from graduating and general unhappiness with my work. Stuff like this really makes me wonder if I'm actually competent or not.