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Orchestration Techniques in Banjo Kazooie [PATRON REQUEST]

8-bit Music Theory

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In this video I take a quick break from the Breath of the Wild series to catch up on a long overdue patron request video! How does Kirkhope rearrange the same theme to reflect different areas of a level?

PATREON: Patreon: 8bitmusictheory
TWITTER: Twitter: 8bitMusicTheory

20 Comments

@omnisel 8 years ago

"and with the sleigh bells hammering away on all four beats just the way god intended"

@stevend285 8 years ago

"What appears to be a bee choir"

@thecianinator 7 years ago (edited)

3:14 Kirkhope actually did that on purpose! He based the whole game's score on dissonant intervals, both as a challenge to himself and to symbolize Banjo and Kazooie's clashing personalities. He said that on Game Grumps.

@mrflamewars 9 years ago

Banjo-Kazooie is crammed, stuffed, and stomped into a ROM size of 16MB. Superb Technical wizardry.

@TheRockon11 8 years ago

So strange hearing these iconic tunes without a couple 'NEH EH EHs' slpurted out by the baddies

@EllieMcEla 9 years ago

That doubling of a minor tenth is actually something that happens in real life. These are called inharmonic overtones and are very common in the marimba.

@Philip-zp5wu 9 years ago

dude never stop making these videos

@oshahott2532 9 years ago

Am I the only one watching who knows nothing about music, at least in terms of reading it, yet is still very intrigued by these videos?

@Yussnan84. 9 years ago

And Kirkhope says he's not a good composer...

@benhansberry 9 years ago

I'd recommend picking apart the harmonies of these tracks too. The progressions from this sound track are some of the craziest, non-functional things I've seen.

@boomerbear7596 7 years ago

Kirkhope is a truly brilliant composer. This game has some of the best music across all of gaming I think. The use of different instrumentation to reflect different environments makes the music just as immersive as the visuals.

@Kaletiel 3 years ago

7:04 these aren't "tribal calls", these are a pretty perfect imitation of the call of the Common Loon (the water fowl). The call of the bird is considered so iconic and synonymous with wilderness it's often a stock sound in film and game making for such environments.

@NoApplePie4u 7 years ago

Banjo's theme in Smash Bros is going to be FIRE!

@JoshFreilich 8 years ago

6:55 I'd call them Sergio Leone whistles, mainly because they were in "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly."

@BetterThanUnson 7 years ago

dudes a monster at composing. banjo kazooie has the most iconic gaming music ever.

@Quadr44t 3 years ago

1:45 This is before I realised I was this much into music, but as a kid this was my favourite level. And those 4 different versions of the theme (as well as that the level is similar but altered) made it my absolute favourite level of this game. The music must have played a role here I think ^^

(Also, do one on Perfect Dark! Must be my favourite N64 OST. Tho, actually everything from Rare was really good)

@HCSR2 7 years ago (edited)

Bet you didn't think one day this would be topical again

@johndoh1000 8 years ago

DO DIDDY KONG RACING MUSIC!!!!

@babithehuman2505 9 years ago

What about "Clock Town" from Majora's Mask, the day 1, 2 and 3

@stgoddv2525 7 years ago

why the f*ck there is always, in any topic, of any kind, people that dislike???? how on earth can you enter to this video and then dislike it? it's about an extreme specific topic! If you are one of the people that would dislike this video please comment here your reasons so i can understand unkown forms of thinking and reasoning.