Soundtrack/Commentary/Summer BGM

## Flourish, Firefly

The theme of the sixteenth instalment of the "Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin" OST commentary is the summer BGM in the village: "Flourish" for daytime and "Firefly" for nighttime.

Summer is the most vibrant of the four seasons, with lively environmental sounds such as cicadas and ducks chirping. In the rice paddy, there is a steady flow of work to be done coming in, such as pulling weeds and adjusting the water temperature, but as you watch the rice grow day by day, you'll become attached to it. For such a track in the middle of the daytime during the height of summer, I just wanted to make it lively and festive.

The progression is A-B-A, and just before the interlude, the chords go from D (subdominant) to E (dominant), and then repeat F and G without going to A (tonic), which is similar to the spring music introduced in a previous post.

For the melody, I drew inspiration from the melody and phrases of the festival flute, and for the rhythm, in addition to the musical accompaniment of drums and gongs, I used a lot of percussion such as tambourines, handclaps, and shakers to express a lively atmosphere.

(See the attached MIDI, 17\_sakari.mid, in the article.)

Since Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is based on a Japanese fantasy world, I naturally used a lot of Japanese instruments in the music, but in fact, in terms of fantasy, I also used a lot of ethnic instruments other than Japanese instruments. As I will explain in detail in the next few articles - Irish tones are one of my specialties, and I often use them in various places.

In this song, the flute that plays the melody is not a Japanese instrument, but a whistle. It's not that dramatic of a change in tone, but I thought it was the most appropriate for me. In the B melody, the cello-like string instrument playing behind the koto and flute is a morin khuur. The music is Japanese, Latin, Irish, and Mongolian all at the same time, but I think it creates a strange sense of unity.

At night, the liveliness of the daytime disappears, but it still retains the warmth of the remnants of the summer heat. I think the difference in tension between daytime and nighttime music is the greatest in summer among the four seasons.

I named it after a firefly flying around at night in early summer, but in the game it's flying around at night night in spring. Well, either is fine...!

As you can notice when you listen to the rhythm section, the tempo has been cut in half to create a relaxed arrangement. For example, take the contrast in Brazilian music: if the daytime music were samba, the nighttime music would be bossa nova.

I also used the sanshin in this piece, following the previous piece "Tumble". I wanted to add a lighter sound than that of the shamisen, as well as the enthusiasm associated with Okinawa. I also changed the melody to shakuhachi to give it a calming effect, and played the electric piano and morin khuur all the time to give it a softer feel.

(See the attached MIDI, 18\_hotaru.mid, in the article.)

In this way, I was reminded that these two songs are more international than I expected. It can be said that the strength of incorporating other styles of music is that it allows for this kind of freedom in composition and ideas.

In the next article, I will introduce the fiery level music "Blazing Fire".