Soundtrack/Commentary/Winter BGM

## Budding, Silence

The theme of the 20th instalment of the "Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin" music commentary is the BGM of the village in the winter: the daytime BGM "Budding" and the nighttime BGM "Silence".

Winter is a time of quiet and endurance, when farmwork is suspended and the sound of insects ceases to be heard, in contrast to the previous seasons, which were full of vitality all the way through from planting to harvesting. The music is also not as lively this time, but instead more "heartbreaking" in tone. Nevertheless, for the daytime music, we wanted to create a slight warmth in the cold.

This is because for the winter themes, I first think about how I want the night version to sound, and then I work backwards to add warmth to the day version. This is in contrast to the other seasonal songs, where we create the day and then subtract the tones and add our own elements to create the nighttime BGM - the reason for this is that the night version was such a difficult one.

The instruments are based on the koto, with four rhythms: electric piano, guitar, bass and drums, adding just enough depth so that the gap with the rest of the season is not too big. The melody is played by a flute and a shakuhachi, with a sub-melody of an ethnic double-reed flute as a mid-range support. The sound of the metallophone also adds a subtle chill to the piece. In the second half of the song, high frequency strings are added to evoke the wind, giving a chilly feeling and extending the sound range.

(See the attached MIDI, 25\_tsubomi.mid, in the article.)

If you only take this part out, it sounds quite lively, but this all changes when you enter night.

To tell the truth, the most difficult song to write for the village was the winter nighttime track "Silence". It's a contradiction to write a song in order to express silence, but we wanted a track that doesn't make it seem like that, but rather gives a sense of silence through its sound. The idea was to have the koto play the main role, but initially there were a few more instruments, such as the shakuhachi and percussion, to retain some of the atmosphere of a daytime piece. However, there were requests from the developers to make it quieter and to reduce the number of tones, so after several revisions we came up with the current version.

In the end, we settled on a very simple composition: just two kotos, drums, bells and hyoshigi clappers. To tell the truth, it took a lot of courage to do this in the ensemble. In an ensemble, it is easy to cover up some mistakes in the performance, but in this small composition, it is impossible to cover up and the tone has to be very convincing. If we could have used live music, it would have been a different story, but even though the game is now a big hit, it was just an indie game while we were making it and we didn't have the luxury of using live music. As a result, we had to make all the music by hand...

I was concerned about the persuasiveness of this song when I was writing it, but now that it has been released, I am relieved to see that it has become a much-loved song, with koto players uploading videos of their performances.

(See the attached MIDI, 26\_shizuka.mid, in the file.)

I have cut out the same part of the song as the daytime song, but the melody and atmosphere are so different that it stands out among the songs of the four seasons. The melody and atmosphere are very different. The daytime version is based on the pentatonic scale used in most of the other pieces, but the nighttime version uses the insen scale - a scale that gives the impression of a koto. The drums, bells and clappers work in an unassuming way, but they are meant to tighten up the scene. By applying deep reverb, I wanted to express the clear winter air, where even the smallest sound can echo far and wide.

In the next instalment, we'll introduce the theme "Anguish", a cutscene track that evokes nostalgia.