Soundtrack/Commentary/Blazing Fire

## Blazing Fire

The theme of the 17th instalment of the "Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin" music commentary is "Blazing Fire", a fire dungeon track.

This volcanic stage is far more dangerous than the previous ones, with lava and poisonous smoke. The enemies are skeletal and frightening, like the Homusubi Specter - they incite fear. If you don't take measures such as making yourself resistant to poison by eating the right meals, it will be difficult to complete the level, and you will be required to use special methods to get through.

The developers presented us with keywords such as "the weight of conquering a difficult level" and "dangerous places, natural threats," and so we formulated a plan based on these keywords.

First of all, I decided to use percussion as the main instrument. I wanted to use the powerful tones of the taiko to express the constant rumbling of the earth as the volcano pulsated.

Rather, to emphasize the desolate feeling, I had the idea that it would be good to use only percussion instruments, mainly Japanese drums. However, it would be difficult to make it convincing with only the sound of percussion instruments, let alone if live music could be used. I would like to explain this later in the commentary for the winter BGM in the pass, but I would like to avoid using fewer tones - especially since the more live music is simulated, the less it can be faked.

As expected, percussion alone was too austere, and I wanted to express a variety of scenes, so I composed the piece with a rhythm section of bass, guitar, and organ, a Japanese instrument section of shakuhachi, flute, shamisen, and koto, and strings to add to the grandeur. However, the idea that I wanted to create a piece that would work with just percussion instruments was at the bottom of my mind, and it would later influence my arrangements.

We started with a Japanese drum sound, "dondokodondoko", and then added other drums to create the groove. In terms of differentiation from other dungeon songs, I wanted this song to have a shuffling, honeyed rhythm. In other songs, I usually think in the order of melody, chords, and rhythm, but in this song, it was the complete opposite: I created the rhythm, then decided on the chord progression, and finally added the tsugaru-shamisen melody to the A melody.

(See the attached MIDI, 20\_homura1.mid, in the article.)

From the next B melody, I started from the melody while keeping the rhythm, and I used the uilleann pipe as the melody instrument. You may not be familiar with it, but it's a kind of bagpipe used in Irish music, and it's my personal favorite instrument. I've used it in "虚無への黙祷" among my published songs, and in "ディーナ・シーの踊り" from REFLEC BEAT 悠久のリフレシア among the songs I've contributed to other games. I wanted to express the threat and pathos of nature in the fire dungeon with a unique tone that has a haunting resonance.

Another feature of this song is that it is an arrangement of the two themes of the Yanato Planting Song discussed in Part 7 plus all the flute phrases. The shakuhachi that appears after the intro is the first theme, and the flute at the beginning of this MIDI, and the second theme at the end. The first and second themes are often found in other songs, but did you notice that the flute phrase is also included?

(See the attached MIDI, 20\_homura2.mid, in the article.)

After the A-melody, B-melody, and chorus, when the excitement reaches its peak, there is an interlude with only Japanese drums, leaving the pipes and shakuhachi. This is the part that influenced the arrangement I mentioned above, and I created a part where the percussion instruments play a leading role, if not the whole song. This is one of my favorite parts of the piece, as it left a deep impression on me.

Since MIDI cannot fully reproduce the sound of the drums, I've included an MP3 as well.

(See the attached audio file in the article.)

In the next article, I will introduce the BGM "Tomfoolery", used for cutscenes with a "silly" feeling to them.