i think you really could've taken this further by pointing how not only do the beginnings of each of these themes start with a perfect fifth, but they all feature the cascading downward melody while also maintaining that interval. this video made me realize that the melodic shape of all these themes are extremely similar in a way that i had never consciously recognized before

I mean the perfect fifth is just a really solid way of establishing a key. It is cool that all of the songs do this, but a significant portion of my own compositions also start with an ascending fifth. This could also be a string musician thing, although guitars are mostly based on fourths instead of fifths like bowed strings so I'm not too sure.

Final Fantasy has a long history with leitmotifs and 14 is no exception. I think that from a meaning standpoint starting the main theme with a rising perfect fifth signifies the beginning of a new adventure, moving upwards. My music theory minor finally has some value yay!

Uematsu only did answers and revolution songs. Rest was Soken. But still enlightening. I never noticed that. I'm no composer, musician, or anything related to music but soken has made me want to learn.

1:51 - There is no such thing a a coincidence, if your hearing these two notes together in sequence, then Hydaelyn wants to your ears to be exactly where they are, hearing those notes at this current time. Remember, she guides us through all hardships, not to punish us or make us hurt, but to make us strong and appreciate the times we have with those around us who we love. Your clothing is spiritually aligned with your aether, making you one step closer to who your supposed to be. There’s no such thing as a coincidence.

This was eating at me ever since I noticed it in SB and HW. Thank you for confirming that I'm not crazy!

Technically Footfalls is the theme of endwalker but it doesn't acknowledge it nearly as much as Flow which I consider to be the actual main theme anyways.

Ohhhhh THAT’S why I keep thinking I’m hearing Tomorrow and Tomorrow in Dawntrail

To me it is interesting since thematically most expansions start off at a “low point” ARR is the aftermath of the Calamity, Heavensward is post bloody banquet, stormblood is post Omega and Baelsars Wall, Shadowbringers is post Scion snatching and Endwalker is just itself, and the rest of .0 is spent reaching a high point for a conclusion with the .x patches setting up the next conflict. Dawntrail is the only Expansion to not really follow this trend. The perfect 5 could be a subtle nod to the story format of most expansions starting low and going high.

Quotation and callbacks have always been a key part of final fantasy music across the series. Final Fantasy 8 soundtrack is fascinating in that nearly every single song in the entire game is quoting the main song (that plays during credits). Once I figured that out, I noticed that Final Fantasy 9 does the same thing. I've not studied the other ones as much to find all their references and quotations, but I'm sure they are there. FF14 seems to have a main theme for each expansion, and a large amount of music for each expansion quotes and references it extensively. It's not just the opening or closing interval. It's the entire thing. Dig in deep and you'll start to see it everywhere.

Nothing seems to be coincidence in the world of music composition, especially in FF in general. Nice finding!

In my mind, the significance is super simple but effective. That perfect fifth marks a beginning. A new story or a new chapter of a story for our Warrior of Light to go down.

I also noticed something cool in one moment of the Endwalker trailer and the Heavensward trailer. Check Endwalker's official trailer at 01:58 when the scene transitions to Estinien and Vrtra descending from the skies with a rock tune and at 04:15 of the Heavensward's trailer when the dragons are advancing on Ishgard with an orchestral tune. They're the same part of the music, just played differently.

This is possibly no coincidence. This can simply be a way to assocaite the brand/idea of XIV as a game to players, through music. Same thing with the prelude, or with Torn from the Heavens, which occasionally gets arranged and remixed over tracks on multiple expansions. These people are doing fine work, I say!

Nice job I like that u pointed that out ❤

They reference the older expansions in the later ones, too. Especially in Endwalker and Dawntrail. Footfalls is literally a combination of every expansion’s theme put together followed up by a newer theme at the end. If you watch the trailer, it syncs up with what happens on screen. And characters from said expansions show up on screen when their theme starts playing. In Dawntrail, it does something similar, lyrically: “From the ashes we’re REBORN To the HEAVENS we will fly Fighting through the STORM Leaving SHADOWS far behind As we WALK right to the END…” As a bonus, these lyrics follow a similar rhythm to Who Brings Shadow from Shadowbringers

I just sort of assumed that every expansion's themes were just variations on the FFXIV theme overall. To put it another way, each FF game has an overall theme for that game, usually part of the overworld music and also part of the more serious or dramatic parts of the game. This commonality between the themes are just variations on this overall musical theme of FFXIV that began with Answers and evolved from there each subsequent expansion.

THank you for this. I thought I was going crazy! I really thought I was the only one to notice this when I pointed it out during a topic in my FC. This made me feel vindicated!!

I think what makes these feel more connected than just "the same interval" is that they're all used rhythmically in a really similar way. It's almost always a pickup, landing on the upper note on beat 1, and after this comes either a lot of space, or a more meandering continuation that leads back to a restatement of this rhythm. In any case, these notes are the longest notes of their respective melody.

Thank you for doing this video and pointing this out! There's so many deep musical connections and I hope you'll do more of them... Most of FFXIV music can be drawn back, often through a meandering path, to Answers, so I really want to see more of it elucidated for everyone to see!

I always thought they all sounded very similar but could never put my finger on a particular quality that made them so. Now I know!

Its because a perfect fifth is the least 'dynamic' of the intervals, in the sense that it's the least likely to lead to a different harmony - 'sol' wants to resolve to 'do', so going 'do' to 'sol', you're most likely to want to resolve back to where you came from. In that sense you could say the perfect fifth is crystalline - static, immobile.

I KNEW IT

Dawntrail is a pretty good 5th expansion for me so far, tho i'm not sure it's "perfect" 😉 heehee hoohoo okay seriously they might've had this in mind though, it's a lot of perfect 5thing going on in that one

i noticed this but i didnt know what it was called because i'm not musically inclined at all. thanks for this

Does this kind of commonality help when trying to string the song together to make medley or similar?

It’s a heroic leap in music, as I understand it. You’ll find it in themes by John Williams, too, STAR WARS, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, too Although ambiguous, as far as major or minor key, the triad leap in music often generates glimmering hope, if not outright triumph 💙 I would say it’s a common thing for music in general, and the reason it’s seen in so much of FFX|V’s score, if not consistently 😅💙

Also in the nald thal fight

Congratulation... you discovered leitmotifs

Something else i noticed is that all of these themes contain notes at all

I've never noticed that... Maybe unrelated but I can't be the only one who hears parts of Close in the Distance in Tuliyollal theme, right?

Checkmate, Soken

To be fair, the 5th is arguably the most common interval in western music.

Last month I started a Music Appreciation course where I now know what any of this means, and THIS WEEK I decided to be interested in Final Fantasy 14. HELLO? Do we know each other?!

I mean … yeah, but i this case a good 80% of the all music répertoire is linked to ffxiv

I wonder if any of this could be found in FF16's tracks

Wait, it wall Answers? Always has been

So it’s all the 5th? Always has been.

While it's nothing special and in fact one of the crucial points in writing hamrony in general (Captain Obvious at your service), Perfect Fifth is very... life-affirming interval, crucial for the theme to have a complete feeling. Jeremy Soule called this interval "triumphant", it feels like as if you have achieved something.

So, the final expansion will end where we began?

Obvs I'm niave about music and all but... It seems so damn insignificant as an outsider to the details when it comes to music, like is it really that shocking? It seems like something that would be extremely common. I can see it but like, I'm not "shook", and I feel like I'm supposed to be shook or suprised or something.

The main theme of Heavensward is Dragonsong, not Heavensward, and the main theme of Endwalker is Footfalls, not Flow.

"enjoying yourself...for a change?" well erenville...i was, till i got roped into another world ending threat and off goes azem to save the world again...for the millionth time

haha i've been thinking this too, just didn't know how to put into words... nice observation!

Shouldn't ew be footfalls?

The perfect 5th is so ubiquitous that this doesn't really mean anything.

Perfect fifth is like the most common note change in all of music 💀

Wow...TWO notes always being the same distance from each other in every theme...such a revelation.

ngl as much as i enjoyed dawntrail the music I was already tired of the music day 3

Lol 😂

Fuckin reaching aren't ya