k but for real...Aerith or Aeris!? 🧐 FF7 Remake has me all kinds of confused.

Nobuo uematsu has heavily inspired how I write music.

I'm a simple woman. I hear FFIX soundtrack, I melt

Nobuo Uematsu is king.

I haven't even played Final Fantasy 7, not the original, nor the remake. But hearing Arieth's theme on piano still sturs up the emotions within me. I don't understand.

I just find it so inspiring that these 80's and early 90's videogame composers and artists were able to do so much with such limiting and primitive equipment- so it's really useful and helpful to study them as an aspiring creative

7:30 holy shit, he made that all the way back then on the NES Soundchip?, he really used mashed fruits to paint the Mona Lisa on cave walls

Fun fact for those interested. According to retrospective videos and the like, "The Prelude" from FF 1, which became the signature theme for Final Fantasy, was the last song composed for the game, and it was composed in 10 minutes. It was a rushed job. 😸

This is the clearest, most practical breakdown of Uematsu's style I've seen on youtube. Thanks so much.

I couldn't help but hear bits of Rydia, along with pieces of Cyan, and flourishes of Aria/Aerith. Awesome composition, like taking a sip of good wine. Not sure how direct those influences are, but definitely captured the Uematsu sound!

Another thing he seems to like melodically is using the Lydian mode, where essentially the 4th note of the major scale is sharpened. He used it a lot in FF8, including in the Balamb Garden theme which was mentioned here.

The final result definitely sounds like something from FF ! Though I think Uematsu goes a bit further than that : I think he really focuses on what feelings the song must convey and making it suit the tone of the story. It has a subtlety to it, it doesn't just shove sad piano in your face. To think he knows nothing about music theory...

Before I watch this video, as a composer myself, the trick to Nobuo Uematsu is lots of minor add9 chords

I don't know anything about music, i just wanted to see how Nobuo Uematsu would've started making music and you've given me a great idea of that, thank you, you did amazing

As a game dev myself, I oughta learn how to emulate Uematsu and work on arpeggios, ostinatos and the like. Your video seriously helps me with my RPG project. I'll be watching this more than once.

it’s crazy cuz just watching this you can understand a lot of choices in the FFXIV collective soundtracks. seems they all got similar ideas/notes from nobuo’s work haha. that song he writes at the end sounds straight out of XIV

Great video, but I understood mixolydian as having only a flat 7 as compared to major/ionian, and not a flat 6 also.

Im sorry.. but this deserve proabably another 500k more likes AT LEAST!!

That Balamb Garden roll is... and it gets me every time.

Thanks a lot, man ! I was just trying to search "nobuo uematsu composing" on KZfaq and found your video. I repeated what you're talking about on my piano, and try to keep these chords progressions in my brain. I also almost shed a tear when you had shown the scene of Aerith being murdered. What a piece of art is this game...

dude, I did'nt skip your 31mins video. I was really inspired, you really gave me ideas. I'm a game developer and I also plan to compose music that is as good as the music in ff, I will use it in my future games.

Wow this was amazingly good. Nice job!

I'm amazed at your final product. It 100% sounds like it is from a Final Fantasy game!

your track sounded awesome, very good video, thanks :)

If you made a whole Udemy course on this topic I would definitely buy it!

Oh boy, I had plans this evening but I think I'm gonna cancel them because I'm watching this video and gonna write a few new tunes because of this!

I absolutely loved this video! Amazing job!

Your video was totally on point. I am amazed by how structured, instructive, and precise is your info. When I was 5 years into guitar I started composing music, and a lot of peope told me my music sound "movie or game like". And it was because all I learnt were J-RPG pieces! hahaha and I had interiorized a lot of patterns instinctively. I knew what worked, how and when, but by instinct. Your video brings an amazing perspective. Thank you so much.

Wow! I've been looking for content like this for so long. Your explanations are really comprehensive and concise, with great examples. Seriously so helpful. Keep doing what you're doing!

Awesome lesson thank you very much

Thank you for the effort spent on making this. Super helpful

Great video! I personally love this format! I immediately took my keyboard and laptop and created a tune inspired by the Town Themes you mentioned! Thaaaanks!!

One of the biggest things with me for me to enjoy a video game and the biggest reason I was drawn in to FFVII as a toddler is the music. I've always wanted to compose my own music and that was always inspired by Uematsu and now I have the keys to the kingdom to where I can do so thanks to this video.

Absolutely stellar video. Cheers!

now over a year old video, I'm watching this for the third time making soundtracks for a DND session using this video for reference because FF has the most beautiful soundtracks

found this video and your channel through searching for different tips and tricks to help my writing go further, and this video caught my eye because i love ff soundtracks! i was NOT disappointed and this video gave me so much inspiration and was so helpful to further my own compositions! thank you so much for the work and time you put into this! can’t tell you how much i’ve been needing something like this video to help me out of a creative rut!!

YES!!!!! GOOD VIDEO, how emotional this is at the same time. SUPERB

This was done surprisingly well. Good stuff! Thank You!

So if I played the Final Fantasy VII - Overworld Theme in the same key as you, I would play. E,C#m,E,C,D and then E,C#m,E,F#m,A,B and then land on E again. And then I could transpose that so that next time I start on G instead of E. One small tip for next time you decide to teach how to write in the style of someone else, Give us a sample of something you have written in that style before you go on to break it all down. That will give your viewers confidence that the techniques you are teaching actually work. I think personally that Uematsu's music is way more complex than what you make it out to be. The melodies are incredibly catchy and memorable, that's the difficult part. Same thing with Kondo's music, Like the Zelda and Mario music. The melodies really get stuck. Kondo is of course using more Jazz influences than Uematsu, but they are both excellent at using modes and creating catchy melodies. Uematsu also use a lot of colored chords, And he's often breaking the chords up between the instruments. for example the baseline might add notes that are not present in the chord the string ensamble is playing. By breaking the chord up between instruments he can make complex chords sound less crowded and it often feels like multiple "Sub-melodies" coming together in a very pleasing way.

Great video dude, really taught me a lot and gave me inspiration.

that was fun, thanks for a cool vid bruh, also really liked the piece.

This deserves more views! I have been trying to write songs like Nobuo for years and I finally wrote something thanks to this lesson 😁😁 subscribed!

Amazing stuff. Thanks for sharing your knowledge regarding video game composition, its helped me out alot!

This is one of the best made videos I have ever seen. The editing/pacing was wonderful and easy to follow. Loved how you played the in-game clips to show everything you were explaining. All game-music composers should definitely watch this video. Thank you!

Uematsu does more than Final Fantasy. His themes have been used in Rad Racer as well as Chrono Trigger. Whenever you're playing a game with his themes, you're in a weird sense playing FF...even when you're playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl; you know he did the main theme to that, right?

Class is in session musicians!

This is an awesome video! You do a great job editing this and it's clear you spent s lot of time with this one! I smashed that like button for you. This video should have 100k views or more. One thing to consider maybe titling it the theory behind Final Fantasy Music, or What makes Final Fantasy Music so special? Or The Secret Revealed to what makes Final Fantasy music so Special! Another thing is you could potentially split the video into 2 separate 15 minute videos and reference the other video in each one Not sure if it would help but a lot of people have short attention spans and 10-15 minutes seems to be the length of most youtube videos it seems. Anyway I am not trying to diminish anything, awesome content! I just want more people to see your video especially with how much work you put into it!

Great video. This was actually very inspiring, and I'll probably write some more final fantasy like music later now that I have a new drive.

This is one of my favorite videos. I've watched it again and again to help with composing music for my own games. Thank you for all the work you put into it. Is there any chance you could do a similar video about Yasunori Mitsuda's style (particularly the Chrono soundtracks)? I suppose many of the techniques are similar - if my non-musician brain had to try and differentiate the two, I'd say maybe Mitsuda's instrumentation is a big key to unlocking his style, particularly in Chrono Cross.

Thanks for the vid! Was good fun to watch through :) and some Uematsu is always a winner :D

Love this video. So much gold content.

Always a lot of inspiration from your videos. Great job, as usual! 👍

I'm a lucky guy cause I found this video. Excellent job man. I will share this on internet and friends, you deserve more views.

tried making an FF battle theme a while back, and i REALLY wish i'd watched this beforehand. i feel like i could've made it sound WAY better, and more true to how Uematsu composes stuff.

Awesome video man! Uematsu is the king.

Very Interesting, love this! Thanks for this :)

Awesome video! Really awesome to see music involving my favorite game broken down and utilized.

Great video! Fortunately I did not miss it due to the low view numbers.

The World Building and music of Final Fantasy and the Progressive Rock genre just screams my two favorite works of art and became somehow over the years very influential to how I will create my Game Compositions in the near future! A lot of music in the Prog Rock genre also has that adventurous vibes to it! From Genesis, ELP, King Crimson, etc up to modern Prog like Moon Safari, Transatlantic, Dream Theater and many more!

This is beautiful! Now I wanna learn some music theory!

Now I really want to play a game with that theme you created in it..

Thank you, this video is beyond helpful and inspiring.

Hahaha the Ifrit battle in FFVIII... it really hook me up to the series. And in that game I realized too, that Nobuo Uematsu is really good at his job. Many of the songs really connected to the main theme. And using clever / good variations.

nice,i really like ff music and it's my main influence in my music

Oh man. I miss that QL harp patch. I worked at EastWest building the PLAY software for several years but I lost access to all of the instruments when I got a different job. I loved that harp.

Great video. Really enjoyed and helped a lot.

I always think of borrowed chords with Nobuo’s music. Great video. Your piece at the end sounds so much like a Nobuo track!

(Video watching in progress and I love it so far!

Just gained a sub from me. Incredible video. The whole major 1 cord to a minor 5th chord is something i've never thought of doing before. So simple yet so effective. Definitely going to be applying that to my own compositions. Thanks for the video. Keep up the great work.

Great video 💯

Also Uematsu is no stranger of using unusual time signatures. Ambush Attack from Final Fantasy IX is an interesting one it starts off with some unusual time signatures. Not sure if I want to count it as 9/4 or a combination of 8/8 and 10/8. Final Fantasy IX "Run" sounds like an instrumental section of a Dream Theater song haha! We have 5/8,6/8,4/4, 15/16 and who knows what else :D Final Fantasy VIII battle theme is 5/4 Final Fantasy VII Soundtrack - "Hurry Faster!" is another example where the time signatures keep changing Final Fantasy X - Decisive battle is also and interesting one The main part is something like 4/4,3/4,4/4,5/4 and then it has like a 6/4 part and a 4/4 intro. There's probably some that I missed, I believe that Dancing Mad has some unusual time signatures as well on a later part. I also believe that Final Fantasy V battle of the big Bridge also has some interesting stuff going on in the intro

I swear your demo track is a legit Final Fantasy Music !

Thanks! I just started trying my take on this !

Great video thank you!!

thanks for a great video!

Mixolydian would be a natural 6 and a b7. The bVI > bVII > I progression is utilizing mode mixture from the parallel minor.

Great video! I'd love to see an analysis like this on Masashi Hamauzu's music. He's the co-composer of FFX and FFVIIR, composer of FFXIII (which has a phenomenal soundtrack), World of Final Fantasy, SaGa Frontier 2, Unlimited SaGa, FFVII Dirge of Cerberus and many many others. I find his compositions very unique sounding and bringing more complex harmonics - more influenced by jazz and classical.

Really good video. I never slapped like and subscribe so hard. Hope all is well!

Great content!

Thank you!

You speak well. Good job! Thanks for this. FF fan.

Which FF game has the best soundtrack? I'm voting FF6. Fight me!

One of my favorite songs from the series that pays homage to FF battle themes is the theme for 'The Twinning' dungeon in FFXIV, "A Long Fall". It has the syncopation at the start, it's in 4/4 time and has a well-known melody (the Crystal Tower theme). It's such a good theme!

This was fantastic, thank you for the video! I really liked how in depth you went with the explanations 😄👍

Dude really Said he wants Me to Help Support my Family 😂😂 Didnt expect that lol

Wow nice video. Ty for breaking it all down. I just want to make a correction when you say that a minor V is not standard practice in classical music you must be thinking of music strictly from the Classical period. However, after 1820s or so model mixture became a common practice of what would later be termed the Romantic period. During this time it was not uncommon to treat a tonality as both major and minor at the same time. Therefore the I, iii, IV, V, vi, and viiº chords could regularly appear as I, bIII, iv, v, bVI, and bVII. Also remember that even as far back as the Renaissance composers were replacing the minor iiº chord with a ii from the major mode, a v with V, and a VII with viiº. Then in the baroque the final i chord was often replaced with a more stable I chord. So yeah, composers have been using modal mixture for a long time, but after 1800s it became much more common and composers started even to tonazise these chords and to switch back and forth regularly. Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms among many others.

This was great! Been looking like a video about this topic for a while. I'm an amateur composer in that I'm self taught, I was wondering should I take up some form of course, or what would my best bet be for getting into gaming composition? Very open ended questions I know. But thank you so much for this rich resource of lessons.

This is a very helpful video :)

Interesting. Watched this video and 2 weeks later I am unwittingly taking your Udemy course. Thi8

this is gold! Thks u!!!

It’s a really good video, informative and interesting. But I don’t feel like you’re trying to shove information down my throat at 100 Mph, which makes it easier for me to digest. Great job 👍

lets go

Beautiful, thank you

Would love to see how you would add a B section to your A section! Great work!

Loved this! Thank you for your time to make such well made and explained video! Love your final product as well really top quality! Do you like Dragon quest? It’s very different in terms of music! Btw it looks to me you don’t have problems with latency when you record in real-time, do you have any advice concerning this problem of mine?

Holy crap! BEAUTIFUL video and content. 10/10 quality, yikes!

15:04 this theme is so familiar to me, but i never played final fantasy. Interesting

I study Yuzo Koshiro's style. He's amazing also! Will you do his music in the future? Streets of Rage series and Revenge of Shinobi to name a few!

I thought there was a lot of dorian scale also. Like in ffix, with its medieval flutes intro. But I may be mistaking. Super great work anyway! A french new fan!

*I LIKE THIS VIDEO SO MUCH!!!* *PLEASE DO THE SAME WITH SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS!* 😊👏👏👏