http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5324963/Radical_Dreamers_Exact_Audio_Copythere's the torrent
Anyway, for some examples. The 1000 AD piano/flute theme.....well the flute is playing the same scales as on the Guardia Forest Song. The flute on millennial festival plays that same scale, but without the octaves (10 notes instead of 12. Guardia Forest's beginning with the 1-2-3-4 melody on a music box or similar instrument (I think it's a midi glock) is playing the same thing as the piano on 'a strange happening' (which is the song that plays when they can't figure out why marle disappeared into a portal at the telepod). Manoria Cathedral has a choir playing a pentatonic scale with the usual music box thingy playing a 1234 arp (actually in this song the music box/piano thingy is playing 2 arps instead of just playing the same on statically). The bass on dome-16's ruin is playing the pentatonic scale, and the choir in it is playing the scale really really slowly (both using the 6th note, the octave). So dome 16 is like a redux to 1000 AD oddly enough. A duet of pentatonics, in this case a bass and choir synth instead of piano and flute. The title screen piano plays the recurring pentatonic scale with the octave. And the choir in it plays the 1234 arpeggio. People without hope has a music box thingy with reverb (and not too mention it's using both left and right hands, there may not be reverb or delay or anything like that at all, but Yasunori is simply 'trailing' the left hand about a quarter second behind the right). That song features the 1234 arp. It's a minor chord for sure. That upbeat jazzy bike race has a rhodes/choir piano playing 2 pents (10 notes no octave). And a charang guitar playing riff/powerchords. So bike race and the millennial festival are both based off the same premise, and upbeat song with a basic chord prog featuring some sort of lead instrument (flute and choir piano) playing an unresolved double pent.
Unresolved just means you aren't landing on the octave, you stop at the last note of the scale. so cdga# for example, instead of cdga#c. This leaves the song with a void, a feeling that you need to complete it, and so the whole song keeps you anticipated for that resolve, where it finally delivers at the end. So that's a bit of musical genius there, that's the perfect thing to do for this kind of song (jazzy upbeat piano/guitar jam). It gets resolved whenever the song goes into the breakdown where the bass plays a diatonic scale (unresolved just 7 notes), the piano finishes with a resolve note. So the bass doesn't resolve during the breakdown, but the piano does. This leaves you with wanting more yet again, there's so much going on here that it's like Yasu is playing with the subconscious. Who the hell else do you know can make a GOOD jazz song with power chords? I could write for days on all the different chords that jazz musician's are expected to bring into the mix (sus2 sus4, maj7 maj9, dm, dm5, aug7 the list is lengthy). However in jazz circles this would be considered quite amateur, maybe that's the real reason behind his embarrassment, he was breaking the rules so to speak. Then again, Beethoven had the arrogance to break the rules, and is considered to be the greatest musician ever (at least technical virtuoso skill wise, whether you like the music or not is a matter of opinion).
I'm trying not to make this too long winded (tldr), but the science of music theory is extremely fascinating to my usually bored and unchallenged brain.
The ct theme at the start, the choir plays 3 unresolved pents. The sax plays unresolved pents on most of it's parts as well. And of course that music box/harp thingy plays 1234 arps,that sweeps from the left speaker to the right(like a xylophone going really fast from one end to the other) just like 4 of them in a row ascending across the keyboard. Towards the middle, at like 1 15, there is a breakdown that is continued til the end. Well when that's going down you can hear this music box thingy playing the 1234 arp in one position at 1/4 the speed as that sweep part.
Since the arps are always 1234 Yasunori is just using basic major or minor chords then, triads basically. I'm willing to bet he uses power chords for the charang guitars heard in the tyrano theme, since his chords are mostly simple.
Now what makes it so simple is the fact that he seems to stick to triad chords and powerchords, and his arps are just 1234s, which can't be entirely called simple because only in the past 10 years or so have arps really been taken to a whole new level. Nowadays ppl will play some weird ass arps, I mentioned earlier sus chords and aug and dim, etc, well people are starting to use those in arps now instead of just playing the same basic pattern of minor/major 1234 over and over. So not only has yasu grown as a musician, but he did it along with everyone else. The arps evolution thing is mostly to do with guitar shredders though, because in classical music all sorts of arps were played. I dunno why complex arps died out in the 20th century, I'm guessing it's because guitar took over and people were still learning how to play the things. Yasu is an avid guitarist, as you can probably tell from listening to his albums (kirite, magical dreamers, unstealable jewel, tyrano lair etc). He seems to be a mostly self taught musician as well, so the simple arps thing are what he knew, but at least he did it well.
Between CC and CT, their themes. The flute on time's scar still plays those lovely pentatonics, but he mixes them in with diatonic scales as well (7 notes, the 8th note an octave). so like this:
diatonic
pent
diatonic
pent
song kicks in with the drums and violins etc. Those violins play 1234 arps, but it's not a simple triadic chord I'm not sure what it is. The arps used in this song are much more complex, granted still 1234 notes instead of doing something like 12345 or even up to 7 (he does have a 1-6 thrown in but I think its a stretched out pentatonic scale that goes across the board instead of being in static position box shape). The horns on gale/edge of death play a pentatonic scale with resolve (I'm guessing he resolves it and plays that over and over to give the sense of power and general epicness). The horns actually play a long drawn out part for the breakdown(at like 1 15). This is a repeat of the CT battle theme choirs doing the same. (the basic fight music for random encounters in CT that is, that goes from very low male choir and gradually ascends to females. like this: uh is male ah is femmie:
uhhhhhhhhhhhh (2 seconds)
UHHHHHHHHHHH (2 seconds)
ahhhhhhhhhhhhh (2 seconds)
AHHHHHHHHHHH (2 seconds)
UAHUAHUAHUAHUAH (4 seconds)
So it's kind of cool to see that phrase recurring in the fight music. And to think that song is originally in Radical Dreamers! Perhaps it was to slightly hint that Rad was a chrono series game (since they didn't just come out and say, "radical dreamers is a spin off to ct" ppl had to figure that out by playing thru the game and picking out context clues).
The unstealable jewel. He's playing a chord progression of 4 chords (only 3 are unique it sounds like, so say A minor, A minor 7th, B minor, C minor progression) so, you guessed it that could probably be used for 1234 arps. I can post more on the subject if ppl wanna read it, I feel this is very long as is though.
