If you’ve played Fallout, you recognize this immediately. This theme illustrates two wonderful concepts. The first being barbed chords, a harmonic portal in the intersection of major and minor polarities.
Its modal interchange, chromatic medians. Objectively, we’re in the key of C major, but intuitively, we feel a pull that obfuscates the major quality. C and C minor share a defining note, but C minor also has its roots deeply entangled in the key of E flat.
E flat chords feel foreign, but not exactly unnatural. But in addition to what key is hidden, there’s the question of what key does it belong in. This is where a composer or an arranger must think like a mix engineer.
This song lives in the range where the instrument growls. Too low, and we must restructure the chord so it’s not muddy. Too high, and we lose its depth.
Harmony, acoustics, arrangement, they’re all sides of the same coin. And you can share that with someone who belongs in a Beat Kitchen residency.
