Comments on: Irregular meter in video games

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:14:53 +0000

Wow, this is an amazing site! I love looking for irregular meter in unsuspecting situations! Some of my favorites include “Doom dragon” and “Fusion Dragon Battle” from the GBA game “Golden Sun.” You mentioned old video game music with irregular time signatures, and the first one I can think of is the dungeon theme from Final Fantasy I for the NES released in 1987. He randomly throws in a bar or 11/16 out of nowhere! Anyway, this site rocks! I’d love to hear of anymore tracks you find!

By: Rafi

Rafi — Thu, 13 May 2010 04:31:03 +0000

@Ernest
The treble clef marks the switch from bass clef (m.9) to treble clef (m.10) — much like you’d see for a change in key signature.

The reduced score has the voices in the left hand moving from the lower string chords to the choral chords in the upper register.

By: Ernest

Ernest — Thu, 13 May 2010 03:31:59 +0000

Thanks you for a very eye opening article on music from some of my favourite games, Zelda and Jet Force Gemini. I will definitly experiment with rythms as in the ganondorf battle. Why is there a treble clef in measure 9 of ganondorf battle (ootbattle.png)?

By: Cloud

Cloud — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:35:14 +0000

Hey “Anonymous”, are you sure you did your math right? The last time I checked, the average of 13 and 10 wasn’t 12.

Meter is more than simply splitting the difference. The downbeat makes a world of difference. Try listening to Dan’s example again.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2010 00:15:03 +0000

I hope you realize that alternating measures of 13/16 and 10/16 equate to consecutive measures of 12/16 (or 6/8), which is not irregular.

By: Rain

Rain — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:52:59 +0000

Check out Kingdom Hearts, the track called Night of Fate. It’s in 5/4 I’m pretty sure.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:12:39 +0000

Some more:
The Opening theme from the Monkey Island games has some strange meter changes… it switches between 4/4, 3/4 and 6/4 pretty randomly… it all flows really nicely under the melody, though.

Also, the triforce music at the end of Link to the Past has some interesting signature changes:
4/4 4/4 2/4 4/4 repeated, but the way the melody goes, it sounds waltz-like. there’s a long section of 3/4 later on.

Street Fighter II has a pretty awesome 11/8 groove on the Sagat stage.

It’s mostly in 4/4, but the Secret of Mana boss music has all sorts of crazy shit going on rhythmically.

By: Jasonsan

Jasonsan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 09:43:07 +0000

Sophisticated post. Acutely drawing upon your interests and expertise generates a fun read. Thank you.

I am sure that I can find another game which utilizes an irregular meter. Will get back to you on that.

In the mean time, I hope you are writing up another post along this fashion. You could easily create an entire blog around video game music, grouped by specific musical themes.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:22:36 +0000

My two cents: Level 1 theme from Contra III: The Alien Wars, consisting of a two-bar phrase with the first bar being 4/4 and the second bar being 7/8.

By: Paul

Paul — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:08:13 +0000

This is a great and interesting site. Good work.