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It was a nice guess but the track just generally sounds like an investigative segment theme. Not really anything to do with his musical expertise more to do with musical storytelling.
Yes, because music is a language and certain sounds and themes have been used as shorthands through use in musicals, films, tv, etc. It's almost like music is intentional and integral to storytelling or something
All of Undertale's music are iconic. Aside from megalovania being memed on, it's a genuinely well orchestrated soundtrack, along with the rest of the game's soundtracks.
I like how he accidentally reverse engineered ‘Alphys theme’ from ‘Here We Are’. Since the latter is based on the same motif as the former, it’s pretty cool.
It’s amazing how “Here we are” and Alphys’ theme basically the same song, but yet no one ever realizes it without it being told about it, or unless they’re listening super hard when revisiting them for the severalth time
The game's soundtrack is full of leitmotifs, callbacks, references and character themes. The melody in Here We Are references the character Alphys who has a happy quirky theme for her normal laboratory, and a mysterious spooky theme (featuring roughly the same melody) for the hidden underground lab. I really recommend playing or watching a playthrough of this game, it really enhances the soundtrack experience
Absolutely! Loved playing through the whole game with all it’s charm and humour. Would love to see Charles breakdown/study the leitmotifs of the game. So beautiful!!
@@Kuchen-Ralle hello, fellow german. Yup, leitmotif is a valid English word. For some reason it's spelled with an "f" at the end though. No idea why. There's loads of these words: Kindergarten, Glockenspiel, Schadenfreude...
@@BinaryCounter Right. This is commonly known referred to as a "loan word;" a foreign word that becomes widely and sometimes deeply incorporated into another language. It happens across many languages and cultures, back and forth.
@@chrispychicken1783 it does feel like something inspired by a detective movie, but "off" and backed by some odd percussion It sounds like a PI in an industrial setting with some hidden horror about to be revealed I mean I played the game but I thought the same thing then too
I've said a thousand times and I'll say it once again: Toby Fox is a genius. Also: WE NEED A PART TWO! Bergentrückung+Asgore, Spider Dance, Hopes&Dreams+Save The World, Spear of Justice, Battle Against A True Hero... There is so much goodness in this incredible soundtrack.
I worked with a student who had trouble expressing emotions and we did an activity where we shared songs that communicated different emotions and he shared mostly tracks from Undertale. Music can really speak on levels where words may fail.
Ah that's sweet! And it makes sense too serve Undertale's soundtrack has so many songs that ask can express how you feel at any given moment really well
@@Delita45 Extra extra fun fact: Toby fox took a lot of inspiration from earthbound and before he made Undertale he had made a mod for earthbound which is where megalovania originally was used.
“It’s Raining Somewhere Else” is a hugely underrated track from Undertale, I think it often slips under the radar just because there are so many other great tracks like Spider Dance and Spear of Justice that have more of an established narrative link to a specific part of the game. Definitely worth a listen!
Small Spoiler Alert (but seriously go play the game) It's an embellished and slowed version of the Sans theme which fits the mood of the Jazz cafe the character and Sans were in!
@@BestSomebodyNA I’ve played the game several times and yes the two tracks totally embody the tonal makeup of sans’ personality, they play it again in his workshop at 20% the speed. I also think the melodic pattern represents the space made for sans in the fabric of the game and Megalovania is different because it plays when sans deliberately steps outside of that space and confronts the player. Or maybe it’s just because Megalovania was one of the six undertale tracks originally written for a completely different project 🤣
"It's Raining Somewhere Else" is like on my top 3 favorite Undertale songs, along with "Uwa!! So Temperate🎵", and "Home". (I like Home despite how sad it makes me lmao)
There is a joke in the UNDERTALE community that states that Toby Fox (the sole programmer, writer, composer, and artist of UNDERTALE (he had help with the art)) made one song, and remixed it for the entire OST. While it is a gross simplification, there is reasoning behind this. Toby tends to use recurring motifs a *lot* inside of UNDERTALE’S OST, and not just because of “haha reference is cool”. Every single reused motif is there for a reason. The first song you reacted to, “Here We Are”, plays inside of the location “True Lab” which is only accessible in Pacifist Route and is underneath the Lab owned by Dr. Alphys, a character you meet in the game. “Here We Are” is actually a variation of the theme that plays when you meet Alphys for the first time (and her theme is sooo fitting to her personality), and “Here We Are” is a much more darker version of that theme, which is fitting because the True Lab is what hides Alphy’s dark past. “Death By Glamour” on the other hand has a combination of various motifs (if I remember correctly). I believe it has the recurring motif that plays as you explore the Hotlands and the CORE. On top of that, it also has the theme that plays whenever anything Mettaton related happens, which makes sense, “Death By Glamour” is Mettaton-EX’s boss theme. The song “Undertale” also does this and in a way where bearing the name of the game itself is completely warranted. It combines two different themes. The theme you hear at the very very beginning of the game, and “His Theme” which you first hear when you give an umbrella to a statue in Waterfall and a music box plays “His Theme”. “Undertale” is a culmination of your journey in the game as of that point as well as musically tells you the story of how it all happened before the events of the game as the person “His Theme” belongs to is very important in the section of the game this song plays in. Another detail about “Undertale”, it’s actually one of the very very few songs in the game that uses a real acoustic guitar. Every other song was composed digitally, “Undertale” uses a live recording. Yes, there is a song that uses an acoustic guitar before “Undertale”, but that song was digitally composed, you cannot hear the strings being plucked nor can you hear the nails being plucked and scratched against those strings. You do in “Undertale”, which is an artistic decision that just makes the moment feel so much more real. Sincerely, a video game and music nerd
Death by Glamour does, indeed, have a bunch of motifs in it. It has motifs from Metal Crusher (the song from when he's still a box boi), CORE, and Another Medium
In they way that "here we are" is written, it also represents the *spoiler* themselfs. How they where and want to be normal and happy but for sure aren't. Oh did you know Alphys theme was originaly different? Just look up Alphys Beta theme *Don't listen to the extended version from Pokémon profile pick, it's a realy bad made loop
@@monky4640 It's Showtime!, Metal Crusher, [that one theme that plays in the jetpack game or something], Live Report, Death Report, Oh! One True Love, Oh! Dungeon, Last Episode, [that pre-battle one], Death by Glamour and For the Fans?
I'm coming to the party late, but after thinking about this I love that it's detuned. It gives a sense of daintiness from being high pitched (which works for when Toriel comes in and is trying to be very gentle and mothering), but it also feels *unstable*. After you meet Toriel and get saved from Flowey, your decisions affect the rest of the story. Your first decision is the Dummy, and if you hit it you're already set to being an asshole Pacifist at minimum because Mad Dummy won't be happy to hear about it in the sewers (I don't believe his name is yellow in the true credits if you do this). You can spare, talk to, or run from the dummy for a neutral or positive run with a chance to make Mad Dummy happy. Toriel doesn't seem affected by this because she doesn't show any awareness there's a real enemy in the dummy for you to "fight". On top of that, it playing while Toriel meets you, in her own mentally distressed state at seeing another human, she's torn on what to do with you (force you to stay or let you go). The instability vibes with both how Toriel reacts to you, and how the game itself reacts to you as it leads you up to your first game-influencing decision
Yess please! There is so much more to the music when it is put in the context of the story, I would love to hear his take on it. Also it's a really good game xD
Toby is a music creator first, game designer 2nd. Most of the music in Undertale was created before the story beats were finalised, so the amalgamations were likely something created to fit the music he wanted during that part of the story
@@aggressivelymediocre350 Yeah, I just changed it, it wasn't the best word to enunciate it. The thing I love most about Toby as a game designer is how much detail and attention goes into absolutely everything in his games, so of course it's intentional, actually, that might be the best part about it
4:12 "The groove is super settled but the harmony's not" This was the entire essence of the amalgamations in the game. The amalgamations were previous monsters we already encountered, except they're abominations due to failed experiments
Also the "inquisitive wandering" comment reminds me of the part where Frisk is walking around the "foggy" room in the true lab, or maybe just Frisk walking around the true lab in particular since I bet from Frisk's perspective storywise it would mostly just be curiosity fueling him to wander around in there uninvited
Here We Are is really cool. Just realized it when you were figuring out the harmony, but what the song does is harmonize the melody of another song on the OST called Alphys. If you play the game, you know that these two songs are very much interconnected, and it's just a really cool way to use a leifmotif.
@@ksad96 a channel called "MediaMotifs" has a couple videos on gaster's theme that are pretty solid the examples are somewhat loose, such as the background of the snowdin theme, the foreground of 'another him', and a bunch of other tracks from BOTH undertale and deltarune. theyre not always 100% accurate to the gaster melody but it seems like theyre meant to be close enough to make you think
Yes, a bit like this band. They do VGM in all jazz styles and introduced me to the Undertale soundtrack which I love: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5jUwV8_h7ZY.html
Fun fact: Toby Fox actually composed the music for undertale in 24 tone scales not the standard 12 tone basically everyone uses, leading to the "detuned" sound you commented on in fallen down.
Nope. They're all 12edo compositions, it's just that the whole thing sometimes gets detuned in post. Having 24edo would be extremely jarring compared to how it is
@@davimariee imagine trying to find keys when you can just hear noise make similar noise hi, i can only read music at about 10 seconds/note (not notes/second) so i just sing or play by ear
Undertale still remains my favorite game even after all these years. The way a story can be presented in such an impactful way, the endless possibilities and easter eggs, the amazing music, and the room left for theory and imagination conveyed in a much older looking game is really still unmatched to me. The community has always been a little off because any game as popular as undertale was would have something like. Aside from that, when you appreciate the game for what it is and how it performed and stepped outside of normal video game guidelines to create a journey for the player as powerful as the one it created, the game is very underappreciated for what it is. not to mention how toby fox still loved the game and its universe enough even after the pressure and backlash from parts of the community to make a second game similar to undertale that is still being developed. I appreciate toby for creating this game so much. It always holds a special place in my heart.
I remember the first time I completed the pacifist route, I was in actual tears during the fight with Asriel. I know it’s cheesy, but I feel like Undertale significantly changed my outlook on life, especially since I played it during my teen years. (Sidenote: I’ve never done the genocide route, and I don’t think I ever will lmao)
What makes Undertale’s music so interesting and different is truly how mysterious and unsettling it sounds. Songs that should seem lively have a slight distortion in them that makes it seem not as bright as it should be. It’s as if there’s always something darker under the surface, which is a perfect combination for the secrets hidden between the lines of the game.
8:07, i wasnt expecting to hear this out of the blue, we were listening to fun songs before but then this came on, as soon as i heard this song it brought back so many memories of the game instantly and i felt so at peace, i fucking love this song from the soundtrack, i love all of the others as well
I’m sad because first time playing undertale (the game, not the music) nothing was as awesome as it was then. it felt different from other games. and when i played it with my friends, like, i was moving, he was shooting and attackking, it was fun too and i have played undertale over 20 times now and it doesn’t feel the same when i was new to the game and when i knew nothing. It doesn’t feel same as it felt then. And the memories.
@@iphgamer8254 I had a very similar first experience with the game, as a community type thing-- My friend wanted to do a sleepover kind of thing before the league grand final that year (of all things) and people took this as being a party of some variety-- we ended up with 13 people staying the evening, and over that evening the 13 of us played the entirety of a neutral run in Undertale, with none of us having played it before since it had just come out, as our first experience with it. Because we were rotating players on deaths or significant area clears, we had groups of people justifying FIGHTing certain encounters and others advocating to SPARE their favourites, and nobody had enough time with the controls individually to master them, so all the bossfights were rotations of people trying them arcade style until someone managed to win with cheers and applause from the rest of the group lol It was a genuinely wild first way to play the game, the absolute truest neutral run, and one I won't forget for sure
Toby’s whole career has had stuff like this. Even though he didn’t write a majority of Homestuck music, he wrote many of the themes that stuck with the major characters. He’s especially good at making music for characters like Flowey, or places like the true lab, that have that “creepy in a can’t quite place it” kinda way. One of his Homestuck tunes for one of the major villains, one that has control over time, can be played either forwards or backwards and still be close to the same. Dudes a masterminds in music composition!
This is why it works so well, the leitmotiffs are used for the same kinds of situations So things related to serious lore use a certain leitmotiff which puts you in the mood and then you have more goofy ones that are used for the more comical sections Just like in this video where he knew what the music was used for without even playing the game
Hope he gives it a shot one day, while he's mostly untainted by the fandom. It's definitely a game played best on your own, like reading a book your friend recommended to you more than playing a widely-known video game.
I know some basic crap because the game's been so publicized, like Genocide Sans, and stuff, but I don't really know the plot whatsoever. I've completely ignored the game until now. I've just gotten past Undyne, and I think the game is really charming. I hope if he plays it, he likes it too.
@@supremeoverlord0 I had quite a lot of it spoiled for me, but I still really enjoyed it when I played it. Glad to see there's still so many people picking it up for the first time after 6 years.
wow. around the 9 min mark, guy instantly picked up on the asriel theme that's in 'undertale.' it's exactly why toby chose it, it's a theme that stays the same no matter how everything around it changes. it's a persevering melody that adapts to the harmony and it feels different but it's still the same
6:40 It was at this moment that I realized that this guy is way better than I thought. I mean his improv off the first song was good but hearing this incredible addition to a great song that was just made up on the spot gives me an insane amount of respect for this man. As a casual piano player who could never do something like this, I am really impressed.
@@hayond656 @Denzell David was it on purpose that toby composed the song with sounds which's frequencies are between the "conventional" D and D flat frequencies while using a synthesising programs to write the music? Yes I would bet he did it on purpose
"it sounds like stepping around inquizitively" funny charles says that when "Here We Are" plays when you're piecing together & finally find out the truth behind Alphys. just goes to show how much toby know how to make the music in any given place sound exactly how the player is supposed to be feeling.
An entire road trip, I heard the whole soundtrack three times. Some tracks made me smile, some tracks made me cry tears of joy, and most tracks created imagery of the game's events. Toby outdid himself.
@@UndertaleFan-cx2mc lol, I saw ur comment a few days ago here and went onto a video from bo3 a few mins ago and remembered u. Cool to know u figured it out.
@@S2nppy Yeah it was hard at first because my aim was terrible, but now I can do it really easily Also the Wolf Bow and Void Bow pretty consistently Only done Fire once, and never doing it again
I'd love to hear your breakdown and analysis of "Your Best Nightmare" "Hopes and Dreams" "SAVE the World" and "His Theme" They're some of my favorite pieces in the game for different reasons, but I haven't really ever seen anyone analyze them before.
True neither have i, but honestly i still want a video that actually deep dives into the themes, and feeling of the tracks, plus a longer discussion about the soundtrack as a whole because it’s either breaking down the track itself, and just giving some slight insight kinda sad this didn’t scratch my itch.
I just want more of this tbh. Like, hours of it. It's such good fun to just sit here and get goosebumps and share the love for this fuckin' gnarly music with this dude just absolutely jamming out. Thank you.
I really hope there's a high demand for this, but the game "to the moon" has some really good tracks. Anyone who likes piano-y videogame music, vibe to it srsly
Well the soundtrack is in a 24 tone scale instead of the usual 12. A lot of the notes are "out of tune" because of that which makes a very big impact on how we hear the song.
@@SioxGreyWolf Yeah, I heard about Toby using 24 tones instead of our usual 12. Still won't stop me from trying to replicate his songs own system by using my own 12 tone piano to attempt to replicate his 24 tones to create my own songs.
Because apparently there's a video with half a million views of a guy who states it's microtonal after he fails to reproduce it on his keyboard, while the truth is that it's detuned
There are plenty of cool things to dive into with this OST. A lot of the commenters have mentioned Toby's extensive use of leitmotifs, one of my favourite examples is the parallel between Heartache (Toriel's battle theme) and ASGORE (Asgore's battle theme). (SPOILERS for Undertale of course) The two characters are a divorced couple and the repeating groove in both of their tracks is the same pattern, but in two different time signatures. You initially hear it in 3/8 in Heartache, but in ASGORE it's stretched to fill a 4/4 bar. The soundtrack is filled with little connections to notice like that. Often they're hard to notice if you don't pull the music apart because Toby weaves it all together so seamlessly. It especially comes to life if you play the game of course, because it's full of character themes that bring a whole new emotional layer to the music when you know the characters' stories.
Yeahs it really cool. You can also notice the parts of heartache are scattered through asgores theme but none of his theme shown in toriels theme. This shows that toriel moved on from asgore but asgore hasn’t moved on from toriel. It’s some real cool connections in them and Toby did a great job .
This is one example of where a single person can make something that is just flat out greater than the sum of its parts in a way that a team of people can't. The way the characters, musical motifs, and story are weaved together are enhanced by each other. When I played the game, I consciously noticed some of the musical references, but even moreso than that, I felt them.
undertale uses a stupid amount of leitmotifs, the first piece in this video is a remix of the character alphys's theme, the second one uses a much more upbeat version of the song that plays in that area in the game as well as another character's theme, "undertale" is just basically the title theme but with more instruments and the repeated line in the background is _another_ character's theme, etc. ironically, one of the only songs in the game that doesn't include any already established themes whatsoever is megalovania, which is the one that literally everyone knows (because toby fox wrote it when he was like 16) i don't really know that much about chords and keys though, so this is pretty much all i know about the game's music lol
My favorite of these, the one that made me cry the second time I played it and I realized its context, was Asgore's theme. His theme's bridge is just a motif from Toriel's theme. She is still a part of him, and he didn't want what happened to their children, he just made a mistake and lost her too, and she's still in his heart and his theme
the smash rendition of megalovania actually has some leitmotifs fittingly squished in- the goat parents' (asgore/heartache), this one I call "are you even still the one in control" because of some fan lyrics I found (which is the NEO/The Undying motif) and the Nyeh Heh Heh/Bonetrousle motif
It's absolutely amazing watching someone who's never played Undertale pick up on one of the central and most powerful motifs almost instantly and get it damn near perfectly with one listen
@@HearteartHdragon Yeah! Always wondered why, but the Bird Who Carries You Across the Disproportionately Small Gap or whatever it's called sounds a LOT like Alphys sped up. I've been trying to learn the Undertale OST on the piano and that bothered me a lot when I figured it out because I cannot for the life of me figure out why Toby would connect those two characters' motifs lol
I just want to see Charles do a series of live streams playing Undertale and picking up on WHAT the music is doing specifically in context to the story unfolding. Of course I'd love to see him play the whole possible story out for the experience, but also to more so use his musical prowess to point out things we otherwise don't notice.
Your explanation of that first song and how it sounds is exactly how it’s used in the game. It’s used in what is probably the creepiest and strangest area in the game, but it comes extremely late in the story so you have some confidence in your abilities despite having a lot of trepidation about where you are and what you may find. It’s very overlooked and quite a masterpiece for what it is.
Me too. But I'm also happy with these guys who introduced me to Undertake music (old video but they have newer stuff): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5jUwV8_h7ZY.html
The titular track, 'Undertale', was always my favorite track in the soundtrack for Undertale. The mood created by the song with and or without the scene it is used in always brings a tear to my whenever I just quit doing anything else but just listen to it.
leitmotifs are so cool. They allow thoughts and parts of the game to be compared and contrasted, like how UNDERTALE (the song) is comprised of His Theme and Home
Your take on Fallen Down is so spot on, how it's sort of in the middle of this brighter key and darker key. I ABSOLUTELY think that was intentional-- that track really touched a part of me back when I heard it for the first time. It's got that melancholy, but at the same time, just that little bit of hope.
I really wish he’d done the reprise. It very well might be my favorite track on the album, with the contrast of the dark yet bright opening, to the nostalgic yet tragic ending.
something important to note about undertales OST is the usage of leitmotifs, the entire soundtrack is just leitmotifs and I think that helps bring it together so well, when you can hear the area theme in in a boss theme
Super weird and probably subjective topic, but a video on if “All Star” by Smash Mouth is only iconic because of Shrek or if there’s something about its own merits.
"All Star" and "When The Morning Comes" both got a lot of radio play prior to Shrek coming out. I think part of the reason that opening was popular at the time was because it used an already popular song. Then when Shrek fell into nostalgia territory (and quasi-cult classic) "All Star" regained popularity by association.
If it helps i was a sucker for all star before the movies were made in like elementary/middle school. it was real memey already before being re-memed by the movie
I really enjoyed how this episode showed your entire first-time process of “reacting” to each song, figuring out their tonal structures and even trying to play along - all in real time. Each song was a fun journey to watch unfold and I would absolutely love to see more of this format in your videos going forward. Also, yeah: I admit It would be pretty fun to see you do this with more of the Undertale OST specifically. :D
3:57 I can't believe how incredibly accurate your description of the music was to the location in game, and you haven't even played it! It goes to show how much thought must have been put into the music. Incredible.
Perhaps, what makes songs like Here we are even more interesting is the use of motifs. This one is especially good, I think, because although the motifs are heavily altered, you can still hear them and identify them. That is what also makes it spooky in context
8:10 ... where you tune your guitar (by ear) so the strings don't break rather than for frequency accuracy. ... or adjust the playback speed in the final edit to match a specific timing (and forget to "tick" the "frequency correction" box}. The amazing thing is after listening to 20 seconds of the recording, it took 2 minutes to NOT hear your playing as "out of tune". I actually think the mistuning is a result of BPM timing changes to a final recording to fit game action rather than a conscious decision to split the difference between two standard key tunings. >1M subs - proves you're doing something right.
It's very interesting to see somebody break down the songs in a vacuum, I've always heard about how the songs relate to each other or to the plot of the game, not just how they're written by themselves
These are my favorite tracks. The use of tricolon (is that the same thing in music as it is in language?) repetitions in Mad Dummy's theme is such a clever touch... his speech pattern is echoed in the music!
9:35 lol without knowing it, he found the leitmotif of [His Theme] from the previous songs XD ERr. I guess moreso [His Theme] is the main leitmotif of the game now that i think about it
I love how the title track gives the impression of that main melody persisting through even though the cords shift underneath. It evokes a sense of determination which fits so beautifully with the game
Toby is not just an amazing composer, but also a master of utilizing his compositions to help tell his story and tell things about the characters without stating them... usually through lietmotifing. For instance 'Here We Are' is a distorted version of the theme of a character, 'Alphys', that's ominous, creepy, and mysterious because we're learning some dark backstory regarding the character that puts the rather lovable character in a different, more disturbing light. Death by Glamour is a combination remix of the three different themes from the three different encounters with a certain boss character, and plays during the final encounter with them to make it clear that this is the final, climactic encounter with them. Undertale is the combined version of the song 'Memory', and the game's main theme, 'Once Upon A Time' because you are finally getting the full story of why the way things are how they are, and how this game's story is not just yours and how it began long before you arrived. Like, literally at last you are being told the entire titular Undertale... and the soft sadness hidden in the song outlines the tragic dominoes that led to the game's events. Fallen Down is the theme of one of the game's most universally loved characters, and there is a GOOD REASON why it's both sweet and comforting, and melancholy and sad, at the same time. If you want the story without the game, I recommend Undertale: The Musical by Man on the Internet, which takes the story and events of the game and make them into a storyboarded semi-animated musical using the game's soundtrack.
I feel like SNL's Chad when I watch you analyze things I don't at all understand. Charles: "Is that right?" Chad: "Sure, Mr. Cornell." Charles: "That sounds pretty friggin cool." Chad: "Dope!" Charles: "Nope, that's not right." Chad: "Oh, okay."
7:44 As a bassist I cannot describe how hilarious that face is to me. :D His instrument turned into a torture device in a split second whilst my instinct is to move my hand up. xD This face is exactly what it feels like to struggle for intonation too haha, I just can't. that face is so perfect. How did only come across this video now? YT fix yo shit!
I'm so glad you talked about Fallen Down's detuning cuz I think it's a really interesting phenomenon going on with the D...3/4 flat or whatever is going on here. Cuz it's obviously still in 12tet, but just using quarter tones instead of semitones and you're right how it carries a different feel. And MMMMM THAT CHORD PROGRESSION DESTROYS ME EVERY TIME.
May I suggest looking at Cave Story's sound track. The creator doesn't have any traditional background for music, they kinda just felt it things out and made a fantastic OST.
