Zelda Embraces Its Narrative Skyward

I feel like discussing Skyward Sword a bit more, so I'll just do it here. Note that there are spoilers in this, so note that if you haven't beaten the game yet. I'll prolly write more about its strengths and shortcomings later, I'm just thunderstruck about the narrative at the moment as it's just now sinking in for me.

Skyward Sword is an interesting game. Not because it's a 3D Zelda and they're all phenomenal games in their own right, but because it is the most mixed bag I have ever seen in the history of the series. It does an extraordinary amount of things right, yet at the same time it has just as many flaws to act as a counter to what it excels at.

The story and characters are magnificent. I'd even go as far as to say they're the best in the whole series. Every character is endearing in their own right (except maybe Fi BUT THAT'S FOR LATER). I became really attached to Groose, Zelda (...'s face), and the rest of the Skyloft gang even though I sparsely saw them. Every encounter in SS is a valuable thing because you barely ever see the cast outside of sidequests and really, really important main story events that don't happen very often.

What I was most impressed at in terms of characterization was the amount of depth Link (er, Frag for me) displayed throughout the game. You wouldn't think that a silent character would be able to portray such a thing, but Nintendo makes it work brilliantly. The emotions conveyed on his face alone are beautiful things and let the player draw their own interpretation of the thoughts that go on in Link's head. After all, both the player and Link are one in the same, so shouldn't they share the same perspective? SS Link becomes the most expressive incarnation of our titular hero since TWW's, and it works very well. We the player really feel the motivation to keep playing and to explore more of the world below Skyloft and beyond in the surrounding clouds.

The other characters are obviously outstanding too. Groose is the manliest badass to ever grace the Zelda series, initially appearing as a selfish bully vying for unrequited love. By the end, he transforms from such a pathetic state to the ultimate unsung hero of the story, selflessly doing what he can to protect the world and finally acknowledging his close friendship with Link. Friendship can and will be born out of rivalry - Groose accepts romantic defeat and acquiesces Zelda to Link, once again accepting his minor role. Such a minor role actually turns out to be even more major than the "true" hero's, Link. Without Groose, Link would have never succeeded in his journey. Groose is a reflection of all the unsung heroes in the world today, doing what they can for the betterment of others and striving to find happiness in the most perilous of situations.

And who can forget our main heroine, Zelda herself? She rarely ever appears in front of the player, a seemingly unattainable ideal. She first appears quite often at the beginning of the game, letting the player barely grasp at what her personality is and what makes her tick. She turns out to be charismatic and endearing, making it all the more tragic when she's taken cruelly from Link's side. As the player progresses, the few moments we reunite with her are full of joy yet tragic, for both characters walk parallel but different paths. Every meeting is a treasure though, reminding us that the simple purpose of our journey is merely to save this girl bound to fate. Unlike past games, we really become acquainted with Zelda despite the seldom reunions, motivating us to continue in stride despite the hardships of the surface world. The game ends with her rescue and the momentary triumph over evil, signaling that the ideal we've been fighting for has finally come to fruition.

Unlike other Zelda games though, SS has the most bittersweet ending of all the series. Evil still exists. Human greed is merely at bay. Darkness will return yet again. But a momentary respite pervades Skyloft and the surface world, making it all the more satisfying for us. Skyward Sword, you may have your annoying forced motion controls, unintuitive item system, fetch quest padding, limited number of diverse areas, and the widespread usage of a hand-holding sidekick that treats the player like a stillborn infant, but no doubt you transcend these flaws and establish your right as one of the best in the Zelda series. And that's why I continue to love The Legend Of Zelda - because I can forgive it for the flaws it has and learn to embrace the majesty of what it does spectacularly.

An Examination of Timbres in Rock Music

I was wondering about what kind of music one can hear and immediately consider generic. I suppose in this case “one” refers to someone who listens to music beyond music presented by mainstream radio stations, in particular those who do not regularly listen to mainstream music. I’m sure many of us have one friend who genuinely likes Breaking Benjamin, Creed, or some other “alternative hard rock” band. Many of us joke that this style requires guitars tuned to a very low pitch. The perception of this music as generic is definitely influenced by enivornmental but musical composition, and instrumentation to a degree, plays a larger role; production plays a relatively minor role by making the music muddled and not helping providing a greater dynamic range. This music is generic due to a very restricted dynamic range of pitches. In particular, the music has an excess of bass frequencies, resulting in everything sounding the same.

The idea of pitch and timbre are both very important when analyzing music in this manner. Pitch is essentially how high or low a musical note is. Timbre is the tonal color of an instrument or group of instruments; the term is fairly vague and can refer to either. When I discuss dynamic range I am not referring to dynamics – essentially how music becomes louder or quieter – but rather to a range of frequencies in a piece. Frequency and pitch are of course interrelated ideas as well (higher pitch means higher frequency). Finally, the timbre of an instrument can be essentially changed through tuning: if you tune a guitar to drop D or something else with a very low-pitched sound, the guitar will naturally sound different. I will likely confuse pitch and timbre multiple times in this article, but bear in mind that I generally am referring to timbre – how the instrument sounds in conjunction with others.

While I am clarifying some terms, I should elucidate upon my main idea. Of course this idea is not restricted to “hard rock” music, but it provides the best examples of why such an approach tends to not work. (One cannot overlook that we are naturally elitist as listeners, for example.) Naturally pieces focusing on single instruments get some allowance but their composition should itself reflect some dynamic range. Consider the reverse situation with an excess of treble frequencies: the music can also sound same-y and annoying. Musical contrast tends to make music more interesting; humans seem to generally prefer variation, hence why minimalist music is seen as strange and unlikable. Having instruments in the higher register paired with instruments in the lower register is just usually a very effective way to make music. Finally, restricting the dynamic range works, but it needs to be done carefully.

I should note that in certain environments – the gym for example – most music played sounds generic, but this bias does not seem to have a particularly strong influence. We also tend to become very defensive when with our friends, either completely despising their taste in music or pretending to not dislike it when we clearly do. I do not consider this to greatly influence our instinctive view of what constitutes generic rock music; to many of us – the musically “elite” – hearing Daughtry will cause shuddering, even without a discussion of how generic their music is. Some music may seem completely overrated as a result of over-discussion, for example Odd Future, but other music instantly attains this “generic” status.

Cultural influence is quite subtle in this case, for many of us are used to Western music in the form of classical music and related styles. Though, perhaps this desire for a dynamic range is archetypal and echoes throughout cultures. We are simply used to this approach and expect it in all music we listen to. Pairing an instrument playing in the high register with one playing in the low register is especially prominent in classical music. Generally a violin concerto consists of the high-pitched violin playing with the piano which tends to be in the middle. Many orchestral pieces do not rely on this contrast. Consider Camille Saint-Saen’s “Fantaisie pour violon et harpe Op. 124” in A major. Harps and violins are both high-pitched instruments but they have very different timbres; they do not mesh together to the point of becoming muddled. What instruments are paired is also greatly important because that can change a piece from seeming generic to well-made. In rock music guitar and bass are meant to play a similar role but they have similar timbres; with particular tuning the guitar and bass can seem indistinguishable, which leads to a muddled sound.

Rock by virtue is not naturally afforded an enormous range in tones or pitches but it still retains a wide range. The pertinent timbres for rock music are mainly guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Bass and guitar have fairly similar timbres. The guitar usually plays a higher frequency part than the bass, and drums and vocals offer mostly mid-range frequencies. Hard rock/metal I would personally consider generic focuses on lower, bass frequencies; in this “style” the guitarist’s role seems to be taking the bassist’s role. The timbres of guitar and bass become almost inseparable as the guitar is tuned to play the lowest pitches it can. As a result all the instrumentation sounds saturated with bass frequencies and very muddled, which leads to a generic sound.

Generally hard rock vocalists sing pretty deeply, which is not inherently bad, but they add lower pitches which are already quite abundant. When paired with “metal” percussion – the kind that involves hitting low-pitched toms frequently – these vocals contribute little to the dynamic range. I’ve noticed that cymbals can be used to add higher frequencies but their effectiveness is limited – they tend to be drowned out, for example – and their overuse is quite annoying (not to mention reminiscent of glam metal). Cymbals are relatively high register instruments but they are not effective as the sole higher pitched instrumentation. Guitar and bass both can play at a higher frequency but in this style they both play at lower frequencies. These instruments have fairly wide dynamic ranges but in these cases they contribute little.

Composition-wise generic hard rock/metal relies on repetitive music riffs which lead straight into the generic verse-chorus-verse structure, usually with a guitar solo somewhere in there. At least, from my experience these bands use repetition and conventionality to make music. Repetition can be very effective, in particular when small changes are made or when music repeats to give a certain impression on the listener; in this case it’s just lack of creativity: the intros all seem to involve spamming some trite guitar riff. Composition is not all that gives music a “generic” feel but it can definitely feed that impression in many cases. For example, Top 40 popular music tends to follow music theory perfectly but this music is usually conventional and unoriginal. In a sense “good” composition in the form of perfect execution of theory does not enliven the music.

As far as production goes, the music sounds murky, and the mastering does nothing to add significant dynamic range to the piece; an adequately used equalizer could probably make the music have a greater range. Use of an equalizer can reduce bass frequencies and perhaps raise the other frequencies, which ultimately reduces the muddled sound. Other measures, such as panning or slight reverb, could be taken to prevent guitar and bass from bleeding into each other so readily. Separating the guitar and bass from each other greatly helps with the piece’s sound. Adding in dynamic range via production can go a long way towards making a piece sound fresher and more organic. Restricting the dynamic range of a piece is very hard to do effectively – most often the listener will be unable to appreciate the music. Great care must be taken to keep the listener’s interest. Just realize that many people instinctively dislike this approach and that the other aspects of the music will likely need to be more prominent in the finished piece.

After what seems to be a laundry list of complaints, I think I should give examples of music groups – regardless of how good or bad you think they are – that effectively defy this litmus test for “generic” rock music. Three Days Grace, for example, incorporated the mid-range acoustic guitar into their song “Never Too Late” which served as a direct contrast to the distorted guitars and the singing. Many black metal bands, such as Falls of Rauros, also pursue this technique, which prevents their music from being lost in distortion. My personal favorite of directly employing contrast is “Crawl Back In” by Neurosis. The song features angry, deep vocals, distorted guitars playing, and fairly heavy percussion coupled with occasional cymbals; the music is dynamic enough to listen to in terms of actual dynamics. What I love about this song, however, is how the flute enters halfway into the piece. It plays the role of the instrument in the high register, offering interesting contrast to the lower pitched rock instrumentation; “Crawl Back In” becomes much more memorable as a result. Contrast, especially subtle contrast, can go a long way to making a piece much more interesting.

Sensation

The blurring lines decide

What shape the world begins to hold.

As light intrudes upon

The green surrounding cautious eyes,

Arrays of order ran

In place, exciting drops like rice

To tumble from the clouds.

The inner mind begins to rouse,

Preparing to receive

Ideas one wishes one could save.

Did this for my Creative Writing class's prosody assignment.

Poem: The Satire

Stephanotis Plays the Piano
La fleur reste;
elle joue le piano;
Stephanotis, radiant with many raindrops,
her beauty prevalent in the gratuitous photosynthesis:
the rain falls deeply.

As the most beautiful flower,
her fairness radiates,
as she plays the piano whose sound shimmers -
Like an ambient song drenched in excessive reverb,
she inundates all with her ambrosial nature,
the most valid embrace of the world around her.

A Victorian description is the only fit,
the dark-leaf green of ultimate beauty,
that ultimate fairness;
Stephanotis is radiation...
as she plays the piano.

Stephanie plays the piano.

Violence and Video Games

Sorry for the lack of posting for a while, but I became very busy...so it has come to this. I have a query about violence and video games that is fairly standard, but it still keeps coming up. Do video games cause violence? Do they all, do just some, do any? I'll summarize the complaint as "video games make people act violently and ultimately cause violence though indirectly." I think rather than taking on this contentious claim - to say the least - by attacking logic or producing a philosophical argument I will list off the benefits of video games. Before I begin I will give a disclaimer: like any hobby one should be mature enough to know limits.

I caved in and brought a TV soon before finals week so that I could play my Wii more often; I managed to still get a 4.0 my first term in college, despite having a game console. To be honest I didn't and don't play my Wii as often as I want to, partially due to school work and other factors, but I understand how to balance playing with gaming. Playing games for an hour for a day, or for about that length, helps me relax and at the same time concentrate on something that isn't school. Game playing provides an excellent release. It PREVENTS ME from committing horrendous acts of violence, in all honesty.

Naturally I have other ways to calm myself and reduce stress (for instance, actually doing homework). I prize video games due to their though usually simple puzzles that allow me to synthesize knowledge and find solutions to them, even be creative. In Skyward Sword I can't just blindly swing my Wii remote and hope everything allows me through; I have to figure out a solution that can be carried out, rather than simply unloading all of my weapons. Video games encourage problem solving and thinking about the best approach, especially a game like Skyward Sword which introduced a stamina meter. This stamina meter means that one has to ration stamina to a degree and leave a small amount so that Link can still fight enemies. I consider the puzzles and problem solving of video games to be very beneficial for my intelligence; these exercises are not all rigorous and arduous but they help me stay sharp. The Legend of Zelda series provides just one example. If I am playing Pokemon I need to create a team that is strong and can handle a variety of threats, not just one; using a monotype team is, from experience, quite unlikely to succeed.

Finally, I think doing what you find fun is an excellent way to make yourself feeling less violent and angry. Playing is a healthy release generally, except in those few cases where horrendous rage occurs; I think people opposed to video games mistake these exceptions for the general truth. For people who do just rage while playing video games, I think they're just wrong; people don't play games to yell at them. Kamek from Yoshi's Island causes ire, for example, but the game is overall quite enjoyable and jovial.

There are probably other reasons, but I find that the fun, the stress-relieving, and the puzzle-solving games provide generally reduces one's anger and makes them less violent; they also help maintain intelligent thought processes that are helpful in one's day to day life. Being able to use your brain regularly can be considered a related benefit. Video games are more than vectors for violence. I know, many of you are going to think "well duh" and others will mistakenly list studies without truly relating the findings to video games themselves, but video games are quite beneficial I find, not destructive.

What music is scary?

I understand that a standard response may be "DISSONANCE" or "ATONALITY" or "TRITONES AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH" but atonality and/or dissonance does not necessarily make music scary. How many people today would consider Stravinsky's Rite of Spring to be particularly scary or dark? Not many, I would think. In fact, the music is fairly light-hearted, at least in my opinion. I am not sure if particular scales, intervals, and tones are what scare people, ranging from person. Without a doubt this is highly subjective, but generally people - people who are not weird like me - tend to shy away from lower tempos and lower pitches. Higher tempos and pitches tend to predominately appear in pop songs, and happy Yoshi Island themes. For example, Koji Kondo's "Flower Garden" theme from the mentioned game is at the standard tempo of 120 bpm and it also features pleasing upbeat music. At the same time the Haunted Mansion theme from Super Mario 64, also by Kondo, is an upbeat track, but it is slightly lower in tone, and...therefore creepier? The theme also betrays our expectations for a haunted house - those types of themes tend to be slower - though we cannot simply assume that such a betrayal is scary.

From my observations, songs that are darker in sound are scarier than slower songs, but generally dark-sounding songs are also slow, hence my note about the Haunted Mansion theme. To provide another example, consider the "Laura Palmer" theme from Twin Peaks, which consists mainly of a synthesizer buried in the low register, playing slowly, but still making a clear melody; this piece is still scary to an extent, but the sense of melody gives it emotion to the reader, preventing it from simply being a bizarre, impossible-to-understand atonal mess. As the piano enters the piece seems less dark, transgressing that label and becoming emotional. A detectable melody, if not completely tonal, is comforting and gives a sense of connection with even very dark in sound pieces. This suggests a fairly universal standard for a "not-scary" piece.

Sad music is not the same as dark music, generally, unless visuals add to a sad feeling, generally. Music deep in the low register is generally not perceived as sad, rather it is seen as emotionless. A seeming wall of noise or lack of musical melody is the scariest aspect, not the low tempo or the low pitch. These are contributing factors generally, but not the primary reason.

Orchestration plays another role: the electric guitar and piano are seen as being less apt for scary music, simply disjunct music. Weirdness certainly plays a role in being scary, but synthesizer and strings seem to simply have the greatest capacity for making that kind of music. Percussion can also create an unsettling feel, yet the lack thereof is also unsettling.

On a final note, is "weird" equivalent to unsettling or scary? To me, eerie is not quite scary, and is rather weird in an elegant manner. Gyorgy Ligeti's piece is high pitched, but also slow, though I see people finding it scary due to the focus on singing in a substandard way; the bunching of notes and voices makes it all the more bizarre and hard to accept. Taking the piece apart and examining what makes it alien is hard, even though on the surface it is a very unique piece. I mean, Stanley Kubrick put it in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but can we just use something that came out afterwards to explain the piece. Where a music is played can certainly add to its scariness, but the tracks that truly scare people are not simply situational. I think that music that is truly scary (in the eyes of the beholder, obviously) transgresses situation.

But I don't know everything. What do you guys think about this?

An Analysis of "Jesus Christ" by Brand New (incomplete)

The topic of religion – in particular Christianity – permeates the American society, dating back to the nation’s founding. At the same time, however, religiosity of Americans seems to have abated, and a societal norm of agnosticism and religious apathy seems to also have arisen. Modern popular music – defined as music charting on many of Billboard’s music charts, especially the Top 40s chart – reflects this trend, tending to not convey religious symbols and meanings. In 2006, against this backdrop, the song “Jesus Christ” by Brand New came out. Despite seeming like a country song, “Jesus Christ” made an impact with the alternative rock fanbase; it became the band’s most popular song and charted highly on the Alternative Songs chart, a haven for alternative music. The song breaks expectations through its unique and poignant lyrics and instrumentation, utilizing effective rhetorical devices in a sincere yet intimate fashion.

Brand New’s platform for this message is through their instrumentation and recorded music, an environment where instruments speak as loudly as lyrics in many cases. In a written document the tone comes from the words and sequence of words used, but in a song this element comes from the voice, the lyrics, and the instruments. In this song an intimate atmosphere pertinent to the lyrics is maintained through steady yet soft instrumentation. A lead guitar complements this atmosphere, holding firm a structure for the song’s music and lyrics. Though a good song often matches these two parts, “Jesus Christ” provides a close place for the scene to take place. Simultaneously the music remains dynamic, slowly then suddenly culminating in a display of passion as the singer raises his voice over the guitars. Jesse Lacey, the lead singer, has a vocal delivery style that presents the song’s narrator with strength and clarity. Four minutes into the track, the vocals fade out and the instruments repeat, returning the song to its beginning while suggesting a new meaning.

In “Jesus Christ” the narrator discusses his fear of death, in particular what comes after. Lacey sings, “And I will die all all alone./And when I arrive, I won't know anyone.” Death, to him, is a solitary act, but its aftermath is even more solitary and isolating: he is simultaneously paralyzed by fear and uplifted by talking with Jesus. Though some art has a definite goal of brainwashing, this particular piece exists to subjectively inform the audience of the character’s apprehension in the face of a saint-like figure. This purpose extends its influence past the mental barriers maintained by those who are less inclined to religion. Despite the religious name – a name that would likely sit well with country’s relatively religious fans – “Jesus Christ” is popular with alternative rock listeners, who tend to be younger and more agnostic. The alternative rock movement, which started in the 1980s with groups such as The Smiths, Pixies, and the Cure, is a recent development, mostly becoming popular with Generations X and Y. These generations seem to be considerably less religious than previous ones. In particular, during the Cold War the United States prided itself on being Christian and fighting the “godless” Soviet Union. The audience with which the song is primarily situated grew up in spite of a lack of religiosity. Alternative fans can be considered one aspect of the audience, but in the song the narrator is talking to Jesus in an intimate manner; the primary audience is the people who listen to the song, despite the seemingly closed-off title.

Ethos plays a small but significant role in the lyrics. Jesus Christ is an iconic figure, someone known and ever-present, so his credibility itself brings meaning to the piece. Brand New’s act of naming the song after Jesus gives it a meaning in terms of him; essentially his ethos in part carries the song. The narrator concedes, “Well Jesus Christ, I'm alone again./So what did you do those three days you were dead?” He admits his painful apprehensions – ones that are hard to express to someone who does not come across as credible – to Jesus Christ, the one who he thinks he can trust. The narrator confers a high degree of respect and inherent trust to Jesus, while denying his own ethos. Jesse Lacey, Brand New’s lead singer, sings, “I know you think that I'm someone you can trust/But I'm scared I'll get scared and I swear I'll try to nail you back up.” This song manages to reverse expectations again by switching its focus to the narrator’s credibility; this examination reveals his emotional instability and indecisiveness in an indirect but concise and powerful way. Lacey utters, “I know you’ll come for the people like me,” ultimately reinstating the narrator’s ethos and bringing the song full circle; he fights his fears by looking to Jesus Christ for help. Ultimately though this song contains such a religious idea – accepting divine assistance – its rhetoric enables its appeal to many different types of people.

Academia has a self-important conduct to which it adheres that is not entirely applicable to this song. “Jesus Christ” was not written as something political, but instead something organic, and not necessarily rooted in the Logos that is prided in academic culture. Logic holds an important place in rhetoric, but this song works at a fundamental, psychological level that bypasses concrete logic. Applying many rules to determine why the song is effective becomes pointless after a while; “Jesus Christ” as a song works because of its capacity to talk directly to the listener. The narrator asks, ”Do you believe you're missing out/And everything good is happening somewhere else?“ This existentialist rut extends beyond the grasp of argumentation logic and requires a different approach entirely to analyze.