Analyzing "Kharkov" World of Tanks OST | Basterd's LFA (Layman-Friendly Analysis)

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Next up, we have "Kharkov" from the World of Tanks soundtrack by Andriyus Glinka. Once again, everybody, this is Sebastian Zellafee, a layman-friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician and composer, and my objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what is happening here musically. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, turn on the notifications, like the video, share it, leave a comment, turn on the notifications, become a member. Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server. Join the Patreon, subscribe to the gaming channel. How to request songs if you're not on the livestream. Members getting early access to the content. I have a spiel for this and a bunch of other things later down this video, so stick around for that.

[00:00:41]Disclaimers showing on your screen right now, so go ahead and pause the video to read them in full. Otherwise, please be patient with me. I am acoustic and guitar-ed, so please keep that in mind.

[00:00:50]With that, let's do this. Kharkov, let's go.

[00:01:06]Okay, so we start, of course, with that initial set of violins we have an orchestral um We have an orchestral arrangement over here, right? Orchestral arrangement means we're using an orchestra, one of the largest ensembles that we have available to us. We are starting with what sounds to be the violas, uh just the second uh smallest viol instrument, giving us that ascending line, do um basically outlining um a little bit of the scale. We are having then the other violins coming in, giving us this very lovely descending line uh of melody, which contains our initial motif. Motif being the smallest version of your musical idea, the seed, the essence from which everything else comes from. This particular motif, I believe to be a sigh motif. The sigh motif having the bottom, bottom. Like it's a It's a longer note that then stops with the next note, and we're doing basically a chain of that. We're having some of the percussion going on. Let me go back a second or two. Let me hear it more.

[00:02:18]Okay, so we have a timpani roll at the start. You can hear it now, just the the one just hit. Timpani being these four drums over here. Sometimes it's less, sometimes it's more. Uh the timpani, of course, having a very special place in the orchestra because it plays the the role of both a drum and a bass at the same time. Like, for example, regular drums, the the pad drums, usually they don't have a pitch. They don't They can't play notes. Unless you're talking about like Mike Mangini or somebody like that, right? But in general, your drums are not going to have any particular pitch.

[00:02:51]Unless it's a timpani. The timpani can play notes. However, because of the complexity of it, you can only tune the drums to play one note at a time. So, that means if you have a timpani player, you, depending on how many timpani drums you have, you might be locked to a one or two, maybe three or four notes if you're lucky, for the whole piece.

[00:03:13]For the timpani player. So, we're having that one play, but because of that it gives us such a cool sound to that. We then switch the melody over to the flute, giving us our first variation of it, a more uniform sounding melody of it. Uh we do have some other percussion in the background adding some extra texture to this. Let's see where this goes.

[00:03:37]All right, new word.

[00:03:42]We switch it up very quickly over to the brass instruments. We bring in the trumpets, the trombones, the Can you tune a timpani mid-concert? S- If you are a really good timpani player, yes.

[00:03:59]But as a composer, you should not count on that.

[00:04:02]Because tuning the timpani is not like um like just changing notes. You actually have to play to make sure you got the right note.

[00:04:12]Doing that in the middle of a piece, yeah, that's going to be very, very difficult. Like, it's so difficult that that that's why you have multiple drums.

[00:04:21]So, in general, yeah, no. So, yeah, we're bringing in the brass instruments, we're bringing the French horns, the trombones, the tubas, the trumpets, giving us now an arrangement they themselves are doing this, and they are being doubled by the timpani and the other percussions, giving us this rendition of the same material we just heard. We're just doing it more rhythmically right now. Let's see where this goes.

[00:04:47]Violins back.

[00:04:51]>> [music] >> Okay, so violins now going on and how's I think we're going to for the follow on Twitch. So, yeah, the violins now continuing, they're adding an extra um bit to the phrasing that they are doing, but primarily we're getting that ascending scale, giving us an ostinato.

[00:05:09]Um we're basically getting an ostinato from it. Uh ostinato means that you're repeating the same thing over and over and over again with minimal to no repetition. Then we are getting evolution on that, getting extra notes out of that. But of course, right now it's the percussion. We're having the drums, the cymbals with the brass instrument just giving us this really strong sound all together. Let's see where this goes.

[00:05:32]>> [music] >> Nice.

[00:05:39]Oh, beautiful.

[00:05:47]And we bring it down. We remove the big that We remove the big instruments. We keep the snare there, giving us a very very soft roll to it. We bring back the flutes. They're now giving us another rendition of it, still with those stingers from the rest of the ensemble.

[00:06:07]Still from those stingers.

[00:06:11]Very well made. Like, right now we are seeing a very good example of orchestration.

[00:06:16]Orchestration or instrumentation is the art of picking the right instruments for the right sound, the right texture, sometimes even for the right psychological response. And right now you can tell that Andriyus here Andriyus Glinka here knows exactly what he's doing. He's getting every single thing, every single bit Every single beat, every single note is played precisely by the right instrument the right way. Let's see where this goes.

[00:06:53]We're having a No, there's an Oh, we're bringing a piano.

[00:06:58]A ton of accordion in the back, I think.

[00:07:02]There you go. There's the sigh motif back as we're slowly bringing things down.

[00:07:08]The silence.

[00:07:11]Oh, we bring it down because the first part is done, and now we're moving on to the second part of of this. Basically, we're having a loop, and now we're going to the to the second part of the loop.

[00:07:22]We're getting this Fade it in. Let's see.

[00:07:29]Okay, so these look like they are um what's it called? Like these are um conditional loops. So, they are both going to play at the same time, but the instrumentation is going to change depending on what happens, what stage you're on in the game, something like that.

[00:07:46]Um not a loop, each part plays once. Oh, each part plays once. Okay, so we're fading it with this version. Now we have the flutes doing what the violins were doing before. We're having the others.

[00:07:57]So, second part plays while you are in battle. Okay, so the first one is probably like cutscene, and second part is actually the battle. Okay, let's see where this goes.

[00:08:07]Brass there.

[00:08:11]Okay, we bring percussion.

[00:08:15]Trying to figure out what the instrument is uh there cuz it could be a hurdy-gurdy. It kind of sounds like a hurdy-gurdy, which might not be the most obvious instrument, but the texture fits. The texture of the instrument fits, so it could potentially be a hurdy-gurdy, giving us what the violins were doing before, and we are focused um more in the percussion this time around, in the beats that we are getting. Let's see where this goes.

[00:08:45]Violins mainly playing texture.

[00:08:51]Yeah, violins giving us a lot of trills right now. Trills and tremolo. Trills uh is basically playing two notes back and forth really, really fast. Tremolo is playing one note repeatedly really, really fast. So, we're having both.

[00:09:07]They're having a lot of dissonance right now, and they're fading in. And now we're getting some crescendos and diminuendos or or um decrescendos, um depending on the school of thought. So, crescendo, you're basically uh increasing the intensity at which an instrument is being played. Diminuendo, you are lowering the intensity. This usually uh correlates with the volume. Like, the harder you play an instrument, the louder it's going to get. Nowadays, you can just mix these back and forth, so you can turn up and down the volumes of these. But yes, we're getting this um There's like a buzzier sound. Like, I think it might be a a hurdy-gurdy without the drone, uh without the drone string. Like, it's just the main strings that are being played. Maybe. I am not entirely sure cuz I'm trying to think, like, what other instruments could you have Could you get like um Like you could maybe get that sound from like a muted clarinet, maybe?

[00:10:07]Like maybe from a muted clarinet with a particular kind of mute to that going on. So, I don't know.

[00:10:16]Nomadic behave. This is your only warning. So, we're having this Let's see where this goes.

[00:10:24]There's the uh French horn. Could be maybe a muted French horn? I don't know.

[00:10:29]All right, switching over to the flutes.

[00:10:32]With now this variation of the motif.

[00:10:34]Nice.

[00:10:39]Okay, so now we bring in the cellos um and violas with the new version of the ostinato. Now it's going both up and down. We're getting these going on.

[00:10:50]Let's see Let's see where this goes.

[00:10:53]This is really good cuz right now we're basically playing to uh score what is happening in the game. So, some of these might go on a little bit longer. James coin 2027.

[00:11:04]Oh god, no no no no no no. I'm not making my own cryptocurrency. I don't want that. So, let's see where this goes.

[00:11:12]Texture there. Nice. We're adding some electronic instruments right now, electronic elements to this.

[00:11:17]Switching mainly to the cellos right now.

[00:11:21]That's a trumpet.

[00:11:23]Okay, so that's a trumpet in the in the back now giving us its rendition of the motif.

[00:11:28]Um this one is inverted, by the way. We have an inversion of the motif.

[00:11:31]Inversion being when you play a reflection upside down of something you've done before, right? You would buy James coin. I I wouldn't sell it though. I don't want that. So, an inversion is basically playing a reflected inversion a reflection of what you're doing, basically playing something the other way around. So, for example, if I have this melody over here, an inversion of it would be from the same starting point. We're just playing the opposite way.

[00:11:59]We're having that kind of stuff.

[00:12:00]Tangent, we have the channel points.

[00:12:01]Yeah, but that's not a cryptocurrency.

[00:12:03]So, yeah, not in the same way we have cryptocurrencies. So, we're having that happening. We're having those trumpets coming in doing that inverted version of the motif building on top of this. And I really like the ostinatos we're getting from the cellos right now. It's really really cool how we're bringing Even though it's the same overall idea, we're doing something different with it.

[00:12:29]And I I just love I just love how we're taking these things forward like that.

[00:12:33]And speaking of taking things forward, we took things forward with the Patreon.

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[00:13:49]patreon.com/jamesrbastard linked in the description. All right, back to this we go. Let's see where we take this. We have the trumpet giving us the inversion. We have the cellos now doing this. So, let's see and let's get over with those segments of channel infringement of your pants. Thank you, Megamie. I love you, too. God damn it.

[00:14:10]All right, let's continue.

[00:14:14]>> [music] >> All right, we switch over.

[00:14:20]Okay, so we switch over. Now we bring in digital elements. We have a digital drum set going on right now. We have a bass synth giving us a couple of more notes.

[00:14:31]We have the violins coming back. Can you hear that?

[00:14:36]Yeah, mainly texture.

[00:14:38]Bass there building up. Lucky play.

[00:14:40]Welcome today.

[00:14:42]Let's see.

[00:14:46]Let's see.

[00:14:48]Percussion coming back.

[00:14:54]Bells, [music] piano/synth giving us now its a variation of the motif. Okay, that there was an elongation of the motif. Elongation being another way that you can develop your material in which you play a slower version of something you've done before.

[00:15:11]So, right now we're having this beautiful elongation primarily focusing on the percussive aspects of this. And oh my god, I like this.

[00:15:21]I like this. Like don't forget that some of this might sound sometimes a little repetitive if played by itself, but don't forget this is supposed to be scoring the game. This is supposed to elevate what you're playing in the game.

[00:15:35]So, having too much development too quickly in the game while you're playing it could be distracting. So, you do want to balance things out like that, maybe compromising in some of the innovation of the sound that you can get for the sake of making sure that the game and the player is going to be in the zone.

[00:15:55]So, yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:15:56]It's really good.

[00:15:58]There's a cello again.

[00:16:01]Nice. Giving us now an inverted version of the stuff. First it was up, now it's going down.

[00:16:07]Let's see.

[00:16:10]We have there piano bells.

[00:16:14]Let's see.

[00:16:16]Violins there giving us the same motifs.

[00:16:22]All right, percussion's back.

[00:16:24]And now we have both versions. Now we have both versions. We have the original violas going up and the cellos doing the inversion both at the same time. This is incredible, dude. Oh my god, this is so good.

[00:16:39]Nice.

[00:16:43]Percussions are back.

[00:16:46]Motif now carried by the French horn.

[00:16:51]The original same motif. So, the inversion there.

[00:16:57]Oh, nice. Now we have the flutes there doubling the violins. Doubling when you have more than one instrument doing the same thing at the same time. We are having now the flutes there doing the what the violins were doing just um higher.

[00:17:11]Oh my god, this is just good.

[00:17:14]Trumpets taking [music] over. Cadence.

[00:17:18]And Violins. Violin section taking the melody.

[00:17:27]The original motif still haunting us in the back.

[00:17:32]Oh, this is beautiful.

[00:17:35]Percussion and brass coming back to give us those stingers.

[00:17:42]Nice.

[00:17:44]Go ahead and listen.

[00:17:47]Bringing in this theme from earlier with the brass and the percussion. How are you going to end this?

[00:17:56]Doublings increasing.

[00:17:59]Nice. Bring it higher.

[00:18:01]All right.

[00:18:03]And how are you going to end this?

[00:18:09]We do one last run and just as suddenly we end the track with one more run, one last few hits from these uh from the percussions and the brass. And there you have it, a very sudden stop for the orchestral uh bit over here, but it does allow for in the next uh beat to just loop back to whichever part of the track you want.

[00:18:36]So, with that, that was awesome, man.

[00:18:39]That was awesome.

[00:18:42]With that, there you have it. That was Kharkov from the World of Tanks soundtrack by Andre Klimka. That was brilliant, dude. Once again, everybody, this has been Ambasterz LFA, a layman's friendly analysis of a professionally trained musician composer. My objective here has been to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what's happened here musically. So, if you like the If you're watching this on the YouTube video archive, thank thank you for watching.

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[00:21:44]Really good stuff. But uh yeah, let's move on. Let's move on.