Analyzing "Song to the Mirrored Moon" Genshin Impact OST | Basterd's LFA (Layman-Friendly Analysis)

[00:00:00]Next up, we have Song to the Mirrored Moon from the Genshin Impact soundtrack from the Hoyo Mix YouTube channel. Once again, everybody, this is a bastard fa layman friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician, composer, and my objective here is explain things in a way so that you don't have to be want 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, whatever videos, like the video, share, leave a comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server, join the Patreon, subscribe to the gaming channel, subscribe to the react channel, how to request songs if you're not a live stream 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 guitared, so please keep that in mind.

[00:00:50]With that, let's go ahead and do this song to the mirrored moon. Let's go.

[00:01:02]Okay.

[00:01:04]My god, we start on um sponsor that option. Yeah, it's not going to be retroactive like we're going to start it on on one day and like everybody before that chill. Yeah. No. Um and lawyer.

[00:01:13]Yeah, I will start yelling about it when you can. Don't worry. Okay, so we start with a few things. Number one, we have of course this beautiful piano. We're having the piano in two parts. One of them is giving us this beautiful lovely melody giving us our initial motif.

[00:01:28]Motif being the smallest version of a musical idea. The CDS essence in which everything else comes from. We then have the other part of the piano giving us some arpeggios. An arpeggio being when you play a chord one note at a at a time. For example, here's C major.

[00:01:41]Here's arpeggiated. And we're doing this very very lovely type of arpeggiation which is basically you have the melody.

[00:01:52]Oh, what?

[00:01:56]This kind of thing where you wait for the first note of the melody to hear. We have what sounds to be vocal samples giving us a little bit of arpeggiation as well. Let [snorts] me hear a bit more.

[00:02:12]So yeah, we're having not only that they are not only arpeggiating, they are giving us a counter melody. So we are having these vocal voices over here. Um number one they are harmonized and number two they are giving us a counter melody engaging in a little bit of counterpoint. This is bright Q. Yes this is bright Q. Counterpoint being the study the art of melodies how they are how they develop how they interact with one another usually in the context of having two or more melodies playing at the same time. Now harmonization uh harmonization is a type of um harmonization is a type of counterpoint which is a parallel motion in thirds or sixths. So let me break this down right.

[00:02:52]So counterpoint as I said study art of melodies. Counterpoint can be measured in many ways. One of which is motion.

[00:02:58]One of the types of motion is parallel motion. Parallel motion means that you're going to have more than one melody doing the same thing at the same time. the same shape from a different starting point or a separate interval.

[00:03:10]Intervals are the distance between notes. Um there are many ways of counting intervals. The simplest and easiest one is to take a scale. Let's take C major for example. C D E F G A B which has all the white keys in the keyboard starting and ending on C.

[00:03:28]We then take a starting point, a point of reference. We're going to use C in this case because we're in C. we might as well, which is going to be our first or our root note. From there, you can count up or down. So, first we have C, up a second D, up a third E, up a fourth F, up a fifth G, up a sixth A, up a seventh B, and then up an octave we have C. Octave is the same note repeated up or down throughout the instrument. And just as you can count up, you can count down. C down a second B down a third A down a fourth G down a fifth F down a sixth E down a seventh D down an octave C. Harmonization is parallel thirds or sixths up or down. Which means if my first melody [music] is on C, the second one would be up a third on E, down a third on A, up a sixth on A, or down a sixth on E.

[00:04:28]whichever one works best. Right now, it seems like we're doing thirds because that seems to be the um the easiest one.

[00:04:34]So, let's see where it goes.

[00:04:37][music] Beautiful counter melody.

[00:04:46]Oh, beautiful.

[00:04:49]And off the ramp we go. Okay. So very very beautiful melody that we are doing over there which I think might have been an elongation of the motif. Uh elongation being a way to develop your material in which you play a slower version of something you've done before.

[00:05:05]Uh so in this case maybe maybe it was an elongation of the of the motif that we had just heard. Uh and of course we went off the ramp. Off the ramp being a colloquial term that I use. Colloquial, by that I mean there is no official academic definition for this, or at least I'm choosing not to use it for the sake of simplicity. And off the ramp is what I like to call any type of transition that makes your listener feel suspended up in the air at the mercy of inertia, waiting to see where you land.

[00:05:31]Kind of like going off a ramp. How do you do this? Remove the drums, maybe the bass. Well, as we're hearing over here, we're basically using a little bit of silence. We have some violins holding down a note, I think. Let's have some violins.

[00:05:49]Okay, we switch over to an orchestral arrangement. We'll come back. So, we switch over to an orchestral arrangement. That means we bring in an orchestra. We have the piano now giving us some of the arpeggiation, some of some of those arpeggios still, but we have also introduced some of the violins. And the violins here are doing what is called piticato.

[00:06:08]Pizzicato is a technique for viol usually used in viol instruments. all the boat instruments over here where instead of playing with the bow, you pluck the string instead. Uh so we're getting a little bit of that. We're getting what sounds to be a ticking clock uh percussion giving us a little bit of extra. Um we have every once in a while we're getting a little bit of a violin, like a solo violin there, giving us an extra adornment. Um what sounds to me some trills. Um a trill is basically going really really fast between two notes. It's one of the most fascinating phenomenons in music because these trills can be considered quantum music as [snorts] in you can claim many things and they would all be right. Trill as I said is when you are uh going back and forth between two notes very very fast.

[00:07:03]So in this case for example if I do B to C we can have that. Uh so if we bring back the C um CD E F G A B the K the key of C major uh B and C they're over here we have this kind of thing clarinet trills unbeaten I mean in this case it was um violin trills but they were there and the cool thing about trills is that if I'm playing a trill of B and C that means in the piece I can claim that while the trill is going on it is playing for the purposes of the chords that are going on. I'm playing B, I'm playing C, I'm playing both, or I'm playing neither. And curiously enough, all of them will most likely work. So that means if I have a trail and I bring in some chords, [music] we have in C major, I can change the key signature.

[00:08:09]>> [music] >> I can I can change the key and the trill will work just fine. Even though I was in a different key signature, it the notes weren't supposed to work together.

[00:08:22]That kind of stuff. Um, how does a note with a trill look like in sheet music?

[00:08:27]Uh, let me let me show you. Um, uh, sheet music. Uh, trill. Um, so a trill will often look like this. Um, they it will often look like this. It will have the note with a little tr and then you will have a literal squiggle uh with this. Sometimes you will get what is called a courtesy note where the person will tell you like the composer will tell you what note to play. Um, sometimes it is assumed which one it is. Sometimes it will tell you which one. Sometimes the trail will be like trill like a sharp trill or a flat trill something like that. And we have a different uh bunch of different um variations of these things. But yeah, the trill usually will be this. You might have uh especially nowadays, you will most likely get a courtesy note over here telling you which one the other note is going to be and then for the duration of the note. So yes, it's a TR. It's basically TR. And yeah, it can be sometimes they can be pretty long, sometimes they can be pretty um pretty short and there can be uh intensity like the thicker the the trill, the thicker you're supposed to do, like the more aggressive you're supposed to do the the trill. Um there are a lot of symbols for this kind of stuff. So yes. So yeah, we're having that. Uh let's see. Listen to those. Yes.

[00:09:58]Oh, and we're switching back and forth with the violins. So the so the strings are going back and forth between pizzicato uh between pizzicato and arco.

[00:10:09]Arco means bow. So playing with the bow.

[00:10:11]So what we're basically doing is one chord we do with the pizzicato, one chord we're playing with the bow, one chord we're playing with the pizzicato, one chord we're playing with the bow.

[00:10:21]And the key over here to be able to go back and forth between these two is to give them time because switching between the two positions is a bit tricky for many of these players. So right now you can hear that the violins what we're having the uh we're having the piano doing the whole thing. The violins are going the violins are going very very short.

[00:10:48]This is to give the players the time to switch back and forth between the two.

[00:10:52]Let's see what it goes.

[00:10:55][music] [singing] >> We bring the vocalist here.

[00:11:04]>> And curiously enough, we're having a vocalist here singing but not really singing lyrics. We're having the vocalist hearing uh singing das. We're having gibberish which means technically speaking this is not a song. Songs have vocals and lyrics and these vocals and lyrics are the driving force of a substantial part of the music and these are not lyrics. It's basically just a melody sung as an instrument. You could replace the uh vocalist over here. You could replace it with any instrument and the melody would work just fine. So yeah. and uh for how you doing? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. So yeah, our our conditioning. There you go. There you go. So yeah, no, we're having this and we're doing now what sounds to be a variation of the initial motif that we did. And of course, the voice is beautiful. Let me hear it.

[00:12:01][music] >> Okay, so we're having the solo violin now, giving us a couple of extra counter melodies, going a little bit faster than the uh than the vocals. the piano is switching over to less arpeggiation and more doing what would be called chord inversions. Right?

[00:12:19]When it comes to chords and inversion in chord basically means you take the lowest note and you turn it up an octave like you you take you keep just changing the um the chord. So you're playing inverted chords.

[00:12:38]You have this. For example, here C major. If we take then the root [music] note of C and we put it up an octave, now we are in C first inversion. If we take the next note, which is E, and we turn that up an octave, now we [music] are in C second inversion. So yeah, we have that um that kind of stuff over here. And you know what else has inversions?

[00:13:03]The Patreon. patreon.com/jamesrarbaster.

[00:13:06]If you don't support this channel more than you already are, consider joining the Patreon today. Even if you're not pledging any funds, do join the free tier at least cuz this is where the non-gaming LFAS are going. What are those? Anime, film, TV, label, music, the kind of stuff that we usually don't do on the main channel on YouTube. Why?

[00:13:21]What we do on YouTube is inherently fair use. That does not stop bad actors such as record labels, film studios, independent individual rat scammers out there from abusing the copyright system on YouTube. So, in order to just not deal with that for these LFAS, we're putting them over here exclusively on Patreon free for everyone to watch with paid members citizen tier and above getting early access to the content. So, if you want to support this channel more than you already are, consider joining the Patreon today. Consider becoming a paid member today.

[00:13:49]patreon.com/jamesrarmmaster linked in the description down below.

[00:13:52]Thank you to those who are already members, especially those who are paid members, particularly real nemesis French guy and Amaya. Your support means the world to me. For everybody else, become a member today. Consider becoming a paid member today.

[00:14:03]patreon.com/jamesrarbastard linked in the description down below.

[00:14:06]patreon.com/jamesrarbastard.

[00:14:08]Become a member today. All right, back we go. Good segway.

[00:14:13]It's okay. It's okay. How about we pan over to our live Doniote uh camera? What do you say? Oh, she's got bread now.

[00:14:23]Okay. Uh well said. Well said. Yeah, as usual. As usual, Doniote's uh humor can be a little bit uh dead pan, but um let's continue. [music] >> Okay, I think that was a bit of lyrics off the ramp. [music] Okay, so we switch over and it sounds like we're not having a full orchestral arrangement. It sounds like we might be just doing a string quartet. Now that I think of it, we might just be doing a string quartet. So, a string quartet, uh, a string uh, quartet is going to be four instruments. Two violins, one viola, and one cello. That is going to be that. So, it sounds like we have piano, string quartet, vocalist. And it seems like this is our um, our arrangement for this. These are very very popular arrangements like a string quartet um plus piano plus um plus uh plus voice. Um it's it's a pretty nice arrangement to have uh especially for this kind of music that it just has such a special um such a special sound to it.

[00:15:39]So we now have the piano playing a little bit higher up. We're having the violins I think still. [music] No, we switch over to a chime.

[00:15:48]Chime and piano.

[00:15:51]So, we have a chime as well.

[00:15:55]And and immediately I get proven wrong. No, it's not a string quartet. It's a it's an orchestra. So we do have moments where we are reduced to a string quartet like earlier in the piece where we basically just have the like for from the people at the front like we have one of the first violins, one of the second violins, one of the violas, one of the cello and that's it. You just have them behave like a string orchestra. Now I did hear some clipping over there but yeah we're having all of the strings now playing the chords and continuing the melody. Let's see where this goes.

[00:16:34]the piano doing its thing. Some percussion now. Chorus in the background. [music] Okay. So, now we're bringing in some uh a little bit of flute. Over here we're having the flute now doubling the piano.

[00:16:48]Doubling is when you have more than one instrument doing the same thing at the same time. On top of that, we have added uh chorus. It seems uh the chorus um chorus or choir or corral that is going to be a big group of people all of them singing together at the same time. Um this is one of the weird things of music because when you get enough people singing you end up removing their individuality and turn the whole thing into one massive instrument. And with that with a chorus we then subdivide people into their individual uh vocal ranges. We have four main vocal ranges which is the standard that we use for coral music. The SATB SATB stands for soprano, alto, um tenor and tenor and bass. So soprano is going to be the higher range for women. Alto the lower range for women. We have the gender divide. Then we have tenor the higher range for men still lower than alto. And bass the lower range for men. These are the more commonly observed ranges out there. Uh you take these four into account and you're going to be looking at 90 upwards to 90 maybe 95% of the world population will fit anywhere in these four. After that, we do have a couple of other vocal ranges in between that um that are somewhat uncommon but not rare enough that they don't get their own category. We have the mezzo soprano between the soprano and the alto and we get the baritone between the tenor and the bass. The principle of these is the same. Uh they are either going to be the full range of the surrounding ranges or somewhere in between. For example, a meto soprano is going to be the full range of the soprano on the alto or somewhere in between. The baritone is going to be the full range of the tenor and the bass or somewhere in between. My case, for example, I am a baritone. I have a good chunk of the range of the tenor. I have a good chunk of the range of the base, but I don't reach either extreme. I just don't reach either extreme. I just have a good chunk of the range of each. Uh once you take these into account, this number goes upwards to 99.99% of the population. It is very very rare to meet anybody that that is outside of these vocal ranges. They exist. There's plenty out there because, you know, 90 like 0.001% 001% of 8 billion is still going to be a couple I think a couple of million people right so that is going to still that's still few like couple million people that will fall outside but they will all be usually fairly unique ranges for that. So yeah uh we're using that and they are basically not being vocalists they are being used as an extra instrument. Let's see where this goes.

[00:19:38]>> [music] >> Oh, those arpeggios. Is there people that can do the whole range? Yes. Um, there are there are some people that have basically a full range. I know that Ado, the Japanese um vocalist, the the Japanese vocalist. I think Otto has the entire range. Like I think she has she can go from from soprano all the way down I think to baritone or bass. And I think Otto has the full vocal range.

[00:20:06]There's like three other people I think that I know of. Um, a one in a billion kind of person. Yeah. No, it's like one in 10 billion. Uh, it's like a one in 10 billion kind of people. Like or like one in five billion. It's in It's unbelievably rare to see somebody like that. Explains why she's so popular.

[00:20:23]Giving that kind of vocal flexibility.

[00:20:25]No, I would No, maybe not five in billion. Maybe one in a billion. Like either one in a billion or one in 500 million, something like that. Um, so yeah, no, it's an insane range and it's extremely extremely rare because some of the more common uh ranges outside of the SATB is the uh soprano and the Boso Profondo. Soprano Coloraturura, the colored um the color soprano, the ones that I think have one or maybe one and a half octaves above the soprano. the baso profond on the other end they have one sometimes one and a half sometimes two octaves below the the bass these actually there are there is an opera that has that that that uses both of these uh that would be um d z the magic flute by Mozart uh the zobl by by Mozart Start the queen of the night is a soprano kulura and sastro is a boso profondo. So there you go. What about Mongolian throat singing? Is that a vocal range? Technically that would put it um in exotic and world music vocal ranges. That would be the exception because yes technically Mongolian throat singing especially if you do the kira is going to be bass you know kind of thing maybe even basondo but it because it's not done with regular singing it can't be quite categorized under the same vocal ranges as the rest as we are doing for singing. So, yeah.

[00:22:05]No. Um, how fast you going to go from screaming to calm? Um, if you want somebody else that can go from screaming to calm really, really fast, there's also Adrien uh Cowan. I love her vocals.

[00:22:16]She is an absolute just absolute monster in all of this. I I really love her voice as well. Uh she doesn't have as much of a range. She's uh soprano like soprano maybe met me. Um like her growls are really really cool. She does not have the range of auto. I wish she did though. But yeah. No, it's um it's that.

[00:22:35]So, yeah, we're having that. And now we're also having a bunch of other phrasings. Oh god, I almost dropped my keyboard. Um we're having a bunch of other key uh a bunch of other phrasings like uh [music] this kind of uh phrasings from the flutes and violins. Oh god. Oh god.

[00:22:53]Okay. Stabilized. All right. So yeah, let's see where this goes. We're having the percussion in the background. The chorus is doing its thing. Let's see where it goes.

[00:23:01]We stop again.

[00:23:03]>> [music] >> Piano chimes. We bring in the glockenage spiel there. The chime [music] giving us the uh the arpeggios.

[00:23:13]Piano doubling those melodies.

[00:23:17][music] Oh, some bells as well.

[00:23:21]Yes.

[00:23:23]Flutes there. Doubling the melody.

[00:23:25]Building up. [music] I love this. Okay, we bring in the French horns to take over the melody. We have now the vocals there, continuing the the phrase. Okay, so we we have a brief call and response between the French horns and the vocalist. Call and response is a musical conversation.

[00:23:49]Right now, we heard the French horns do the first phrase and then the vocalist continuing with the second part of the phrase. Uh call and response, musical conversation, that kind of stuff. And now we're engaging in some counterpoint. Let's see where this goes. [music] Little change written there. Nice flute there.

[00:24:11][music] Melody being doubled by everybody. Off the ramp.

[00:24:17]I've said this a few times, but it's been a while since I've had the chance.

[00:24:22]this kind of buildup. Whenever you have an orchestra or something like this and you have a and you want a big emotional moment when it comes to your music, make a big loud buildup. Like make that crescendo. Make make the buildup feel like it's building up as aggressive and intense as possible and then resolve it with a very nice whisper whimper soft resolution. So like reach the big like you know reach the um that kind of thing, you know, like have it have that big resolution uh that that big build up with a very very calm, very sweet resolution as we did over here.

[00:25:12]That kind of whiplash that you get from that that musical whiplash is so effective.

[00:25:18]M let's see where it goes.

[00:25:21]Piano taking over. Variation of the initial motif.

[00:25:25]Low note on the piano.

[00:25:30]>> Vocals are back giving us that variation the daddy does that we heard before.

[00:25:38]Almost some arpeggios.

[00:25:41]We resolve vocal there.

[00:25:45][bell] The glocken spiel taking.

[00:25:51][music] Okay, we have the glocken spiel there.

[00:25:55]And it sounds like it's either an accordion, maybe a um a glass harmonica.

[00:26:02]A maybe a glass harmonica cuz I know that the that Hoyo loves using a glass harmonica. So, a glass harmonica, you know how there's um these uh that they can have crystal glasses that you can rub on the top and you get notes. The glass harmonica is that but put on a uh cylinder like this that then you will have a crank that just gives you a steady motion for these and then you just lightly place your um fingers on top giving you that kind of um that kind of sound usually. Yeah. like very very very cool mechanical continuous movement and you just very very slowly. So I think it might be a glass harmonica because I know that Mihoyo loves using this instrument um for especially for Genchin. So we're having that for one last piano like let's see where this piano there in the background.

[00:27:01]We do one last retardando.

[00:27:04]We resolve the last note. We have one last just starry sky. So, not only did we resolve this very nice and lovely, we also slowly deescalated everything until it felt like just stardust in the sky.

[00:27:19]So, we do a retardando at the very very end. Um, a retardand retardando.

[00:27:25]And, uh, there was a light motif, right?

[00:27:29]There was a light motif in there because um I think there was like the there there was a light motif somewhere in there. So retardando means to gradually slow down the music. Uh so we do that and um quite like Genchin Impact. Say what you will about the game. I don't care about the state of the game, how it plays, that kind of stuff. This game has some of the best music ever done.

[00:27:57]End of story, full stop. Some of the best music ever made comes from this game. So yeah, the not cry and colina light motif. Okay, so we get a light motif uh throughout throughout the um throughout the composition. So light motif is a motif that is reused in a future work by the composer or rights holder in order to reference back to the original material. Uh so in this case we're having the not cry and um Colombina uh light motif is from the Colombina trailer music. So it makes sense that we will have a light motif.

[00:28:32]So every light motif is a motif. Not every motif is a light motif. A motif becomes a light motif when it is reused by the composer or rights holder in a future work to reference back to the original. If you are not the rights holder or the composer and you are using somebody else's motif and you reference it to reference back to the original work, you are not doing a lat motive.

[00:28:55]You're doing a quote instead. So yeah, we're doing um and we're we're doing more than three at a time. Uh I don't know yet. Um if Soul Creek is able if Soul Creek um ends up figuring out the system for the stream avatars, you might be able to do gold there instead. Anyway, with that, there you have it. What a beautiful composition and from Genshin Impact from the early times, especially, you know, like um Monstad and that kind of stuff like you know the theme of the star sky that kind of stuff very magical is very much hammered in like the fantasy element of it. And when you have that with music being able to portray that, it's it's tricky, but Hoyo has been able to pull that off every single time. And with that, there you have it. Song to the mirrored moon from the Genshin Impact, the stellar moments volume 6 soundtrack.

[00:29:52]Beautiful, man. Once again everybody, this has been a pastor, a layman friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician, a composer. My objective here has been to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be want to understand what's happened here musically. So if you're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel to the news, like the video, share comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server.

[00:30:15]That's where everything gets announced first. Whether it's the streams going live, the videos going up, the channels, updates, projects, giveaways, everything gets announced there first. We have the community there. We hang out, we chat, we steal memes from other people to claim them as our own. where I host the vintage story vintage story community server that kind of stuff. Also share these videos with everybody that you know use the hype function on YouTube.

[00:30:33]We have a group on the discord coordinates for those links in the description. Help the channel grow.

[00:30:37]Members get early access to the content is scheduled. The videos will be on Saturdays. And if you're a paid member on YouTube regardless of your tier, you get access to the videos when I schedule them at least for the LFAS. So become a member today. If you want to listen to this without interrupting every three and a half seconds, I have a link in the description down below. If you want to request a song and you're not on the live stream, check comment on this video that has the instructions what to do. If you want to catch the streams when they happen live, we aim from Monday through Friday. We stream live on Twitch, YouTube, and Kick so that you can tune in whichever platform you prefer. We have the full upto-ate streaming schedule showing in your local time zone in both Discord and Twitch. Both linked in the description. So, if you live in Las Monas, the nuns Chile, and you're like, "Yeah, but what time is whatever time it is in Hungary? I don't live there." Do not worry. Just go to Discord or Twitch, both linked in the description, and it's going to show the streaming schedule up to date in your local time zone, accounting for daylight savings if necessary. And subscribe to the gaming channel. Follow the gaming channel cuz of course I have a gaming channel. I'm on YouTube. What else could I possibly have? Games are bastard. This where I put the gaming after show recordings when they happen. We put the g we play games on the little part of the stream and then the va for every game we play live eventually end up over here. So subscribe to the channel linked in the description or search on YouTube same as James our bastard. Swap the J for a G and you got it. And subscribe to the reacts channel. The LFAS are react format. This is where we are putting the reacts for everything else. James Reacts channel. Subscribe to the channel linked in the description or search on YouTube.

[00:31:53]same as James our bastard. Extend the R to react and you got it. And uh yeah, there you have it. Song to the Mirrored Moon Genshin Impact. What a beautiful journey that was, dude. It's insanely good. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. But uh yeah, let's move