This video provides a layman-friendly analysis of 'Fallen Symphony' by Ludicin, explaining key musical concepts including arpeggios (playing chords note-by-note), musical motives (the smallest musical idea that generates everything else), sequencing (repeating musical ideas from different starting points), orchestral arrangement (using full ensembles like violins, violas, and strings), song form (verses as baseline intensity and choruses as climaxes), deceptive cadence (building tension but not resolving as expected), rhythmic displacement (shifting rhythm for impact), syncopation (playing against the beat), and musical inertia (the momentum that requires gradual deceleration at the end of a piece). The analysis demonstrates how these elements work together to create tension, release, and emotional impact in electronic music.
Deep Dive
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Deep Dive
Analyzing "Fallen Symphony" by Ludicin (Osu/ADOFAI/GD/etc) OST | Basterd's LFAAdded:
Next up, we have Fallen Symphony by Lucidin. This is featured in Osu, maybe Geometry Dash is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this is a bastard LFA, 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're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever button you want to use. Like the video, share the video, comment, turn on notifications, become a member.
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Otherwise, please be patient with me. I am acoustic and guitar-ed, so please keep that in mind. Also, at the time of recording, we are still celebrating 1 year of LFAs, as well as over 1,000 LFAs. So, thank you once again, everybody, for being here. I do not take this for granted that I'm grateful every single day that I get to do this at all, and that any of you like this to begin with. So, thank you very much, everybody, for here uh to be for being here. Here's for many more years and many more LFAs. With that, and also a dance of fire and ice, it seems. All right. Seems like this is in a bunch of other in rhythm games. Let's see where this goes. Fallen Symphony, let's go.
All right.
Okay, so we start with two primary elements. We have, of course, our piano there. Um the piano having two parts to it. One of them, one of the hands doing arpeggios of the chords, and the other one uh playing the melody with the melody sometimes slamming into the chords, right? So, arpeggio arpeggio being when you play a chord one note at a time. For example, here is C minor. Here is arpeggiated.
So, uh we're having that, and then the other one is playing the melody. The melody that contains our initial motive.
Motive being the smallest version of your musical idea, the CT S's which everything else comes from.
The melody is then developed uh partially by doing some sequencing. Uh sequencing being when you play uh when you repeat a musical idea. This is a way that you can develop new material. By repeating a musical idea, usually a melody, from a different starting point.
So, for example, if I have this melody over here and I then go ahead and sequence it, I am going to be repeating this musical idea from a new starting point.
Just repeating the shape itself. So, we're doing that, and then we are holding down the chords with some violins uh on the lower end. Let's see where this goes.
Lovely. And following this, the violins are just holding down the chords as they change.
Nice.
Drums in the background.
We're bringing in um we are bringing in the violas now.
So, it seems like we are using a full orchestral arrangement for this. Uh so, that means we're using an orchestra, right? So, the orchestra being the largest ensemble that we have over in um as a species. Why Why do they keep moving my my image all the time? All right, so here is um the New England.
And as you can see, we're having the violins. Now, we're introducing the violas, the ones that are just slightly bigger than the violins, and we're having that. Let me just clean this thing again. It keeps giving me an attitude. And um and yes. Now, with my trusty image, yes, and welcome back to LFA. So, we're having that. We're having We do have in the background the um the what's it called? The drums, very very subtle. The the bass drum behind it. And yes, the piano right now, the points that it's hitting harder, those are accents. We're accentuating the uh the beats of the metronome that we're using. Let's see where this goes.
>> [music] >> Okay, we're bringing now a violin, one of the violin sections. They are now switching over and bringing in doing a doubling to the melody that the piano is doing. Doubling is when you have more than one instrument doing the same thing at the same time. We're having that happen. Let's see where this goes.
All right, so this outlining the melody of the other one cuz now the [music] piano is doing something else.
We're going to the piano to the bell drums new synth doing arpeggios. No more piano.
The violins, the strings still doing similar, bringing a ticking clock for the metronome.
There's the bell again.
One more synth slowly fading in.
And it's highly it's Okay, so we're having some arpeggios on this one, but the higher notes, I think might be outlining the motive with the um with the higher notes over time, like a slow version of the motive.
Yes, you did, Thor. Yes, you did.
Okay, slowly being Oh.
And we bring in some vocals.
That means we are dealing with a song. I know that we call everything a song, but there is a categorical distinction between songs and instrumental music, uh also known as pieces or uh pieces or as tracks, right? Um songs will have lyrics, they will have vocals. These vocals and lyrics will be the driving force of a substantial part of the music. Uh it also changes on how you approach uh the form and this kind of stuff. Consider vocals rather than just voice echo. Um So, right now I could be a vocal sample.
It could be a vocal sample, because if it is vocal samples that we are using, like samples that don't really drive the music forward, um then we are still dealing with an instrumental where the vocal sample is used as an instrument rather than a driving force. So, let me hear a bit more. Let's see where this goes.
No, it is it is it is a song. Uh because the vocal samples are the focus like the vocals right now are the focus. It's being wrapped very quickly, and because the ensemble behind it changed completely. Usually, vocal samples would be going, and we wouldn't be really hearing much of a change, or it wouldn't be like the vocals are the focus. The vocals would be an add an addition, not a focus. So, yes, we do have the the strings going down. We switched the synth that was doing the arpeggios. We switched it over to a either a harpsichord or a clavichord or a clavicembalo, one of these precursors of the piano. Uh the tone is not quite the same as a harpsichord, so it could be one of the other ones. So, yeah.
If we're following the song uh form, that means we started with an intro, and now we are in verse number one. When it comes to vocal music, verse is going to be one of the main building blocks, the other one being chorus, at least for nowadays music, right? Verse is going to be your baseline level of intensity.
You're establishing um your intent, your baseline. Uh not as outlandish kind of things. Your melodies are going to be a little bit more held back relative to the rest. You're going to go through a lot more lyrics. Uh it's going to be faster in that sense. You're going to go through a lot more text.
Whereas, the chorus is going to be the highlight, the ceiling. I put a verse being the floor, chorus being the ceiling, the high point, the climax of your music where you really just unleash the music. Let's see where this goes.
Nice.
All right, immediately to a build up.
Chorus.
So, if a chorus is the climax, the pre-chorus is what builds up to it. Of course, we're dealing with electronic music, so chances are this is just a build up, and we're going to drop the beat instead of the chorus. So, let's see where it goes.
Building up.
So, yeah, we use a little bit of um we displace their drop over there. We uh we push down the drop, basically. Use rhythmic displacement. Name suggests, we're displacing the rhythm. We're pushing down so that we can get a more pronounced drop. We bring the drop, and instead of bringing the bass, we go up.
We go up with the with the We go up. Let's see where it goes.
Glitching around.
It sounds It sounds like another build up, which means we would have done a deceptive cadence over here. So, when you're making music, you're doing one of two things. You are building tension, or you're resolving that tension. That point in between, we call the cadence um with resolution, right? In uh in electronic music, building and dropping the beat has the same uh dynamics. Uh so, the deceptive cadence, usually this is something you do in the chords, is where you build that tension, but then you don't resolve it to where you are expecting it to go, but you take it something somewhere else, which would basically just take you somewhere else, make the the next build up that much more pronounced, which would make the next uh the actual resolution, the actual drop, that much more pronounced. So, we're doing something like that. Let's see where this goes.
With a lot of There we go.
Build up. I think [music] it's a build up.
Let's see. No, no, no, this is definitely the drop. This is definitely the I thought I heard another synth there. But yeah, now we're having this back and forth. Uh the drums going insanely fast. Um and yes, also GD cuz we Yeah, it seems like this is all over the place.
So yeah, we're having this uh we drop the beat and basically we are somewhat outlining the motif that we're having with this back and forth and um gothic hardcore breakcore melodic metal and orchestral on SoundCloud. Lovely. So yeah, let's see where this goes.
Yeah, it's not on Newgrounds, yeah. Uh [ __ ] we do we do need to start enforcing the uh not on Newgrounds stuff from now on. Uh so this is going to be the last one that we do that is not on Newgrounds cuz there's the new thing that um starts copyrighting. Like this was this is going to get copyright claimed by SoundCloud because SoundCloud is a bunch of dicks. But um yeah, from now on if you request something from Geometry Dash, you're going to need to give a Newgrounds ID for it. Uh starting Monday. Yeah. I forgot to enforce it today, but yeah, we're going to have to start enforcing that. So if if somebody requests a Geometry Dash song from now on, I'm going to need a Newgrounds ID because of that. Yeah. Anyway, we continue with the drop. We're having this build up happening. Let's see where this goes.
Yeah, and the reason why we're doing this So we're having another build up over here. Um Yeah, we were supposed to enforce it uh yeah, we were we we were failing of enforcing it, but I wanted to ask.
Um can non-copyrighted song uh nons get done?
Uh for that I need like there's way too much um there's way too much that goes into that, so no.
Um the problem is that because there's a new system of um Geometry Dash that is resulting in copyrighted music being done. So yeah, this is why we're doing the whitelist. This is where we're doing the the artist whitelist so that if your artist is in the whitelist, then yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, but otherwise, yeah, we need to start doing uh songs with Newgrounds.
And if it's on Newgrounds, it needs to be whitelisted in advance. So Yeah, it's just because the YouTube copyright system keeps being abused and there's this new system parallel to Newgrounds on Geometry Dash and it's resulting in a lot of copyright material being used. So I'm not going to take that risk. Because the alternative is just not doing Geom like blacklisting Geometry Dash in general, which I don't want to do because we get some really good music from it. So yeah. Anyway, let's see where this goes.
Bring it.
Okay, we're building up again.
Yeah, I know.
Displacement there again.
Okay, so we dropped the beat proper this time around. I'm going to chuck this whole part over here as being one massive set of build ups. We dropped the beat. We bring this very nice crisp bass going over here. We have those chords playing over there.
Really cool. Let's see where this goes.
>> [music] >> Mainly focusing on the rhythm and we have a chime above giving us some arpeggios as well.
Interesting interestingly done. Let's see where this goes.
Moving for a new chord.
Back to the original chord.
And this is kind of using So yeah, turns out the vocal sample was driving. So now we're in the second verse practically.
Uh we're just using the dropping the beat formula to this. So we're mixing and matching things around.
It's working. We're just really stepping outside of everything with this. Let's see where this goes.
Lot of glitching, lot of cutting this piece around. Build it immediately.
Let's see.
Displacement again.
Deceptive again. Resolute uh deceptive off the ramp we go. Off the ramp being a colloquial term that I use colloquial by that I mean there's 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 a particular type of transition that makes your listener feel suspended up in the air at the mercy of inertia waiting to see where you land.
Kind of like going off a ramp. How do you do this? Remove the drums, maybe the bass as well. We're bringing in the bells. We're bringing in the strings again. So yes, I know it sucks, but this is what happens when people abuse the system. People are abusing the system and I will not be caught in the crossfire. So yeah.
Yeah, so if you have it that is not copyrighted, just give me the white set up the whitelist is on the on the Discord. You can request it there for the artist for the artist and then we can take it from there. Anyway, let's see where this goes.
Chimes there give it arpeggios.
Another And it seems like we have some vocal sample doing some humming on it.
We [music] bringing some guitars.
Can I find anything with the eyelids then?
Oh, we bringing the guitar here.
Moving the melody around with arpeggios.
It's not copyrighted, but you can't give me the um thing. Unless it's in the like non the NCS channel, then I'm not going to take you at your word. Is what I'm saying. I need to be able to back this with their statements. If you can't give me their statements, then I can't do it. Anyway, we're building up with the guitar.
And we're bringing this forward. We bring we bringing this um style change NCS. I think maybe cuz that one is supposed to be non-copyrighted. Uh they think NCS we just uses GD in general. So yes. So we're building this. We're bringing in the electric guitars. We need a bit more.
We still have the electronic elements in the background.
Variation of the melody and Okay, so now we have the like harpsichord clavichord chamber above. We have the guitar doing in a doubling. We bringing the the metal drums. You can hear them. They're a lot heavier than the original ones. Really really cool. I really love how we're building things over here. And thing speaking of building things up, uh build up the Patreon. Join the Patreon today.
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With that said, let's continue.
Yes, like the songs that we couldn't do in the main channel, that these ones could go on the Patreon. Yes. Anyway, we're having a build up over here. Let me go back a second. Let's see where this >> [music] >> Build up and So instead of dropping the beat, we bring in this as symphonic metal. We have the strings above giving us the main the main chords. We have the guitar here playing a guitar like metal version of the motif.
Beautifully done. Let's see where this goes.
Two guitars now.
Layered.
Harmonized.
See where this goes.
Some tremolo picking there.
Variations [music] now on the motif from the guitars. Nice.
And we bring in a guitar solo. When you're making music, you want to keep a careful balance between what is familiar and what is new. Too much familiarity, too much repetition, too much of the same thing, you risk boring the listener, they tune out. Too much new material too quickly, you risk overwhelming the listener, they tune out. There is one universal exception no matter the style or genre, which is solos. And then electronic music has an additional one, which is dropping the beat. Metal has breakdowns. Similar thing. Um You bring in a solo, beat uh beat drop, or breakdown. As long as it sounds cool enough and it fits enough, you can get away with almost anything. Meaning the principle of um familiarity and repetition and new material become more lax. Not inviolable, but more laxed. So yeah, we're bringing this really cool solo. Bringing just showing off the guitarist. Let's see where this goes.
>> [music] >> Oh, now we go to the breakdown. No, we go to the build up. Okay, build up and dropping the beat with the metal in between. Nice.
>> [music] >> Nice.
Nice, nice, nice.
Hell yeah.
Descending line.
Bring it full on metal. Descending line from the from the violins.
Guitars giving us variations, arpeggios of what [music] we've been doing before.
Nice. Where you going to take this?
So, it's the middle now.
Melodies.
Multiple layers [music] of guitars.
Multiple layers of the guitars doing doublings. Doubling is when you have more than one instrument doing the same thing at the same time. We're having this descending. We're slowly descending, while some of it is ascending. We're having this really cool set of contrary motion. Really cool.
Let's see where it goes.
>> [music] >> They sound so good, yeah. Really good sounds.
All right, building up towards >> [music] >> Off the ramp we go again.
Slowing things down.
Vocal sample. We have [music] a synth in the background with the chords.
Harps, cellos. Now, advancing the piece.
It sounds like a completely different piece.
Oh, no. No, there's a melody.
There's a melody from a cello.
Percussions in building this forward.
Very beautiful.
>> [music] >> Building it up.
Where are we going to take this?
There it is. Off the ramp again. Vocal samples again.
Still we have a kind of like an organ.
It's very interstellar-esque.
There we go. New synth, new variation.
With a lot of adornments there.
New synths as well.
Choral samples as well, like vocal samples of the chorus.
Oh, wow.
Bringing for a build-up.
Glitchy build-up.
Yep.
Drop is coming, yeah.
Continue building and displacement.
So, we have the new version of the melody, and now we are getting not really side-chaining, but we're really just blocking the We're basically interrupting flat-out.
Drum beats, then melody. Drum beats, then melody. We're basically putting the the the chunks of everything that is happening over here. It's not really chopped that way. It's just the melody is played in between the beats or syncopated. Syncopation Syncopation when you play against your drums, against your beat, or against your metronome in one way or another, as we are doing over here. Very cool. Let's see where this goes.
Vocal samples singing a little more.
Well, we have a very good bass.
Nice.
Counter melody, slow melody from that, yeah.
So, yeah, we have violins and a vocal sample like a like a solo woman singing.
Really cool. Let's see where it goes.
>> [music] >> Okay, building tension, cadence, and doubling from the guitar. Same melody, doubling from the guitar.
Nice.
Nice. Moving it [music] up. Nice.
Sequencing and repeat. One more time. Might as well. It sounds good.
There's violins in the background, violins, violas, cellos giving those chords.
It's a bit difficult to tell what the other instruments are doing because the drums and the bass are so loud. But, hey, the main synths and the main guitar are still there. It sounds glorious as hell. So, let's see where it goes.
All right, drums shifting around and building up again.
Immediately to another build-up.
And switching to metal with glitchy drums.
All right.
Yeah, the drop is coming, yeah. It's It's going to be a little bit build-up, it sounds like.
All right, and right now we're taking that last moment of build-up, and we're extending it. The guitar is still building up on that. We're basically just extending the the build-up, building more tension as a result by glitching it out. I like it. Let's see where it goes.
And we do some direct modulation. As you heard, we were in one chord, in one set of chords. Now we're in a completely different one. Very abrupt, very quick, very sudden.
Let's see where this goes.
Very nice.
Moving that melody up and down.
We bring back the vocal sample.
There's a lot going [music] on here, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, my [music] 100%.
All right, building up.
Getting some arpeggios, some chiptune.
And yes, we're starting to sneak in bits and bobs of other stuff that we've done before very, very quickly in between beats. Let's see.
Oh, it was definitely inspired by it, yeah.
All right, building more. How are we going to end this?
Building up for that grand finale. It's starting to break down.
Speeding up, breaking down, and one last hit from the piano. We hit it down. We let the sound dissipate, and there you have it. You know what I'm talking about when you have a big ensemble, a big-sounding track, and you want to give it the sense of it's big and it needs to slow down. This is what I'm talking about. We repeated those phrases, slowly building up, but you can feel that we're starting to hit the brakes. But, it's a big machine.
And the big machine is going to resist.
There's going to be inertia that you have to There's going to be a momentum that you have to take account for. This is a good example of how to do this.
Yes, the very end was one note from the piano, but we had the massive ensemble slowly slowing down over time, resulting in this. And with that, there you have it.
That was asymmetrical inertia kind of. I mean, it's just hitting the brakes on a an 18-wheeler truck, right? You like it's It's going to take a while for it to slow down, or for a train or something like that. It takes a bit for it to slow down. That's the idea. And with that, there you have it. Fallen Symphony by Ludicin, featured in osu, Dance of Fire and Ice, Geometry Dash, and a bunch of others is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this has been a Bastard Zelafei, a layman-friendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician and composer. My objective is 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're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel. Subscribe to the channel. Whatever you want to do. Like the video. Share the video.
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Fallen Symphony, Ludicin, osu, Geometry Dash, Audiosurf, really good stuff, man.
That was quite the journey. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. But, yeah, let's move on. Let's move on.
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