Danfun128 said:
fishmanlee said:
http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Imperial-March-recomposed.mp3
I thought this was interesting.When you hear a song one way, to hear it so oddly is...odd
Why do I have a feeling that the file was produced by taking the standard imperial march from wherever and changing the pitch via Audacity or a similar program?
Because it was.
Context:
http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-themes-part-3-of-6-the-imperial-march-darth-vaders-theme/
The harmony of the first twenty bars of the march (the portion we hear in the film) also contributes to the dark color of the music. To start with, just about every chord we hear is a minor chord. The brighter, happier sound of major chords are completely banished from the music.
Also, like the opening riff of the march, the harmony Williams uses for the main melody are not your average chord progressions. This is especially clear in the second half of the melody, where the chords are i–#iv–#v–i in G minor. In tonal music, I–IV–V–I is a progression that firmly establishes the key of the music. But in the Imperial March, that progression is subjected to a strange distortion where IV and V are raised up by a semitone. And actually, the #v chord has exactly the same notes as the minor chord we heard in the riff (Eb-F#-Bb is here written as D#-F#-A#). So from this perspective, the chord in the riff is also this strange, distorted #v chord. Notice that both of the distorted chords, #iv and #v, are a very small distance (a semitone up) from being their regular versions:
Had Williams used the regular versions of these chords instead, the march would have had a far more normal (and unremarkable) sound. The infusion of chords that almost sound like normal ones, and minor chords at that, gives the impression of a darkly abnormal, evil worldview. Just for fun, I’ve transposed these distorted chords down a semitone in the recording so you can hear what the march would sound like with the more normal chords. It becomes easier to hear how Williams has distorted the harmonies when this is compared with the original.
