LONG BLOG
Phils Game/Pop Music Similarities #307 - Fiddle Fight
Featuring Final Fantasy III and several music genres.
Greetings fellow game music lovers,
sometimes we forget that there are Final Fantasies before IV especially if they were not released in the west like II, V. One notable example is the third part (1990) which today is mostly remembered for debuting the Moodle species and having a long, savepoint starved final dungeon.
And as every Final Fantasy it has a unique variation of the battle theme:
Finding a definitive sample is very hard due to the simplicity of the tune. That's why we have a rather large selection of samples from different genres although there seems to be a concentration in ragtime and folk based genres.
Margaret Whiting & Jimmy Wakely - "Let's Go To Church" (1950 ):
You occasionally find comparable progressions in variants of the traditional tune "Maiden's Prayer":
Another candidate is a recurring motif from the left hand of Scott Joplins Elite Sycophant (1902). It's kinda hard to find a recording where you can hear it clearly so let's try with this:
The first few notes are also a recurring motif in Holsts Hammersmith:
Gustav Holst - Hammersmith (1930):
Something with vaguely comparable curvature can also be found in the works of Mozart:
Mozart / Serenade in D major, K. 185 "Antretter" (1773), Andante Gracioso:
There's still some Final Fantasy left!
Phil out.