For The Music Theory Folks: Fun Time Signatures in Game Soundtracks?

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meatsofevil

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#1  Edited By meatsofevil

I just learned that the Mario Kart 64 (and 7) "winning results" theme is written in 11/8 time, and it really is such an amazing jazzy theme. I thought it was so interesting that the theme was written in such a progressive and jazzy time signature, especially when it probably didn't need to be. Take a listen to the track composed by Kenta Nagata

Does anyone know of any other fun or interesting time signatures in game soundtracks, or perhaps just differently styled scores in games?

Recently I was blown away by the prog-iness of Control's soundtrack, especially during the Ashtray Maze sequence. I just love it when game soundtracks go into more jazz influenced styles.

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imhungry

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The obvious example is probably Thumper with its large variety of time signatures between tracks. Others that come to mind off the top of my head are the Ganondorf Battle music from Ocarina of Time with its fun overlaid rhythms, Weapons Factory from Super Mario RPG, Poshley Heights from Paper Mario TTYD which just has a bunch of fun transitions and Treasure Sleeping in the Sand from FF: Crystal Chronicles, a game that I played far too much.

Now that I think about it, Final Fantasy soundtracks in general are replete with great tracks that play around with time signatures. It's dumb that this is the next one that came to mind but Cinco de Chocobo from FF7 is a great jazzy rendition of the chocobo theme.

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BeachThunder

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jamesensor

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"Dancing Mad". It's like Uematsu's love letter to Prog Rock in general.

This Tumblr posts breaks it down way better than I can:

https://vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day.tumblr.com/post/141004706593/day-250-final-fantasy-vi-dancing-mad-composer

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cikame

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#5  Edited By cikame

Despite being a huge Tool fan and hobby guitarist i have a hard time identifying time signatures, but here's a couple.

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I keep losing count with this one, i guess you could say its timing is... sneaky.

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And a meme-y submission for good measure.

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xanadu

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#6  Edited By xanadu

Here is a cool one. I loved this section in odyssey just because of this music. It's in 11 (3+3+3+2) but it's pretty tricky to hear the meter. The rhythms are pretty broken up and the hi-hat plays quarter notes the whole time so its shifting between up and down beats each measure.

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csl316

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#8  Edited By csl316

Any battle theme by Motoi Sakuraba. Dude is such a natural with crazy prog rock compositions.

https://youtu.be/ertvporcCZI

(mobile hates letting me embed videos)

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stalefishies

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#9  Edited By stalefishies
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The whole of the Pokemon TCG soundtrack is way better than it has any right to be, but one track I really love it's equivalent of the Elite Four battle theme, especially for the transition from 1:23 through to 1:45. The main melody is 4/4, but the way it falls away from that main theme, switching between 3/4 and 4/4 to build up rhythmic tension, only to come back to 4/4 in double time is just gorgeous.

Also, I know nothing about Plok as a video game other than listening to Youtube videos of its OST, but man does it have some bangers. That switchup at 0:50 is nuts.