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When Bioshock Infinite Covered The Beach Boys
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- Опубликовано: 17 авг 2024
- As a huge fan of the Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds as well as a huge fan of video games, hearing 'God Only Knows' sneak its way into Bioshock Infinite was one of the most pleasant surprises of my video game playing history. Transcribing and analyzing the Barbershop-ified arrangement of this Brian Wilson classic, I realized just how different the Barbershop style is from what Wilson was trying to achieve in his original recording - which makes the fact that this arrangement works all the more impressive. Join me as I break down exactly how the arrangers adapted the sounds of 1966 to the setting of 1912!
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#GodOnlyKnows #BioshockInfinite #musictheory
"What key is this song in?"
"God only knows."
I bet they did it that way on purpose. Musicians of days past were ambitious and creative. Now you literally can't escape The 4 Chords and Pachelbel's Canon.
Edit: Let me be a little more clear, I'm talking about mainstream musicians here. There is plenty of good original stuff going on outside the mainstream. Just because you like some song that abused those two tropes doesn't invalidate your personal opinions on music, stop being such crybabies.
@@KiraSlith you can recognize past talent without lying so blindly to spit on present talent, being non venomous is free
@@decepticonne Aww, did baby's favorite Justin Beiber album pop to mind? I'm telling the truth and you know it, mainstream music is dead and the lazy industry killed it.
@@KiraSlith then don't listen to "mainstream" music??!! I have dozens of songs from the past 2 years on my playlists that are way more complex and creative than most music you consider good. Whether creative/complex means good, not really, but don't be a twat just because you think new music is personally insulting you. So shut up and find your own music to listen to.
@@bentenboy13 Your Debug stats:
Projecting = ✅
Self-aware=❌
Angry=✅
One year ago, 8-bit Music Theory said in the first Music Analytica livestream that he wanted to talk about the Beach Boys, but he thought he couldn't really do it given his channel is gaming oriented. I'm so happy he actually managed to do this video someway.
Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me of that, that's so funny.
He found a loophole
I literally just watched this before I realised what this video was about
@@revolvingworld2676 on-brand for Bioshock
i still really want him to talk more about the Beach Boys though, they’re my favourite band!
So, Albert Fink wasn't a useless hack, he was an actual talented composer who was able to arrange hits from different times into his own time's style.
"Just make sure you change a bit so it doesn't look like you copied it"
I always read Fink's problem as one of context: the man believed that he could become a massive success by copying works had had been a proven success in other timelines, but that success never seemed to catalyze for him. This is because, the way i see it, the game is arguing that those works were successful _because_ of an essential context unique to the particular times they found themselves in. Remove those peices from their context, and they wont resonate the same, no matter how much tinkering you do to make it more palatable.
@@BoomTheGuardian The value of art is in it's context. Without that context, art is just colors or sounds or words on a page. Context is where the meaning is, the thing people care about when they recognize it as art.
@@dashiellgillingham4579 I disagree because there are works we can call timeless. We don't need a context to appreciate the beauty of something. Sometimes it is necessary or helps, but sometimes there are works that regardless of culture or time can move almost everyone in some way
@@bradberkely7448 Perhaps in a few cases, but a lot of works people call "Timeless" are only so because the context they require is timeless, or at least outlasted the time the work is from. The poem Ozymandias isn't remembered for being the winner of an informal competition between writers or an ultra-short summary of an ancient king's achievements. It's remembered as a warning against hubris in the face of time, something that will never change.
Other "Timeless" works are only so because they have gained new context to replace the old. The Mona Lisa isn't that impressive of a painting on its own. Most of its intrinsic value comes from being a rare painting by Da Vinci. Then it was stolen and that got the public interested. Now, most people don't even know that, it's simply a pop culture icon completely removed from anything it stood for or relied on originally.
Sometimes the work doesn't even last but was simply so entwined with its context in its time that enough of it was dragged onwards to be somewhat recognizable. Few people know the stories of H.P. Lovecraft but his name remains synonymous with existential dread and terrors beyond comprehension. Frankenstein is the same; the story has been rewritten and adapted so many times in over 200 years that correcting people on which character is actually named Frankenstein became a meme in of itself.
To be blunt: most art does not outlast its own time. Music preference shifts, artistic styles change, clothing evolves, hardware becomes stronger; every medium shifts and changes and will continue to shift and change. The works that are remembered beyond their time are the ones that carry a message that, in one form or another, outlasts the time as well.
So what you're saying is Albert Fink may have plaigarized the works to begin with, but he was still a genius at arranging them.
Fink, you're a fraud. But God damn are you a good one.
He's the equivalent of the guy who actually puts in the work to re-write the paper he bought so that it won't show up as plagiarized in the checks. Just as much work as doing it yourself, but you don't have to work to be original, so you can feel like you're being cleverly lazy instead (and it takes people longer to catch you).
No, I think he copied the original as it was but these 4 suity boys just thought they'd put a barbery spin on it
Not only is it an amazing piece, but Scott Bradlee who was brought in to rewrite the modern music for the game, then went on to create Postmodern Jukebox,a band/Concept group whose whole schtick is remaking modern songs in old styles, and I can´t recommend them enough.
I had no idea that was the same guy...
Thank you for the recommendation, they're outstanding and my new favourite thing
I didn't know it was the same guy, but it makes total sense
While Scott Bradlee did work on a number of piano and vocal arrangements for the game, this arrangement of God Only Knows was done by Clay Hine, a well respected barbershop arranger in his own right. You can actually buy this arrangement off him and learn it yourself!
Beat me too it! Yes it is!
When you started talking about dominant sevenths, I was all like "Oh, I bet they changed the Bbm7-5 to an F#7", and I've never felt more smug.
As a music-illiterate...
...music theory is black magic.
@@slaughterround643 Even as someone with musical background (band throughout high school and college, multiple music theory classes) it's still black magic. It's the kind of magic that, once you learn how it works, gets even more mysterious
Braced myself for it immediately after hearing that section. It’s a cheesy change to make, but it’s just the right kind of cheese for the arrangement.
@@sentientblender That's exactly it, you put it in words!
Just tritone substitution, right? Usually results in smooth, chromatic basslines
I'm musically illiterate, I can only sing the stuff, but the fact that this much work went into making a track for an event in a videogame that most people probably walked by is nothing but commendable to me.
When you make amazing understated art like this piece it's the hundreds of people that take it for granted that makes it all the more worthwhile :))
Now we know what happened to all the features they promised and didnt deliver in Bioshock Infinite.
@@HighDeafRadio god-tier comment, deserves more likes
I sure didnt walk on by. I had to stop and listen to the entire piece. When their barge floated off, I was like wait! Come back and do one more!
@@cmelton6528 same!
If he doesn’t “steal” this arrangement and write the Pokémon RBY theme for barbershop quartet, I will be sorely disappointed
Cool! Very fun to watch/hear this analysis and see the discussion! This is actually my arrangement, and my quartet (A Mighty Wind) singing it. Very fun to see / hear this analysis. The music director for Irrational Games actually wanted something that sounded very much like classic barbershop but still kept the feel of the original Beach Boys version, so a lot of the musical choices (some of which I didn't love, but I think they worked well in this context) were driven by that. - Clay Hine
Thank you for the arrangement and performance! I know I'm not the only one who stopped to listen to the whole thing when I first played the game, and still stop whenever I replay it to enjoy the piece.
16:44 that last bit is called a "tag", and the sustained note is called a "post". Barbershop is a fantastic rabbit hole to fall down, the intonation that the pro's have is insane
Exactly. If the people scrolling along are interested in this style of a capella music, look up "Barbershop Harmonic Society" (BHS) and go through a couple of their popular videos to get a feel for modern barbershop music.
My personal favorite quartets are The Newfangled Four and Main Street.
TheOutrageousZ aren’t they everyone’s favorite?
*Except for the judges*
Oh god, it's doing my head in reading the Lead and Tenor lines where they actually are instead of the usual octave higher. I'm a barbershopper myself you see, so this was an interesting analysis from someone that I would assume doesn't follow barbershop at all. I just want to point out that this arrangement is pretty indicative of where barbershop arrangements were back in 2013, rather than it being some outlier among barbershop arrangements as it seemed to me like you were suggesting. There's been a strong push within the Society for (what I'd like to say is) the last 20 years to move barbershop away from its rigid structure and give arrangers more harmonic freedom to create arrangements like this one and still have them be recognised within the Society as "barbershop".
This arrangement was done by Clay Hine btw, the baritone of A Mighty Wind (the quartet that did the recording for Infinite) and a well-known and well-respected arranger within the Society.
Hi Matth!
@@matthewchung5288 Sup Match
He would probably love Vocal Spectrum's cover of Good Vibrations
Piggy backing this comment... A Mighty Wind became Category 4 after kicking their bass. They are all singing / music judges in BHS. I was able to work with Category 4 at my district competition recently, they were all really good to work with. However, they officially broke up about 2 weeks ago, because they live really far apart. I encourage everyone to check them out on youtube, you can find everything on the channel "Barbershop Harmony Society".
Wasn't Clay Hine also in FRED
I wish Pet Sounds was a videogame so we could get more Beach Boys analyses from you
I've heard there is connection between EarthBound and The Beach Boys, so there's that...
@@megaman13able iirc it was just 1 sample in a barely-musical ambient track near the end of the game (the first syllable of "Deirdre" in Cave of the Past)
@@paperfishstudios3144 what is "barely-musical" supposed to mean lol
@@decepticonne Imagine if what you're hearing is so sound like that it couldn't be written effectively with pitches and intervals. That would make it less "musical" from the perspective of a composer. I'd have to listen to the piece myself, but it's not an unthinkable concept.
Edit: Just took a listen. Yes. I'd say that's exactly what Paperfish meant.
@@outlawscar3328 ha, so it's an appeal to academia then, gotcha
Hey, 8-bit! Glad you're shining some great light on this arrangement! It was actually performed by an internationally ranked top-5 quartet at the time (A Mighty Wind), and arranged by a gold medalist arranger named Clay Hine, often considered one of the greatest modern arrangers of barbershop music!
The music team at Irrational really did his research and got some great talent to get this song into the game, so I'm really happy you're shining some extra light on it!
lol, I read that and had to do a double take -- Christopher Guest made a movie titled A Mighty WInd that isn't about a barbershop quartet.
I came to the comment section to say the same. Clay makes some awesome arrangements.
Clay told me that they just wanted arrangement from him and they were going to have "professional" singers do it. Ha! They used the demo recorded by A Mighty Wind.
Clay Hine was/is also a member of the Champion barbershop quartet FRED. They are known for the terrific singing and arrangements, but also their comedic skills. They once did a barbershop version of Eric Claptons "Cocaine" on Penn & Teller's variety show.
All of this pass so high over my head that maybe an airplane hit it.
ruclips.net/video/2ZIpFytCSVc/видео.html
you look maybe 170 cms max, whats wrong with that pilot?
I've never played this game but the man who made this arrangement visited my choir in college a few times and I felt hella blessed every time he did. Some of his vocal stuff is really out there.
Who made this arrangement?
Wesley Hughes Scott Bradlee
Bioshock Infinite is astounding, couldn't recommend it enough
@@eligeo5246 Many thanks!
@@WeepingWillow1 Clay Hine made the barbershop arrangement. There are a few other comments talking about him, but he's in a group called category 4 and directs the Atlanta Vocal Project (which is the work I'm best familiar with.). He's very well known, and if recommend looking into his stuff.
I'm in a small barbershop group with friends, and we're learning this arrangement right now!
Brian Wilson rides by in his limousine: "Eh, it's been done."
I get that reference.
Were is it from, may I ask?
@@desuMaKun correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that a bare naked ladies reference that in itself is a reference to Brian Wilson?
@@desuMaKun The B-Sharps episode of The Simpsons (George Harrison makes the comment about the B-Sharps singing on the roof of Moe's)
@@desuMaKun It's from a Simpsons episode called Homer's barbershop quartet. Despite being about a barbershop quartet , the episode is a Beatles spoof and it ends with Homer's band doing a reunion concert on a roof top and George Harrison driving by in his limo and saying "It's been done".
There is a barbershop quartet who perform this at PAX. They are sick
I hope they feel better soon
@@showalk I laughed and I'm so upset about it
I've always wanted to do barbershop. I can't find anyone interested, though.
@@JeanDeaux666 I'm interested, but I highly doubt that something productive can result from this (not saying that it is impossible).
@@JeanDeaux666 I would suggest looking around in your area for a barbershop chorus. Most choruses have no issue with people dropping in on rehearsals and are pretty easy to join, assuming they're not a major competition-focused chorus.
You can search for one here: members.barbershop.org/chapters/search
Big ups to the guys at PAX East who cosplay and sing this!!
UPS has nothing to do with this.
I may be wrong, but I believe that's a quartet called "Septimus Prime"
@@ttin0 UPS has more to do than you'd think...
they're partially responsible for the continued defunding of the USPS (as well as the new postmaster general) and that affects everyonr
What the fuck... what made you start talking about UPS?
Vansvnansvnsvsn@@ttin0 vacavac
Good golly this moment was ICONIC. Haven't even watched the video yet and I already love it.
I remember going through Bioshock Infinite the first time. The first entry in the franchise I'd played and I didn't know what to expect. Then I heard this song round a corner and just had to stop and listen. It was so beautiful. It *really* made me question whether Brian Wilson wrote it or not.
But the original is no slouch either. Quite the opposite, it still baffles me how amazing it's composed and arranged. Great original. Great rearrangement. Greatness all around
Finally found a way to talk about the beach boys huh
I don't understand a single thing about music theory, but I still genuinely enjoyed listening to you talk about an arrangement for a song I've never heard from a game I've never played for 20 minutes.
I love the whiteboard marker sound effects! It does a lot to give the video character.
"One of my favourite songs."
You have such good taste. This was the best moment in the whole damn game for me. It captured this familiar yet surreal element that really did just feel perfectly in keeping with the uncanny but kitschy vibe.
I learned the Tenor 1 part of this on a whim at a previous MAGFest with some companions.
This song is a masterpiece and no matter who arranges it, it remains a classic.
just a quick correction - although in a choral context it would be considered the tenor 1 line, barbershop parts are divided as tenor, lead, baritone, and bass. so you were technically just singing the tenor part :)
I thought you were a Melee content commentator only. What the heck.
Emm Bee Sea oh hey nice to see you here
Please do a video like this on the bayonetta cover of “fly me to the moon”
I"m not gonna lie, I sat and listened to this song until it finished the first time i played the game. When it ended and the blimp flew away I knew I was about to play a masterclass game.
As a barbershop singer, this episode brings me great joy. It's so cool to see how the arrangement was done!
Barbershopper here. The technical term for the final held note with changing harmony is called the "Tag", and it's probably the most culturally important part of the barbershop style. In the "canon" of barbershop singers from all over the world learn a repertoire of tags to sing together at conventions with members from other countries!
In a similar situation, I remember reading the Dark Tower and being so intrigued by the world Stephen King created a universe not unlike our own but yet very different (or at least our version of it) but I loved the part when the gunslinger walks into the bar when he reaches town and the piano man was playing "Hey Jude" and it was an such an uncanny connection to our world/time that couldn't have been put into words but perfectly describes this relation just by incorporating a song from our universe, in short I also love that Bioshock does it in a similar way, without explanation but captures the feeling of a place while so different still shares similarities, I think its brilliant world building or maybe a better description would be "world blending" ;)
"God Only Knows" is my favorite Beach Boys song too! I never played Bioshock Infinite so I didn't even know this arrangement existed, thanks for introducing me to it!
You should definitely play Infinite! It’s the best game I’ve ever played. Amazing story, characters, character development, writing, voice acting, animation, gameplay, atmosphere, art style, can’t recommend it enough.
So glad someone else loves this arrangement as much as I do, it’s haunting and fits so well into the theme of Bioshock: Infinite
amazing transcribing skills. your ears are crazy!
There's a barbershop quartet that perform this at comic con. They're awesome!
The real life quartet that was actually hired to perform it is even better. Check them out--they're called A Mighty Wind, and later renamed to Category 4.
This was an amazing video explaining exactly how Brian Wilson wrote the piece, and how the game changed it to fit the era it was set in. This is one of my favorite songs ever and this was so fun to watch. Thanks so much for showing me this
Replaying the Bioshock games during the quarantine. Finished the first one, half way through the second and am about to tackle the third. God I forgot just how absolutely amazing these games are.
One of my favorite bands, I love how perplexed people are with this song. Beach Boys broke out as a surf-gone- mainstream pop group and created some gorgeous music as they matured. Thanks for highlighting this arrangement! Gotta go play infinite again now 😐
Ella Mae It’s too bad in retrospect, Pet Sounds ended up being the Beach Boys creative peak (Brian Wilson had a nervous breakdown recording Smile and struggled with mental illlness for two decades).
There's also the fact that The Beach Boys eventually got deep into drugs, and family issues, that it took away much of their potential in later years. Arguing between living members, and the band recently sold their catalogue to an Irving Azoff company last month.
Possibly the most definitive (albeit, focusing only one song) episode of this entire series. So worthy of a breakdown.
Great video! Thanks for the deep dive on the arrangement!
In case you’re wondering, the quartet who sings this is called A Mighty Wind. They’re not together anymore, but a a bunch of the same members got together and made a newer quartet called Category 4.
I am amazed how emotional this video made me. I did not expect this, especially since I've played Bioshock Infinite. My god, I teared up like 5 times.
Thank you to the brilliant Clay Hine for arranging this one. If y'all are interested, he had some amazing work with the comedy quartet FRED back in the late 90s and early 2000s, though his arrangements have been sung all over the Barbershop circuit. This one was sung by his quartet A Mighty Wind (now Category Four).
I actually sang this with Clay a couple of years ago. I mean, I was terrible, but Clay was very happy to talk about how he was approached to do it and some neat stuff about dealing with the game studio
@@KevinBerstene That sounds amazing! Where did you end up meeting him?
I’m ready to explore the theremin in Good Vibrations.
That wasn't actually a theremin. It was a tannerin (also known as the electro-theremin because it was designed to be easier to control while sounding like a theremin). Theremins are completely "hands-off," while the tannerin is controlled with at least one knob. That said, I'm with you.
I love these games so much.
I also enjoy how arrangements are done this way. In Disney: California Adventure, they took modern songs and turn them into Carousel organ songs. I love it.
As the b flat half diminished chord is the most iconic chord of that song for sure. Just wow.
7:38 triggers my disabled Google Assistant and asks if I want to turn it on. Great video btw.
I’m a personal fan of the cover of Tainted Love playing in a bar in the Finkton slums
That % of a time is also one of the rules used to determine if a chart is contestable in the International competition
Today I learned something new
I love that, for lack of better word, metatextual quality of recomposing the song by the Beach Boys for the barbershop quartet using actual theory and analysis, and then also having that be a part of the game fictional world. Like, not only are we supposed to believe in a fiction where real existing music has been reinterpreted and implemented within Columbia by fictional characters, it also accurately portrays the creative work put into the game by the developers / composers.
So now I’m back, I’m kinda sad you didn’t mention the “tag” part of the song, being that it’s one of the most barbershop things in barbershop. Another one is the swipe (one singer holding a note for a really long time, while the others change), the tenor movement there is soooo cliche in barbershop. Being that I sing tenor a lot in my quartet, i can’t count how many times Ives seen that.
I wonder if it's a regional difference, but I've never heard it called a swipe; the term I'm familiar with is "post".
I always felt like the progression never really feels like it resolves until Brian reaches the line God only knows to which it finally resolves satisfyingly. Kinda like Brian was building a kinda anxious or suspenseful movement coming into the chorus. I felt it was his way of materializing the feeling of just not knowing the right words to express yourself and finally coming to God only Knows which is kinda like a person giving up and saying only god knows exactly what the sentiment im trying to communicate is
Something I just realized about that opening piano piece in the game. It's simple and pretty...but the piano is slightly out of tune. As if to hint to the player "hey, this place looks pretty, but there's some unpleasantness going on behind the curtains.
Thank you for providing and clearly explaining these chord arrangements while giving each piece its due time, and for showing the chord movements with their letter names
I wanted to comment this the other day but forgot! My family has been involved with barbershop music for decades now and the quartet who performed this song for Bioshock Infinite is A Mighty Wind, they are family friends of mine! I love it every time this set-piece comes up!
I subscribed a long time ago because of your David Wise analysis and discovered with it a fantastic channel.
I never imagined that you would also fall in love with Pet Sounds and with how incredibly the barbershop arrangement in Bioshock Infinite was made.
David Wise got myself interested in videogame music, Pet Sounds made me decide to undergraduate in Conducting and Bioshock Infinite was the game I had the best experience playing until now.
Thank you man. Consider yourself hugged.
It's actually fairly common for the Lead voice to sing higher than the Tenor in barbershop, if that's where the melody goes. The melody in barbershop never really switches voices/parts all that often, and especially not for a single note. In this song, you can tell the vocal timbre of the Lead is present when singing the highest note of the chord, which so happened to be where the melody lies.
Hi. Avid barbershopper here. Secondary dominants are the life blood of barbershop. Going V7-I isn’t necessarily barbershop. It’s the it’s V/V7-V7-I that makes barbershop shine. Even going as far as 2 or 3 chords away. Say in C, we go C-E7-A7-D7-G7-C. That basic chord progression is what marks barbershop special. Also, the ending of a barbershop song is called a tag. And the “long note at the end” it’s called a post, the most common type of tag. It’s so cool to see my favorite thing in the world represented so well in other facets of the world. Thank you for this awesome video!
Dude I don’t even know what a chord or key is but I’ve watched a bunch of your videos all the way through. I just know I love music, I love games, and you have such a way of turning your points into an almost artistic argument and that’s probably why I can make it through despite having no idea what you’re saying in so many cases
My favourite one is infinite's rendition of girls just wanna have fun, it's nostalgic and amazing to me, so much so that i learnt it on the piano
I absolutely love the bioshock series, especially the music and this is one fo my favorite pieces from the soundtrack.
Fantastic video as always!
Great analysis, as always. This part of the game also took me completely by surprise. When I first played Bioshock Infinite I was limited on my video game time, and as a Bioshock fanboy desperate to play the latest instalment I was in a real hurry to get the game going. The protracted intro to Columbia was driving me crazy - I just wanted to get to the meat of the game. You know, the shooty bits. But the instant I heard those barbershop voices and quickly realised it was an amazing arrangement of God Only Knows, I just stopped moving, took my hands off the keyboard and mouse, and lapped it up. I was sad when the song finished and the barge floated away.
The soundtrack to this game is fantastic, but this arrangement is still a stand out. Thanks for making a video on it!
In barbershop, the Lead actually sings the melody and the tenor will drop below if it reaches high. Sam thing goes for the baritone who jumps above if the melody drops low. Sometimes the melody jumps from one voice to the other but that's just ornamentation
Listen, I am not going to lie, I only get about 25% of what you are talking about as I know next to nothing about music theory - but I do find it thoroughly entertaining and I appreciate the work none the less.
Ahhhh this is also one of my favourite songs of all time, and this arrangement was my favourite thing in Bioshock Infinite! So glad you got to do a video on it.
ohh man, what a great channel this is. I am so glad I found it. Love this video on the Beach Boys - and on one of my favorite songs. Harmonically so complex.
I love this game’s soundtrack! I also love how they made a clever premise for putting in arrangements of more recent music. I also love any excuse to use a barbershop quartet in games.
i just realized thats how virtual insanity opens
I performed this song in high school for a winter showcase style concert with three band kids. I never quite understood why i was struggling with it so much even though I was singing lead. And for the love of God dude, the end of a barbershop piece, or the "one guy hold a note while everyone else harmonizes" is called the tag. It's the most fun I've ever had a with barbershop. They're easy to memorize and teach, and they're nothing quite like getting a group of friends together and singing tags.
Barbershop music is so coooool ! Nice episode 8-Bit Music Theory !
This video inspired me to show this song to my choir director, hopefully he’ll let me and the other 3 boys in our honor choir song it!
I have played through Infinite multiple times and I have NEVER found Fink’s studio... now I’m gonna have to play it again
Great vid as always! God Only Knows is one of my favorite songs of all time, so beautiful. When I first heard it in Bioshock Infinite I was so amazed cause it sounded so different but so good. Thank you so much for the explanation as to why!
As a Barbershopper and music theorist and gamer...thank you!!!!
"My good friend Wikipedia" is such an amazing line
I've had this version as my alarm ever since I heard it.
It's the best way to start your day.
I absolutely love the anachronistic parts of Infinite. They did such a beautiful job with their style
Damn it!! After 9 years, i finally discorver this is a cover of the beach boys thanks to you!! It was so perfectly mixed that i never noticed!!
Great analysis! Kudos also for transcribing all of that out too!
mate. hands down. big respect doing this work! much love
Although I’m not on patreon (sometimes an empty wallet can’t be helped), there’s a game with music that I’m really curious about. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a lot of songs that perfectly fit the theme of the game, and I notice certain composition themes in certain areas, but I’m curious what about them makes them sound truly “Epic”, for lack of a better word. Specifically, the song Tearing Through Heaven, and its usage of trumpet and horn solos over orchestra gives me the biggest “wow this is intense and people might die but it’s a cool fight and we’re gonna come out on top” vibe. Yet, as much as I listen to it and try to recreate something similar, I can’t figure it out. So what gives it that feeling?
The guy who arranged the Barbershop adaptation of God Only Knows is Clay Hine, a Barbershop Gold Medalist who won with FRED back in 1999. God Only Knows was sung by A Mighty Wind which has now been renamed to Category 4 with 3 of the same members. You should check some of his stuff out as he also directs a chorus or did direct a chorus for a time. Some history on the FRED quartet is that all the members came from the Big Chicken Chorus. I highly suggest watching FRED's performances from the 90's to '99 where they win the contest. I say 90's because they started competing in 1991 but I don't actually know how many of their performances are on youtube. To find one just search "FRED bhs" or "FRED Barbershop Quartet".
Seeing them perform this song as a kid watching my dad play Bioshock Infinite convinced me this song was a cover of an older version for an embarrassingly long time
It's weird seeing barbershop written in absolute pitch, without tenor and lead raised up an octave or a tenor (8vb) treble clef.
9:51 Ooooo my music theory teacher would be shocked by this voice leading :D Great video! :)
About a year ago I found your channel while on a spree of musical interest that was inspired by... This rendition of this song. I was sad there wasn't much about it on RUclips, but I found a nice variety of stuff including, accidentally, this channel. Now I've seen most of what you've made here and we've come full circle. Congratulations man, you do really engaging analysis and you get people like me, with only a mild musical background, very interested.
when finding this for the first time i loved listening to this, but didnt think about it again a lot afterwards. great vid!
Bravo! I remembee stumbling upon this song in the game, and being stunned by it. Thank you for explaining why.
I may not know a single thing about what you are talking about, but I love listening to it!
The trick in understanding the starting key ambiguity is to realize that the F# minor chord is the "pivot". The D and Bm chords before the F#m are in relation TO the F#m (bVI and vi in F# minor). But once we get TO the F# minor chord, now all the chords are in relation to E major. But those first 3 bars are deliciously ambiguous, and thus the brilliance of the composition.
Loved hearing what you had to say about barbershop! Never given bioshock a try, but I do respect it for this piece. I think another way the arrangement does respect the tonal ambiguity of the original is in the last few measures. While clearly establishing a key, a tag with a post like that can't use the V7 of the key since I is always held out. Has weaker resolutions, and tags like that can be dragged out as long as an arranger is willing to write it, and as long as they can hold the note. However it is quite obvious where the song will eventually end, making it not very ambiguous at all lol. Anyway awesome vid
I’m really grateful for the diagrams of the musical score with highlights as I would struggle to understand such complex music theory without it
Either way, thank you for this video, I always wanted a video like this the moment I heard this song in Infinite as well. Really is a great composition
Artwork within artwork. Bioshock Infinite Transcends the idea of video games, and altered my view of reality. I’m ok with knowing I’ll never have another experience like this masterpiece again.
I finished infinite today and came looking for this. The video was very informative you earned a new sub hope to see more great content like this.
Bro this game is seven years old
I love people like you
Of all bands and things, I was not expecting a video essay/minithesis on Bioshock urging me to go listen to The Beach Boys at 2 am
This song is so perfect for a parallel universe.
Kind of the coolest thing about this game tbh.
When you understand nothing on music theory and the super in depth explanation highlights that fact further and makes you realize how much work was actually put into the arrangements and you appreciate them that much more :D
So, I love singing, was in choir in school and played in the band, but I never was any good at really reading or understanding music. I'm hoping that watching enough of these videos will pound an understanding of music theory into my skull.
The Mastery of the Great arranger Clay Hine!...Im very blessed to know him
I like how you tackle topics I either just had, currently am, or are about to learn about it in my theory class