Musical Evolution in the Civilization VI Soundtrack
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2018
- In this video, I take a deep dive into Civilization VI's evolving soundtrack. The music in the game changes as you move through different technological eras, growing in scope and complexity as your civilization grows the same way.
You can buy full scores from the soundtrack for dirt cheap here: www.geoffknorr.com/civilizatio...
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This deserves a part 2. The new civs added in the expansions have some incredible music, with Scotland and Australia being real standouts.
dude the Atomic rendition of Waltzing Matilda gives me goosebumps and I'm not even Australian!
Zulu!
Hungary
Canada
Interesting element at time 11:32. The first 5 letters on the top of the score spell out Civ VI
Been scrolling through all the comments to see if I was the first one to notice. Wasn't :)
Ah, the good old "shitton of reverb".
Great for making me love sparce melodies since Blade Runner.
I would definitely thumbs up this comment if I understood that reference
The movie Blade Runner is scored by Vangelis, using a Yamaha CS-80 and one of the first digital reverb devices, the Lexicon 224-X, which could do a reverb of up to 70 seconds.
shitton of reverb!!!!
Shitton of reverb is my favorite solo writing technique.
is a shitton of reverb an instrument?
Our people are buying your bluejeans and deconstructing your synthesizer evocations of modern pop music.
I love Civ. I have over 1000 clocked on the series. But I've always struggled with the mid-late game because I have not a lot of incentive to see the game through. Until Civ VI and its evolving music. Brazil aren't even that great of a civ but I will play them purely for that Industrial theme. 😍
Thanks for making this video. I've always wanted to do it but never knew how, so it's a weight off my shoulders. 😉
Game Score Fanfare whatchu mean Brazil is not that great? B R A S I L R U L E S HUEHUEBR vacilão
(hint hint) You can start in the industrial era. :)
Christopher Tin knows how to make songs that help define video game music as a genre. Both Sogno di Volare and Coronation+Baba Yetu are incredible works.
YES. I'm a little sad he didnt discuss them, but it might have felt a little forced.
But Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo done a great job on the soundtrack
Don't you mean "Great Works"?
I've never played Civilization, but this is great. I love that Scarborough Fair is used. The way the music evolves over the different ages reminds me of how the music grows as you build that town in Breath of the Wild. I really love this kind of thing.
As a Brazilian i feel so happy when my country is represented with some real Brazilian music
FINALLY SOMEBODY GETS ME
I've been raving about this soundtrack since they first showed it off. I'm in love with America's theme and even showed it to my music theory class because I love it to bits. Great video!
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, Hard times, come again no more
Far too long you have lingered around my cabin door
Oh, hard times, come again no more.
I totally needed this video. Civ VI is the game that kinda started my thinking about game music with the evolution of the tunes.
And yes, you're right, Brejeiro does get stuck in your head immediately, it's why I love playing Brazil. However, Waltzing Matilda for Australia is pretty catchy, too.
Honestly, I think the Age of Information part could be way more interesting than just adding some Hans Zimmer percussion to it. The Atomic Age could also do with some jazzy weirdness, tbh.
The John Adams stuff in Civ IV (Harmonielehre, The Chairman Dances) perfectly embodies late-game Civ to me.
Look up the zulu theme and listen to it as it changes. It’s one of few that are vocal based and in the atomic era... well I won’t spoil but it gets really crazy
They're being a bit more experimental with the dlc faction soundtracks.
You my friend, haven't listen to the Japanese theme because that goes from nice folk medley to striaght cyberpunk and it's great.
The jazz era is way over in the Age of information xd
dude yessssss
Hey i know you
I've actually played one of these Civilization pieces for orchestra! We played the Seikilos Epitaph, Greece's music. Really cool! I very much appreciate this video, since I played Civ 6 I always found this musical progression through the ages to be very well made.
Damn, you did such a great job that I kinda wish you did a analysis on EVERY CIV's theme!
Brazil's theme in Civ 6 makes me proud of being a Brazilian
mee too
Tamo junto
True brazilian music...
O Ernesto Nazareth, o Heitor Villa lobos e até o Carlos Gomes refletem muito bem a verdadeira música brasileira, fora a bossa Nova que também é incrível
Every single song in civ 6 is so good. Anybody would be proud to be from a culture that produces such incredible music :)
I’m glad you gave Brazil’s theme a spotlight in this. That arrangement progression is my favorite in the whole OST.
Civilization VI's music is so insanely amazing, I literally cry everytime I hear America, Scotland, and Georgia's Atomic Era arrangements. Seriously, watching this video just emphasizes how much Civilization VI has made my life better, even if I don't have the time to play it anymore.
I had no clue this music existed before this video, and I greatly appreciate you making me aware of it. As someone who's still trying to learn theory, the information you provide about percussion, chord progressions, and (using) intervals in your videos is all invaluable to me. I've gotten to the point where I understand chords and chord names, but the things I just listed are still fairly foreign to me and your videos have started to help me understand them. Thank you for making these videos, and please continue to do so!
One of the most interesting things for me is that to my ears the American Industrial Era score actually starts with a evocation of film and media that focus on WW2, the starting bars deeply resonate with images of paratroopers taking off from the shores of britain for the "Great Crusade"; later on, the score almost brings you back into the idyllic/suburban with the banjoesque/country themes, almost like a reminder of home.
Moving into the Atomic Era that same military score (the snares?) definitely summons imagery that's almost poignant, jets taking off from Air Craft carriers, row on row of white crosses, great glittering cities of glass and steel.
But the most poignant of all the themes for me is the China theme. Played on either a guzhen or pipa, the tranquil "Jasmine" song evolves from images of poets and concubines sitting in pagodas and dreaming of cranes and white clouds into the full orchestra in the industrial era, to me, this almost feels like the birth of a Nation (rise of Nationalist China from the ashes of the Qing Empire), the atomic era even more so (the first bars particularly) definitely feel like they're referencing the launch of the first Chinese Satellite Dong Fang Hong (Red East 1) (ruclips.net/video/jMgVummiyY8/видео.html) which, played back said song in a very similar tone.
Showing us how the score evolves from the Stone Age to the Atomic Age? I sure hope this video’s popularity “blows up” because this video “rocks!”
i threw up a little in my mouth
How did you reply "a day ago" if this episode was uploaded a few minutes ago.
ah, the wonders of technology
wow two puns in chiasmus gets a big thumbs up from me
Bankai2169 stop
Sogno di Volare changed my fucking life.
For me it was Baba Yetu
@@zyaicob baba yetu for sure much better i agree.
The Industrial and Atomic Era themes for America is why I usually play as them. That music is so damn good.
OMG BREJEIRO ❤️❤️
Btw love your channel, as a musician it's really great to watch your videos.
Thank you so much!
I wish you'd covered Russian Medieval and Atomic themes, showing the change of the mood of the song about the man, that collects strwberries and wants to sleep under pine tree to the depressing and horrifying theme with menacing chorus and big base drops (or how's this called). I think this is briliant one.
I was privileged to be able to sing Baba Yetu with Alex Boyé, and as a composer, I must say that Christopher Tin has a truly amazing talent for bringing out the most beautiful aspects of almost any type of cultural music. The other composers involved are quite talented, but I think Christopher Tin deserves particular mention.
God I am always so sooooo happy when I see you come up in my subscription feed. Such an amazing way to keep topped up with my music theory - and learning new concepts along the way! Thank you and keep up with the good work!
I feel like you could do a video on music in rythm games (sounds kinda obvious for a video game music channel, really). Like what methods are used to make it work with the rythm gameplay, and how it differs from most VG music. I think Crypt of the Necrodancer might be a good example?
Amazing video by the way
You have to look at the rise and fall dlc, and all the other dlc in general. Especially the zulu, georgia, and the cree
Was watching your old videos on repeat and realized this was new. cheers.
The songs are great because even though there’s changing technology, cultures, religions, friends and foes, the heart of a Civ stays true throughout their entire history
I just found your channel today and I cannot even express how excited I am to watch your videos. I've been searching for someone who analyses soundtracks for so long and it is wonderful to finally find them!! Thank you for all the hard work so far and I'm looking forward to whatever's next ^^
This whole series of videos is nothing short of amazing. Keep up coming!
Awesome work on the video! Geoff did such a wonderful job with the soundtrack.
Wasn't it Christopher Tin?
@@simonklein6588 Christopher Tin only did the Main theme. While Geoff Knorr and Roland Rizzo did each Civilization theme.
Such a great analysis! I loved it
It's incredible how often I come back to this video.
Thank you so much for it.
This channel has been such an inspiration for me and my education in music at my university. We even used some of your videos in our Video Game Music History class last semester. The way you examine game music inspired me to try doing a similar thing while putting my own spin on it and I plan on doing more music related content on my channel since it's what I love and It's because of your content that I came to that realization. Keep it up and thank you!!!
You have a video game music history class? Lucky...
It was an elective started by one of the teaching assistants. The curriculum was chronological with video game releases so we started with the Atari and it's sound design and moved our way up to modern time and compositions by the end of the semester. It was really cool.
Easily my favorite channel on RUclips. Seems like every video you make is more interesting than the last. Keep up the amazing work!
Here to support the video. I love your content. Thanks for all your work.
This video needs more views
Love your vids man!
That was such a cool video. I think I might have to buy the soundtrack just to hear all this in detail and in full for each theme
Great episode. Enjoyed the breakdown, I love the music in this game.
Great video! Love your content and especially appreciate your notes and how you highlight music as it's played so that even those of us music fans with not very well trained ears know what to listen for.
Also, "shitton of reverb" is definitely not a phrase I was expecting to hear when I opened up youtube today and it's hilarious
I just discovered this channel today. Music and gaming, two things that I can't live without. Damn you! I am trying so hard to concentrate on work today.
Great video!
Civilization as a videogame series has been one of the most important ones in my life, and being a musician only makes it better. I've always loved the OST in each games, especially the grammy-winning one in Civ IV - that actually was the game that helped me learn English when I was a child haha
Let me just make an obligatory "Brazil does not speak spanish" comment: /bʁeʒeiʁɵ/ is the correct way of saying "brejeiro". The J sound is different in portuguese! You said it with the hispanic sound ("jajajaja"), but we say it with this /ʒ/ sound - like the sound the S letter makes in "decision", "television" and "usually". BTW, congrats on getting the R right both in "brejeiro" and in "choro" haha
Keep up the amazing work
Great video! As an enormous video game nerd who has a bachelor's degree in music, it's a treat to see someone talking about music in games - you got yourself a new subscriber today!
As for the music in Civ VI, it really does give another layer of immersion to have your progress in the game reflected in the soundtrack (just like any other game - the soundtrack can be an unsung hero for immersion). I did notice each civilization's theme (and the evolving orchestration of each) on my own in the game, at least up to the Industrial Age, but the changes from that point on are juuust subtle enough that I never pinned down exactly what was changing; I enjoyed your breakdown of a few examples here.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go binge watch a bunch of videos about music in video games on this new channel I found!
My Music class project is exactly this topic... I guess I have done my research only by watching this vid. Thanks man.
Just found your channel - your videos are amazing! So much attention to detail, and you really make it easy to understand! 😊👏🏻 Need to stop listening to podcasts while playing Civ VI now...
Great analysis as always!
Wow, really outstanding work right here, man. That must have been an awful lot of work on transcriptions alone!
The music in this video made me cry, and I have no idea why because I have no emotional connection to the Civilization games. Have you done any videos on how music primes the listener to feel particular emotions?
There's one about light and darkness in Persona 5 OST, if I'm not mistaken...
Jane Xemylixa I interpreted that as “here’s how the music conveys character motivations and how serious a situation is.” I’m talking about feels.
Check out youtuber Sideways, he's done that kind of stuff (mainly film score).
Jonas S Holmberg Thanks! Literally the first video listed on his page is called “How Pixar’s Music Makes you Cry.” Looking forward to watching that.
when i saw the trailer for civ vi for the first time, it made me cry like a little bitch. Adagio in d minor is just overwhelmingly beautiful.
God, I love this channel so much. I've been a music nerd all my life so naturally, when I play any game at all, I immediately hone in and analyze the soundtrack, can nearly make or break a game. Seeing you put these thoughts and ideas on video and fleshing them out is really just amazing. My favorite video is your persona 5 video because not only is it my third favorite game, but it's soundtrack is just amazing. The minute I get a bit of money in my pocket, I'm gonna donate. P.S. I would love to see a Kingdom Hearts video in the future.
Brilliant! And it would've been a huge missed opportunity to have a modern-era chord progression for America that wasn't I V vi IV. Had to do it!
Great video, very interesting and entertaining!!
Wow really great video! I am a big fan of the civilization franchise and have been for a few years. I am also a musician and have even discovered music to perform from playing these games (specifically “The Girl with the Flaxen hair” by Debussy In Civi 5). I have always enjoyed the soundtrack but hadn’t really thought too much about it. Thank you for making this video I really enjoyed it!
Fascinating. Never noticed. Thank you for pointing it out. I'd love your analysis on modern times civ 3 soundtrack which is mind-blowing
So it's late 2020 and I woke up with a melody stuck in my head. I was humming it all morning and kicking myself to try and figure out what it was from. In a moment of revelation around lunchtime, I finally realized it was from Civ6. I had never played Civ6, but I watched a lot of vids about it when it came out years ago. That lead my down a rabbit hole of trying to find what Civ6 video I heard the song from. I finally rediscovered this very video, and started the rewatch. And, lo and behold, I FINALLY found the song. It is the Brazil theme!
But the real kicker is how you introduce the music at 4:37 "And it will get stuck in your head, forever... so you have been warned"
Over two years after I watched the video, it was evidently STILL stuck in my head. Props to you and your prediction.
I love your channel. Simply amazing. Every single video.
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland
The Civ 6 rendition for Australia's Waltzing Matilda is also really good. In general, I felt Civ 6 brought back all the little details that made civ 4 so memorable - specifically the music score and the wonder animations.
How has it taken me so long to find this channel? Really great content here!
Love these vids.
Great vid. Im a big fan of the civilización series!
This was the most accessible and easy to understand video I've seen you do. I very much prefer this but I know many prefer the super technical.
Great vid, thanks loads
That music is so amazing. It makes me want to play the game and music doesn't move me easily. Awesome music, great video.
1:49
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She was once a true love of mine
Loved the video
Nice video. Good job 👌👌👌👏👏👍
And you transcribed all that by ear? Unbelievable!
My take away from this video is that the solution to every problem is to add a sh**-ton of reverb.
My recently added guitar vst agrees
Hell yeah one of my favorite games music being analyzed by one of my favorite channels.
I never played the Civ games but damn I need this soundtrack now for just how wonderful it sounds in its evolution. Thanks 8Bit!
Great work
Brejeiro is one of the most famous brazilian songs. Great choice from civ. 6. The J isn't like spanish it sounds like G. Nice job transcribing and explaining a little bit about Choro. Great video! I'm always happy when you or the other MUSICA ANALYTICA CREW talk about brazilian music. Keep up with the good work
I'm a musician and a huge Civilization fan and think that the music is one of the biggest elements in creating a truly immersive experience.
I'm surprised you didn't talk about Greece and their theme of Seikilos Epitaph which is such an interesting piece that is truly ancient.
Great video! Thanks for making it!
civ vi's music is so neat, just the video I wanted to watch on it. :) would be glad to see a follow up!
medieval themes are the best.
I absolutely love the progression for Scotland! Thanks for the video~
This channel is fantastic! Keep up the great work! Maybe a Metroid Video would be real nice? I might be bias though
No matter what amazing music they will throw at us it will never get better than Baba Yetu. That song is just an awesome mindblow and jolt to the system making you want to play and explore and grow your civilization. (and as an extra piece of context for me personally, when the Yogscast Jingle Jam raised 1 million dollars in one day and they thanked everybody with a thoughtful, albeit drunk and shouty, speech and promptly going into some Red Alert as an encore, all while Baba Yetu was blasting in the background, will forever make me get goosebumps and shudder when I hear the song).
There's a reason that it's the first piece of video game music to win a grammy.
Niels Schellekens I like Sogno di Volare a bit more but you have a very fair point.
I agree that Sogno di Volare is a great song but to me it's (to put it in 8-bit's words) Dynamic Range is too little, it feels too sedated. It fills you with pride for sure but doesn't entice you to go and do something, it stays about equal in energy throughout the entire song while Baba Yetu starts of calm, goes up a notch, falls all the way back down and then blasts you around the ears with some phenomenal Brass Sections. Hope that makes sense.
@@YingwuUsagiri I don't think Sogno do Volare stays in the same dynamic all throughout, quite contrarily. Baba Yeti IMO takes a rather common path through this, a bit too common to my ears, while Sogno gets louder, then stays loud, then suddenly gets quieter, then loud again, then quiet, and then it climbs it's way into being louder than it was any any prior point, climaxes, and then ends.
I have a school project with exactly this topic... Thanks man
Hello. My name is Renato and I am a big fan of your work. I am also a Choro musician from Brazil and I'm delighted to see my culture represented in the game as well as your channel. I just want to point out a common mistake people make when transcribing Brazilian music. In the Choro style we use the 2/4 time signature witch make a big difference in accentuation and dynamic. I love your work man, keep on. (Also the prononuciation of "brejeiro" and "cavaquinho" were rather painful)
I see you've enhanced your animations... I approve. Me likey.
Another amazing video as usual!
Still low-key waiting for one on Celeste though
Great video! My absolute favorite in Civ VI is Hungary’s theme - Atomic era version hits every time
Interesting what they did.
I've been wanting to create a transport tycoon style game for the last 20 years ago, and while for the most part I've focused on gameplay concepts, every so often I think about the other elements that go into it.
Since I kinda suck at music, I tended to hit a roadblock with that aspect, so I thought even if I did the rest myself, I'd perhaps ask other people for help with music.
Thematically though... Well, Transport Tycoon is basically jazz...
But what I thought, especially since I felt inclined to extend the concept a bit further into history, is that while the songs might all broadly fit around the theme of transportation, and travel, that the soundtrack would gradually add new songs over time in genres reflective of the era.
For modern times maybe a change in style every decade, and for older periods every 50 years or every 100 or whatever there is to work with in terms of stylistic changes.
Since the soundtrack just loops or goes randomly through all the songs (unless the player modifies the playlist), this means over time there's more songs, but it could be weighted to favour newer songs, or particular combinations or whatever.
For each era there'd be say 1 song, or 5, or 10, or whatever I could reasonably justify including. (obviously at least one for each era preferably.)
(I apologise if these are out of order anywhere historically, as I said, music is not a strength of mine - neither is history. XD) So, you might start with say, Baroque music, chamber music, sonatas, ballads, and then move into stuff like ragtime and music hall, then jazz, blues, rock, and however you'd define the pop music of the 70's, 80's, 90's and so on (other than just lumping it all together as pop.)
Along the way you could get other genres in there where appropriate, such as soul, funk, reggae, some less represented genres from non-western countries, Metal, Techno, Dance, trance, etc.
Just a collection that represents it's decade/era reasonably well, so that over time the soundtrack grows and grows, and the variety of what's played might be weighted in the ways that radio stations tend to be biased in different directions (radio stations could be an option under the settings for customising music choice).
Obviously when you get into the future this presents a speculative problem, but on the other hand at that point the musicians can just start making stuff up (or padding out less represented genres - after all, not all new songs also represent new genres.)
Seems like a fun, but somewhat subtle way to mark the progression of time.
Of course, probably way outside my league both in skill set, organisational abilities, scope and cost to make happen, but it seemed like a fun idea for a game which spans a long time period...
Aside from the odd Portuguese pronunciation part, this video is perfect :) really enjoyed it, keep it up!
So I've just finished playing Final Fantasy X and I loved every second of the music. I know you've already covered Final Fantasy, but I feel as though each FF has a different tonality and atmosphere in their scores (even if there is a similar theme between them all). I especially love the music in FFX, especially "To Zanarkand". It would be really cool if you could cover the music in that game :D
Cool!! Pls more video on orchestral pieces!!!
löve your channel!!! ur the best!!
When this was in my recommendations I was like "cool, a new video", but this video is almost a month old?! Amazing video, as always, but I think RUclips screwed up again :C
It's truly such a beautiful game with an very underrated soundtrack. I'm glad you decided to cover it
Ernesto Nazareth neles! Amazing game and soundtrack! Just a lil bit kinda critical of Brazil being this big land of cheerful extroverted music?... Could have used Chiquinha Gonzaga's Corta-Jaca, though! It can be lonely, reflexive and also epic with each different instrumentation.
Awesome work in this channel, too!
Hey, that's me!
Hey it's you!!
Adahop Hey it’s him!
His profile picture is a big plus.
Wooooooo!
Listening to the Brazil and America Industrial Age tracks actually got me choked up a bit... thank you for highlighting this fantastic soundtrack!
Goosebumps achieved, thanks Tin
I'm no musician, and I've never really studied music theory, but I've always loved the Civ VI music, and found this analysis fascinating... thankyou!
Sounds like these guys were seriously channelling some John Williams while they were working on this. Awesome breakdown - I love it when games progress their music along with their story/setting/civilisational evolution tree :P
this deserves to go viral
Can confirm. Played a long game as Brazil a few days ago. It will not get out of my head.
Really really good video, good idea, it had to be done by someone at some point. You grabbed the opportunity by the balls and gave them an incredible treatment.
What a great video. I can't imagine that transcribing a classical piece of music is something easy...