Uploaded November 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
🎵 Sheet Music & Parts ➤ [Removed by Nintendo JP]
💗 MIDI / XML / Sibelius ➤ bit.ly/TandABundle
🎹 Commissions ➤ jshaw.co.uk/commissions
🎮 More Arrangements ➤ jshaw.co.uk/TandA
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Quite a tricky one to figure out; the ethnic tribal-esque interior of the Great Gabomba statue from Golden Sun!
I created this arrangement backwards; creating the recording before the score (where I usually create the score first), but I think the result was rather satisfactory!
--------------------
➤ Analysis:
Contextually, we are visiting an ethnic tribal village during one of their ceremonial rituals. Large crowds are chanting and dancing as we enter the massive mechanical powerhouse that is the "Great Gabomba Statue".
Sakuraba reflects all of these elements: the African-esque tribal chanting with vocal shouts; the wooden, mechanical clock-like nature of the statue with dry percussion and unending semiquaver rhythms.
As such, I wanted to enhance these elements as much as possible. Thus I used as few Western instruments as possible, opting instead for more ethnic tribal-esque instruments such as Taiko drums, Frame drums, Kalimbas, various sticks and shakers, and several other dry wooden percussion that are more familiar, such as xylophones and marimbas. All of these elements complement the mechanical wooden dryness of Sakuraba's original.
The African chanting is also left intact to maintain that sense of tribalism and ritualism.
To analyse some of the material, the track begins with a syncopated (off-beat) passage in the bass guitar, which I have moved to the piano here (0:03). This melody is engulfed with various rhythms, most of which emphasize the constant flow of semiquavers in an unending mechanical loop, as if like a clockwork machine. I have further enhanced these rhythms by providing some additional syncopated passages, notably in the Taiko drums, pulli sticks and wood blocks.
Harmonically, we are starting in A Aeolian (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A) - a modal key which suggests to us a rural otherness outside of the more common "major" and "minor" tonalities - quite appropriate for representing an ethnic tribe. This swims between a tonal center of A - G periodically throughout 0:03 - 0:28. By 0:28, we get an abrupt shift to the relative major - C Mixolydian (C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C) - as we modulate into the 2nd section.
Here, the bass melody slowly ascends an A Aeolian scale. To add a bit of treble interest at this passage, I expanded the fluttering semiquavers above with the use of an ornamented acoustic guitar.
Up until this point, the music has been predominantly in a time signature of 3/4. However, I decided to play with this and added a subtle shift into 6/8 (0:47), emphasizing 2 groups of 3 beats, rather than 3 groups of 2 beats. We still perceive the running semiquaver patterns to be in 3/4, so this addition of a 6/8 counter-meter should add some subtly exhilarating rhythmic interest, further enhanced with the return to the opening time signature of 3/4 at 1:00.
--------------------
The score was created in Sibelius 7.5, and the audio was created in Cubase using sample libraries from EastWest, Vienna Symphonic and 8Dio.
★Game: Golden Sun: The Lost Age
★Developer: Camelot Software Planning
★Publisher: Nintendo
★Composer(s): Motoi Sakuraba
★Software: Sibelius 7.5, Cubase Elements 7, Cubase 10, Adobe Premiere Elements 15, EastWest Sample Libraries, Vienna Symphonic Library, 8Dio
★Tags: Golden Sun, Golden, Sun, The Lost Age, Golden Sun The Lost Age, TLA, GS, Golden Sun Orchestra, Golden Sun Cover, Golden Sun Remix, Golden Sun Arrangement, Great Gabomba Statue, Inside the Great Gabomba
#GoldenSun
#Orchestra
#TheLostAge
🎵 Sheet Music & Parts ➤ [Removed by Nintendo JP]
💗 MIDI / XML / Sibelius ➤ bit.ly/TandABundle
🎹 Commissions ➤ jshaw.co.uk/commissions
🎮 More Arrangements ➤ jshaw.co.uk/TandA
👍 Facebook ➤ bit.ly/TandAFacebook
🐦 Twitter ➤ bit.ly/TandATwitter
🎵 Bandcamp ➤ bit.ly/TandABandcamp
🎵 Spotify ➤ bit.ly/TandASpotify
🎵 Deezer ➤ bit.ly/TandADeezer
🎵 YouTube Music ➤ bit.ly/TandAYouTube
🎵 Apple Music / iTunes ➤ bit.ly/TandAApple
Quite a tricky one to figure out; the ethnic tribal-esque interior of the Great Gabomba statue from Golden Sun!
I created this arrangement backwards; creating the recording before the score (where I usually create the score first), but I think the result was rather satisfactory!
--------------------
➤ Analysis:
Contextually, we are visiting an ethnic tribal village during one of their ceremonial rituals. Large crowds are chanting and dancing as we enter the massive mechanical powerhouse that is the "Great Gabomba Statue".
Sakuraba reflects all of these elements: the African-esque tribal chanting with vocal shouts; the wooden, mechanical clock-like nature of the statue with dry percussion and unending semiquaver rhythms.
As such, I wanted to enhance these elements as much as possible. Thus I used as few Western instruments as possible, opting instead for more ethnic tribal-esque instruments such as Taiko drums, Frame drums, Kalimbas, various sticks and shakers, and several other dry wooden percussion that are more familiar, such as xylophones and marimbas. All of these elements complement the mechanical wooden dryness of Sakuraba's original.
The African chanting is also left intact to maintain that sense of tribalism and ritualism.
To analyse some of the material, the track begins with a syncopated (off-beat) passage in the bass guitar, which I have moved to the piano here (0:03). This melody is engulfed with various rhythms, most of which emphasize the constant flow of semiquavers in an unending mechanical loop, as if like a clockwork machine. I have further enhanced these rhythms by providing some additional syncopated passages, notably in the Taiko drums, pulli sticks and wood blocks.
Harmonically, we are starting in A Aeolian (A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A) - a modal key which suggests to us a rural otherness outside of the more common "major" and "minor" tonalities - quite appropriate for representing an ethnic tribe. This swims between a tonal center of A - G periodically throughout 0:03 - 0:28. By 0:28, we get an abrupt shift to the relative major - C Mixolydian (C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C) - as we modulate into the 2nd section.
Here, the bass melody slowly ascends an A Aeolian scale. To add a bit of treble interest at this passage, I expanded the fluttering semiquavers above with the use of an ornamented acoustic guitar.
Up until this point, the music has been predominantly in a time signature of 3/4. However, I decided to play with this and added a subtle shift into 6/8 (0:47), emphasizing 2 groups of 3 beats, rather than 3 groups of 2 beats. We still perceive the running semiquaver patterns to be in 3/4, so this addition of a 6/8 counter-meter should add some subtly exhilarating rhythmic interest, further enhanced with the return to the opening time signature of 3/4 at 1:00.
--------------------
The score was created in Sibelius 7.5, and the audio was created in Cubase using sample libraries from EastWest, Vienna Symphonic and 8Dio.
★Game: Golden Sun: The Lost Age
★Developer: Camelot Software Planning
★Publisher: Nintendo
★Composer(s): Motoi Sakuraba
★Software: Sibelius 7.5, Cubase Elements 7, Cubase 10, Adobe Premiere Elements 15, EastWest Sample Libraries, Vienna Symphonic Library, 8Dio
★Tags: Golden Sun, Golden, Sun, The Lost Age, Golden Sun The Lost Age, TLA, GS, Golden Sun Orchestra, Golden Sun Cover, Golden Sun Remix, Golden Sun Arrangement, Great Gabomba Statue, Inside the Great Gabomba
#GoldenSun
#Orchestra
#TheLostAge
