So I decided to make this a series. I'll be covering the compositional techniques used in Deus Ex, including what makes Deus Ex and its successors so musically solid -- and I'll provide my own piano cover of the main theme song too, plus chords. So without further ado, let's cover Deus Ex's music!
Deus Ex was released in 2000 for PC and Mac OS, with an enhanced PS2 port (I say "enhanced", but.. that's for another post) following 2 years later. The game was released to critical acclaim and commercial success because of its successful blend of action, adventure, RPG and stealth gameplay and its moral mechanics; you can take on situations lethally or non-lethally and citizens will treat you differently depending on your actions. Just to clarify, Deus Ex released a whole 15 years before Undertale allegedly pioneered or perfected this trick -- sorry, Toby Fox!
The game was set in 2052, in a dystopian American future. The game's music was praised for combining elements of techno, jazz, classical and other genres to create a strong ambient atmosphere. Themes change based on your action; music will change to a combat theme upon entering combat and so on. The game's main theme is what I'm going to be focusing on here, however. You'll quickly see why picking apart every song would be tedious and difficult.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution went one step further by creating different variations of ambient music to fit different situations - walking around the streets of Detroit, one ambient song can quickly change into an erratic combat version of the same song. For the purpose of this post, though, I will only be covering the first game's memorable main melody.
MUSIC BREAKDOWN
(If you are completely lost with this, you can skip to the end where we summarise what the song does)
The main theme of Deus Ex (check the link if you need to refresh your memory) is in the key of A minor. The notes that make up A minor are A, B, C, D, E, F and G -- pretty straightforward, right?
Well.. there's a catch. That's the natural minor scale. The harmonic minor key of A minor is the same, with one key change (no pun intended) -- the seventh note (G, in this case) is shifted up one step, to G#. Still with me?
The reason I mention this is because in the harmonic key of A minor, with G#, you get the potential for some really nice chord progressions (as G# just "links" better to A because it's closer). Deus Ex's theme exploits this.
The first chord of the theme song is A minor (Am), which makes sense, because that's the key the song is in. The chord of Am is made up of A, C and E. This image shows the chord being played on piano. Simple enough.
People familiar with music might say "Hey, that's inverted! The order of the notes is changed!". That's not too important, and there's a reason I have shown Am like this. Deus Ex uses Am followed by E major (or just "E") throughout the song (see below). If you're astute, you'll notice something; Am and E look very similar! E just brings down two of the notes by a semitone, or half step. This is called a chromatic movement, and it's very popular among some composers because of the "pull" (or link, as I said earlier) between notes that are just a semitone away.
So the chord progression of Deus Ex so far is A minor, E, A minor, E. And it sounds good, as I've described. So what happens next? Well, Am is the "relative minor" of the key C major. This means that the keys overlap and are very similar - the natural Am scale, as I mentioned at the start, is actually identical to C major. Minors and majors are a different topic, but I mention this because this theme song is definitely in Am, but it uses C for a nice effect. The chord C is composed of C, E and G - Am is composed of A, C, E - so the chords are similar, but not the same.
Major keys and chords usually sound "happier" or more bright than minor keys. Horror movie themes are generally written in minor keys, whereas pop music is more often written in major keys. This means that C major is a nice "bright" sound thrown into the song after about 10 seconds.
This is followed by D minor - another minor key, this time made up of D, F, and A.
You might notice something; this is still similar to the chord E! Notice how the last two notes are just a semitone away from E and G#. This was clearly done with the intention of being another "chromatic" chord. This links up with Am nicely though, because as you can see this chord already has A and is a half-step away from having E as well.
The song then goes back to Am and E major again, just like the beginning. This is the main melody of the game's theme song and it is repeated twice.
Then there is a short bridge section. This starts out on the chord C, which is (as mentioned) practically a "brighter" Am. I think the song modulates (ie. changes key) to C major here as well, to create a less melancholic or serious tone to the main melody.
This then goes to the chord G (G, B, D). The reason for this is that it uses a musical technique called "cadence" - "imperfect cadence", specifically. In this context, this is when a song moves from the first chord of a key (in this case, the chord C) to the fifth chord (G).
Cadences are used to give a nice "resolved" sound with notes that link up in-key nicely.
The theme then continues to move from G to Am; this is another use of cadence, where the song changes from the fifth to the sixth chord. This creates an interesting, "interrupted" sound.
The song then moves to Dm (which as I've mentioned is a nice link with Am).
Deus Ex's theme song isn't done with music technique yet though; the song then jumps to G minor (G, B flat, D) - and this chord is actually out of key. This is called an "accidental" and is used from time to time by different songs, often for the sake of harmonising or changing the key more smoothly. Suddenly introducing a minor chord where a major chord is expected (in this instance, Gm where G major should be in key) gives the song an interesting sound.
Then, the chord changes back to Dm, jumping to the D in G minor to ensure the song still flows.
Finally, the song goes to E major and then returning to the original "tonic" or "root" chord -- A minor.
If this is a lot to take in, then I understand - because it is. I've just introduced music technique up to potentially grade 5. I'm mostly self taught, only recently taking formal training up to grade 3, so I understand the difficulties of learning all these concepts (let alone at once!). So to make everything easier, I'll summarise and provide my own piano rendition of the song.
SUMMARY
Deus Ex's theme song uses a lot of nice music techniques to make the song flow.
One of these techniques is the use of a "dominant" fifth (V) chord. The song is in A minor, but the fifth chord uses E major instead of the expected E minor. This creates a powerful "pull" with a leading note that is closer to the root of the key (A, to be clear) because it uses E, G#, B, (instead of E G B in Em). This is one of my favourite musical tricks because of the satisfying, resolving sound this produces.
Deus Ex also uses different cadences, which are a reliable way to produce nice progressions in any key. There are many different types of cadences that connect many different chords, but this theme uses perfect (E major -> A minor), imperfect (G -> C) and interrupted (V -> vi).
Finally, the theme also uses an accidental - G minor in the key of C major/A minor, which uses an "illegal" B flat. Accidentals are handy for transitioning between keys smoothly or just for a temporary change because sometimes they "work" harmonically even if they're out of key. On top of that, G major was used just a few chords prior to the Gm, which is another nice touch - the listener expects a major chord but the song uses a minor for effect.
I almost forgot -- as promised, here is my arrangement of Deus Ex's main melody. Note the chords (groups of 3 notes at a time) being played on my left hand, lower on the piano, while the melody is played higher on my right.
In any case, I know there was a ton of information to take in here, but I hope something of value was learned and I hope the summary gave some advice to budding video game composers!
Deus Ex was released in 2000 for PC and Mac OS, with an enhanced PS2 port (I say "enhanced", but.. that's for another post) following 2 years later. The game was released to critical acclaim and commercial success because of its successful blend of action, adventure, RPG and stealth gameplay and its moral mechanics; you can take on situations lethally or non-lethally and citizens will treat you differently depending on your actions. Just to clarify, Deus Ex released a whole 15 years before Undertale allegedly pioneered or perfected this trick -- sorry, Toby Fox!
The game was set in 2052, in a dystopian American future. The game's music was praised for combining elements of techno, jazz, classical and other genres to create a strong ambient atmosphere. Themes change based on your action; music will change to a combat theme upon entering combat and so on. The game's main theme is what I'm going to be focusing on here, however. You'll quickly see why picking apart every song would be tedious and difficult.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution went one step further by creating different variations of ambient music to fit different situations - walking around the streets of Detroit, one ambient song can quickly change into an erratic combat version of the same song. For the purpose of this post, though, I will only be covering the first game's memorable main melody.
MUSIC BREAKDOWN
(If you are completely lost with this, you can skip to the end where we summarise what the song does)
The main theme of Deus Ex (check the link if you need to refresh your memory) is in the key of A minor. The notes that make up A minor are A, B, C, D, E, F and G -- pretty straightforward, right?
Well.. there's a catch. That's the natural minor scale. The harmonic minor key of A minor is the same, with one key change (no pun intended) -- the seventh note (G, in this case) is shifted up one step, to G#. Still with me?
The reason I mention this is because in the harmonic key of A minor, with G#, you get the potential for some really nice chord progressions (as G# just "links" better to A because it's closer). Deus Ex's theme exploits this.
The first chord of the theme song is A minor (Am), which makes sense, because that's the key the song is in. The chord of Am is made up of A, C and E. This image shows the chord being played on piano. Simple enough.
People familiar with music might say "Hey, that's inverted! The order of the notes is changed!". That's not too important, and there's a reason I have shown Am like this. Deus Ex uses Am followed by E major (or just "E") throughout the song (see below). If you're astute, you'll notice something; Am and E look very similar! E just brings down two of the notes by a semitone, or half step. This is called a chromatic movement, and it's very popular among some composers because of the "pull" (or link, as I said earlier) between notes that are just a semitone away.
So the chord progression of Deus Ex so far is A minor, E, A minor, E. And it sounds good, as I've described. So what happens next? Well, Am is the "relative minor" of the key C major. This means that the keys overlap and are very similar - the natural Am scale, as I mentioned at the start, is actually identical to C major. Minors and majors are a different topic, but I mention this because this theme song is definitely in Am, but it uses C for a nice effect. The chord C is composed of C, E and G - Am is composed of A, C, E - so the chords are similar, but not the same.
Major keys and chords usually sound "happier" or more bright than minor keys. Horror movie themes are generally written in minor keys, whereas pop music is more often written in major keys. This means that C major is a nice "bright" sound thrown into the song after about 10 seconds.
This is followed by D minor - another minor key, this time made up of D, F, and A.
You might notice something; this is still similar to the chord E! Notice how the last two notes are just a semitone away from E and G#. This was clearly done with the intention of being another "chromatic" chord. This links up with Am nicely though, because as you can see this chord already has A and is a half-step away from having E as well.
The song then goes back to Am and E major again, just like the beginning. This is the main melody of the game's theme song and it is repeated twice.
Then there is a short bridge section. This starts out on the chord C, which is (as mentioned) practically a "brighter" Am. I think the song modulates (ie. changes key) to C major here as well, to create a less melancholic or serious tone to the main melody.
This then goes to the chord G (G, B, D). The reason for this is that it uses a musical technique called "cadence" - "imperfect cadence", specifically. In this context, this is when a song moves from the first chord of a key (in this case, the chord C) to the fifth chord (G).
Cadences are used to give a nice "resolved" sound with notes that link up in-key nicely.
The theme then continues to move from G to Am; this is another use of cadence, where the song changes from the fifth to the sixth chord. This creates an interesting, "interrupted" sound.
The song then moves to Dm (which as I've mentioned is a nice link with Am).
Deus Ex's theme song isn't done with music technique yet though; the song then jumps to G minor (G, B flat, D) - and this chord is actually out of key. This is called an "accidental" and is used from time to time by different songs, often for the sake of harmonising or changing the key more smoothly. Suddenly introducing a minor chord where a major chord is expected (in this instance, Gm where G major should be in key) gives the song an interesting sound.
Then, the chord changes back to Dm, jumping to the D in G minor to ensure the song still flows.
Finally, the song goes to E major and then returning to the original "tonic" or "root" chord -- A minor.
If this is a lot to take in, then I understand - because it is. I've just introduced music technique up to potentially grade 5. I'm mostly self taught, only recently taking formal training up to grade 3, so I understand the difficulties of learning all these concepts (let alone at once!). So to make everything easier, I'll summarise and provide my own piano rendition of the song.
SUMMARY
Deus Ex's theme song uses a lot of nice music techniques to make the song flow.
One of these techniques is the use of a "dominant" fifth (V) chord. The song is in A minor, but the fifth chord uses E major instead of the expected E minor. This creates a powerful "pull" with a leading note that is closer to the root of the key (A, to be clear) because it uses E, G#, B, (instead of E G B in Em). This is one of my favourite musical tricks because of the satisfying, resolving sound this produces.
Deus Ex also uses different cadences, which are a reliable way to produce nice progressions in any key. There are many different types of cadences that connect many different chords, but this theme uses perfect (E major -> A minor), imperfect (G -> C) and interrupted (V -> vi).
Finally, the theme also uses an accidental - G minor in the key of C major/A minor, which uses an "illegal" B flat. Accidentals are handy for transitioning between keys smoothly or just for a temporary change because sometimes they "work" harmonically even if they're out of key. On top of that, G major was used just a few chords prior to the Gm, which is another nice touch - the listener expects a major chord but the song uses a minor for effect.
I almost forgot -- as promised, here is my arrangement of Deus Ex's main melody. Note the chords (groups of 3 notes at a time) being played on my left hand, lower on the piano, while the melody is played higher on my right.
In any case, I know there was a ton of information to take in here, but I hope something of value was learned and I hope the summary gave some advice to budding video game composers!
