Doppelganger Takes Over

Doppelganger Takes Over: The motif is one of my favorite fantasy tropes, albeit rare: it sounds quite dark.

The motif for 'Doppelganger Takes Over' in musical notation.

Figure 1: Motif for Doppelganger Takes Over

I’ll list three examples of the harmony that come to mind: the most obvious is composer Naoshi Mizuta’s “Lumina’s Theme” (Naoshi Mizuta and Masashi Hamauzu. Arr. Naoshi Mizuta, 2013) ; I think Opeth explores similar in Watershed, perhaps Hessian Peel, latter half?; and finally, even if Lord of the Rings the movie soundtrack is not a diminished chord per se, but an appogiatura instead, that eerie-sounding voice-leading is still there. I’ll update this blog post if I ever am able to hunt the specific theme: I would imagine it works as a leitmotif for the ring throughout the score. But regarding this improvisation, the opening lends itself well to the usage of melodic minor sonorities, which are explored throughout the piece, along with some phrygian explorations. But improvisation stylewise I would put this in the Francesco Spinacino recercare preluding style, just like I did with Chilly Nights, Quiet Winds in this same album.

For playback (& if you like this album, consider buying it in BandCamp to support my art):

Here’s the recording session video of the piece:

References

Naoshi Mizuta and Masashi Hamauzu. Arr. Naoshi Mizuta. (2013). Lumina’s Theme. In Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack. SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.