01-09-2015, 02:00 PM
Considering that Eternal Sonata is a game that takes place in a dream that the Romantic Era composer Frederic Chopin has on his deathbed, it should come as no surprise that an incredible number of musical terms show up in the game's cast and locations, and I'm dedicating this thread to listing every one that I can think of, along with the help of the Eternal Sonata Wiki for cataloging all of these characters and areas.
Starting the first of a few posts, we have...
The Locations
Next series of etymology bombs incoming:
The Party Members
Lastly is the...
Minor Characters and Antagonists
Starting the first of a few posts, we have...
The Locations
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler- Adagio Swamp - Adagio is a slow tempo marker (60 - 72 BPM) whose name is Italian for "at ease"
- Agogo Forest/Village - An agogo is a bell made from two metal cones, and it's used as percussion, especially in Latin and African music.
- Andante - Andante is a moderately slow tempo marker (84 - 90 BPM) comparable to walking speed.
- Aria Temple - An aria is a long song made for a single voice, usually in opera and oratorios.
- Baroque City/Castle - The Baroque Era of music lasted from 1600 to 1760, and was noted for its emphasis on ornamentation, sacred themes, and fostering the beginning of the orchestra.
- Blues Sea - The blues were a genre of African American music that gained national attention in the 1940's, when it became popular outside of the Southern United States, as well as one of the inspirations for rock and roll.
- Cabasa Bridge - A cabasa is a musical instrument, made from a steel ball chain wrapped around a wooden cylinder. Very popular in Latin music, especially bossa nova.
- Celesta Forest - A celesta is a keyboard very similar to an upright piano, but the sound is made by the hammers striking metal and not strings, giving it an almost music box timbre.
- Cello Tree - A cello is one of the four instruments typically found in an orchestra's string section, its sound is lower than the violin and viola, but higher than the double bass.
- Chorus Plains - Chorus is another way to say the word "choir", which refers to a group of singers.
- Cowbell Plains - Christopher Walken aside, the cowbell is a hand percussion instrument that can be heard in a wide variety of musical styles.
- Double Reed Tower of Sand - A double reed is any wind instrument whose sound is produced by two pieces of cane vibrating against each other. Oboes are a good example of this.
- Elegy of the Moon - An elegy is a mournful poem often sung as a lament for the dead, or during funerals.
- Forte City/Castle - In dynamics, forte means to play music louder than usual.
- Fusion River - Fusion here likely refers to fusion jazz, a style of jazz from the 1960's that mixes in elements of rock and non-Western music.
- Glissando Cliffs - Glissando is a mark used in sheet music, telling the performer to play every single pitch between the two notes as quickly as possible, like sliding your hand across a piano.
- Hanon Hills - Interestingly, this location is named after a person, that being Charles-Louis Hanon, whose exercises on the piano have become widely used in teaching how to play the aforementioned instrument.
- Lament - A lament is a song that expresses regret or grief.
- Lento Cemetery - Lento is a slow tempo marker (45 - 50 BPM), the third-slowest, to be specific, behind only Grave and Larghissimo.
- Mandolin Church - A mandolin is a stringed instrument very similar to a lute.
- Mt. Rock - Yes, there's a mountain pun here, but it also refers to rock and roll, a musical genre that was an immediate hit after it debuted in the 1950's.
- Mysterious Unison - Unison has a number of different meanings in music, such as two notes with the same pitch, or two voices/instruments sounding off at the same time.
- Noise Dunes of Fantasy - Noise is a style of music that utilizes what many consider unwanted sounds as a key part of its composition.
- Ritardando - Ritardando is a marking on sheet music that indicates a gradual decrease in tempo, opposite of accelerando.
- Sharp Mountains - Sharps are markings attached to notes, telling the performer to play the note a half-step higher than usual. The black keys of a piano are for notes like this.
- Simile Spring - In music, simile is a mark that is used to indicate the repetition of certain beats or measures.
- Tenuto Village - Tenuto comes from the Italian word tenere, meaning "to hold". In music, tenuto can be used to signify playing a note louder than usual or holding it for its entire length.
- To Coda Ruins - To coda is a phrase that roughly means "upon reaching that point during the final repetition, the performer is to jump immediately to the separate section headed with the coda symbol" and is an element of more modern styles of music.
- Wah Lava Cave - "Wah-Wah" is an onomatopoeia phrase used to describe the altering of a note's resonance to extend its expressiveness.
- Woodblock Groves - A woodblock is a percussion instrument made from a piece wood with a slit in one of its sides, and an accompanying mallet.
- Xylophone Tower of the Shining Keys - A xylophone is a musical instrument comprised of a series of wooden blocks of varying lengths, played using mallets.
Next series of etymology bombs incoming:
The Party Members
- Polka - Polka is a form of dance music that originated in the Czech Republic (then Bohemia). It's believed to have gotten its name from "pulka", the Czech word for "half", since the polka is a dance full of short half-steps. When read as Polish, however, the word polka comes out as "Pole (singular, feminine)" or "a Polish girl/woman".
- Allegretto - Allegretto is a marker for a fast tempo (112 - 120 BPM), and is commonly used as the default tempo for many synthesized instruments and programs for composing.
- Beat - In music, the pattern of stressed and unstressed beats gives it a constant "pulse" of sorts. Used as the unit of measuring time in music, the number of beats that occur within a minute makes up its tempo.
- Viola - A viola is a bowed string instrument that is slightly larger and deeper-sounding than a violin, but smaller and higher-sounding than a cello or double bass.
+ If the game's subtitles are set to French, Viola's name becomes Harpe, a nod to an instrument of the same name. + Arco, Viola's pet, gets his name from a term that means to play a string instrument with a bow (opposite of pizzicato, which means to play by using your fingers). - Salsa - Salsa is a form of Cuban dance that became popular worldwide in the 1970's, but can also reflect Salsa's fiery personality, since "salsa" also refers to a spicy Latin American condiment.
- March - To match her more orderly personality, a march is genre of music that follows a repeated and often simple rhythm, often accompanied by actual marching.
- Jazz - Jazz is a genre of music that originated in the Southern United States during the 20th century, and is noted for its emphasis on improvisation.
+ In the Japanese version, his name is Jiruba, an English to Japanese translation of "jitterbug", a dance that gained popularity around the same time as Jazz, and often accompanied its branching styles.
- Falsetto - Falsetto is a term typically used when referring to men, in which they sing in a tone higher than usual, done by vibrating the vocal chords in a way different from the norm.
+ In the French subtitles, her name is Mazurka, a traditional type of dance music from Poland. Frederic Chopin composed nearly 70 of these in his lifetime, and the national anthem of Poland is written in a form very similar to a mazurka.
- Claves - Claves are musical instruments made from two wooden or plastic dowels, with one being struck against the other to produce a song's rhythm. They are commonly used in Cuban, Brazilian, and African music.
+ It might also be a double pun on claveles, the Spanish word for carnations, a flower with similar symbolism to roses, which Claves is frequently associated with. - Crescendo - In dynamics, a crescendo is a gradual increase in volume, with its length denoted on the piece's sheet music.
+ There's also a possible double pun on tri-Crescendo, the developers of Eternal Sonata. - Serenade - Serenade is a broad term referring to a piece of music dedicated to a specific person, and they became especially popular in the Classical Era of music (1730 - 1820), though the word often invokes images of Medieval serenades, in which a man would attempt to woo his love by singing outside of her window late at night.
Lastly is the...
Minor Characters and Antagonists
- Count Waltz - A waltz is a dance in 3/4 time, in which dancers typically move in circles and take a step for each beat in the music.
- Legato - In articulation, legato is the "default" way to play notes, by having them sound smooth and flowing into each other, as opposed to staccato, which is short and abrupt from note to note.
- Fugue - Fugues are a compositional technique where one or two voices are built on a repeating phrase that starts the composition, and can be heard repeating throughout.
- Tuba - The tuba is the largest and deepest-sounding brass instrument in a typical orchestra, as well as a relatively recent addition compared to most others, the tuba is played by "buzzing" one's lips into the mouthpiece.
- Rondo - A rondo is a musical form with a rhythmic pattern of ABACABA, used in the Classical Era of music as the final movement of a sonata.
+ In the French subtitles, her name is Rumba, a term referring to a type of Cuban dance music noted for its percussive rhythms. - Dolce - In music, dolce means "gentle" or "sweet". Rather ironic for a pirate to have this name.
- Phil - A likely abbreviation of "philharmonic", a term for an orchestra with around 100 musicians.
- Koto - A koto is Japanese string instrument comparable to a zither, made up of 13 strings and movable bridges, and played with a pick.
- Etude - An etude is a short and purposely difficult composition used to improve a performers skills. Chopin wrote many etudes, especially to strengthen the playing ability of his left hand.