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Ludwig Göransson & Joseph Shirley's THE MANDALORIAN (2019-present)


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2 minutes ago, Holko said:

I love the new brass setting of the Pedro Motif (what else could I call him?) in addition to the previous exotic woodwind and intense strings versions.

 

You mean around 1:30 in "Signet Forging"?  Yeah it's such a satisfying climax of that cue.  Great, great cue.  The highlight of the Chapter Three OST probably.

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4 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

OK one more recurring melody I noticed that doesn't seem to have a specific meaning.  But it sounds a LOT like the Kylo Ren theme:

 

0:20

 

And at 0:55 here for Chapter Three

 

 

That motif seems be more location-based; seems to show up when Mando travels to a planet or is traveling across terrain. It showed up in Chapter 2 as well IIRC.

 

EDIT: First 32 seconds of this track:

 

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9 minutes ago, Tydirium said:

That motif seems be more location-based; seems to show up when Mando travels to a planet or is traveling across terrain. It showed up in Chapter 2 as well IIRC.

 

EDIT: First 32 seconds of this track:

 

That's the track I used to point it out in the post you quoted!  But yeah, it seems (thus far, 5 more episodes to go!) to be just material Goransson can use for quick travel montages.

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Ah, thanks @Tydirium for the find! I have yet to listen to Episode 3 outside of the show.

 

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

That's the track I used to point it out in the post you quoted!  But yeah, it seems (thus far, 5 more episodes to go!) to be just material Goransson can use for quick travel montages.

The quote I linked to in Jawas Attack is probably my favourite of that motif. Almost sounds like a cross between Kylo Ren's theme and Vangelis in that particular context!

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The heroic fanfare for when the Mandalorians show up in “Mando Rescue”... it’s cool and works really well in context.  This could be confirmation bias on my part, but it does sound somewhat related to the motif we’ve identified as being Mandalorian culture; like a heroic version of that idea maybe?

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22 hours ago, Disco Stu said:
22 hours ago, Holko said:

I love the new brass setting of the Pedro Motif (what else could I call him?) in addition to the previous exotic woodwind and intense strings versions.

 

You mean around 1:30 in "Signet Forging"?  Yeah it's such a satisfying climax of that cue.  Great, great cue.  The highlight of the Chapter Three OST probably.

 

The two big brass statements of the recorder motif really are just so badass!  :rock2:

 

1:32

 

1:12

 

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I'm partway through a full thematic analysis and I've noticed a few things. 

 

Firstly, the "Western" motif consist of three main parts, each of which appear on their own at times. These parts are the piano (da-dun!), the distorted guitar (?) (waaaaaeeeww), and the middle section heard on guitar and low strings in the credits (doo da doo, dada dun da dun). 

 

Also, there are a few recurring ideas that seem linked to the Recorder Riff, but are still very different. It appears a lot in Blurg Attack (0:17) and You Are a Mandalorian (0:34 as an example). It just keeps on varying throughout the score and my ears are very confused, so if anyone can point me in the right direction I should be able to finish my breakdown and post it later today. Greatly appreciated! @Disco Stu @Holko any thoughts?

 

Additionally, there's a "chime" motif (0:00 To the Jawas) that gets a few runs. I think there's also some similar DNA connected with Recorder Riff, but it appears as "chimes" (I really don't know what it is) a total three to four times now.

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There's more!

 

I guess we can call it Forge Motif, starting at 0:15 in HammerTime and returning for Signet Forging and Mando Rescue. 

 

Also, at 0:32 of Back for Beskar there's some high strings that eventually play counterpoint to our Mandalorian Culture theme, but they keep on turning up separately in tracks like Celebration, HammerTime, Mandalore Way, Whistling Birds and Mando Rescue. @Disco Stu @Holko any ideas?

 

Episode 3 has made the thematic catalogue a little confusing on my end, but I've pretty well analyzed most of the themes by each cue to completion at this point. It's taken me three hours- it was certainly a lot harder than working on Solo because Goransson uses these things way more often than I realized (looking at it on paper is staggering) and in many different ways.

 

Anyways, my updated notes have:

Recorder Riff

Recorder Riff (B) (significant variation)

Fanfare

Razor Crest

Travelling Motif

Western Motif (3 parts)

- piano

- distorted guitar

- middle section after piano

The Client

Mandalorian Culture

Mandalorian Culture B 

Forge Motif

Chime Motif

Jawa Motif

The Child

 

Those in red require second opinions.

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2 hours ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

Also, there are a few recurring ideas that seem linked to the Recorder Riff, but are still very different. It appears a lot in Blurg Attack (0:17) and You Are a Mandalorian (0:34 as an example). It just keeps on varying throughout the score

Interestingly it pops up as the very finale of I Need One Of Those, I thought it was a relatively throwaway thing for the blurgs/ a lead-in to the Travelling motif mefore that.

 

 

Is the gorgeous oboe line in 0:27-0:54 A New Day connected to anything so far?

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It is played over the motif first heard in "The Asset" from Chapter 1; my guess is it will start to feature as a more innocent theme for The Child as the show progresses. The "Asset" motif by itself worked great while the baby was more of a mysterious/unknown bounty-object thing, but as the character starts to show more personality/be more cute—and form more of a bond with the main character—I won't be surprised it that mysterious motif starts to take a backseat to this childlike oboe material. At least I hope that's the case; it's gorgeous. Reminds me just a bit of Gizmo's theme from GREMLINS.

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And it's pretty good! Love what it does with some established motifs, the new one is not Jawas level but not bad. Is it just me making myself think it because if the title or does Spirit of the Woods have hints of Mononoke?

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23 minutes ago, Fal J. M. Skywalker said:

Chapter 4 EP is up

 

 

 

This first track is already one of my favorites yet. Love the tranquil, acoustic-guitar-infused take on the Razor Crest fanfare motif, but the real highlight for me is the new theme that is first introduced at 1:57. :rock2:

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It's a step up from the usual RCP dominated sound we're used to hearing in television lately. I'm watching His Dark Materials and Lorne Balfe's score is so derivative of the RCP mould - it could be Djawadi or Jackman or Zimmer taking his place and you wouldn't hear Balfe's voice in the score. With The Mandolorian I think it's clear right away that this is Goransson's voice coming through.

 

I love the score to this fourth chapter because it moves beyond the synth noodling of the earlier chapters into something a bit more melodic and with a narrative structure that one can follow. I like how he has deconstructed the various segments of main theme and for the village in this episode that fanfare-like section has been toned down to a calming melody.

 

Off the Grid (for the massive statement of the Mando theme) and Mando Says Goodbye are the highlights for me.

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Binged the first four episodes this weekend. 
 

Didn’t think I’d enjoy the score but it’s really really growing on me. 
 

The Baby Yoda Show is the best thing to happen to Disney Wars. 

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Maybe the other end, complete scores on a couple CDs. Every episode does have 1-2 unreleased cues so far, even if some of them are completely inconsequential.

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I loved Ponds of Sorgan, probably my favourite cue so far. Goransson's a guitar major, so it'd be sweet if we got something similar to this somewhere down the track:

 

 

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Today's OST is alright. Jawa Theme returns!

I love Warm or Cold, Bright Eyes (is that the Baby Yoda theme Ludwig mentioned in that interview we haven't heard before?) and Speederbikes. The Hangar is pretty cool. Farewell is great, very nice touches.

 

Yes, I did get up at 6 just to listen to it as soon as it appeared on Spotify.

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In an intriguing turn of events, although Chapter 5 is up on Apple Music on time this week, it says that track 2 isn’t available in my country or region... hmm.

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On 12/3/2019 at 4:22 AM, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

I'd think that'd be rather redundant at this point.

Funny how "we" always beg for more, more, more and complain about truncated album presentations.

And yet here "we" are, wishing for a collection of only the highlights.

Oh, how the tables have turned!

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2 minutes ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

Funny how "we" always beg for more, more, more and complain about truncated album presentations.

And yet here "we" are, wishing for a collection of only the highlights.

Oh, how the tables have turned!


I’m generally that way now, and I think a turning point for me may have been the Hobbit scores. 

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13 hours ago, Bofur01 said:

In an intriguing turn of events, although Chapter 5 is up on Apple Music on time this week, it says that track 2 isn’t available in my country or region... hmm.

 

It did that to me too, but now it's fine, I had to remove the album and re-add it to my library though.

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On 12/3/2019 at 2:22 PM, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

I'd think that'd be rather redundant at this point.

 

2 hours ago, Pieter_Boelen said:

Funny how "we" always beg for more, more, more and complain about truncated album presentations.

And yet here "we" are, wishing for a collection of only the highlights.

Oh, how the tables have turned!

 

I'm more concerned with having a physical copy of the score, not so much with missing content. It would be nice to own to place alongside the other scores. So it's not redundant and I'll never settle for cheap, lazy digital releases.

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I was trying to place the cool customer quality of the main theme, and then it hit me: Gerald Fried's TOS Spock. Both this and Göransson's fanfare use the same set of intervals in their opening phrases: 5 - 1 (8) - flat 7 - 4 - 5 - flat 6, with a fast turn on the last three notes. A brief alignment, maybe coincidental, maybe a hard to escape unconscious sci-fi archetype. Maybe a vague homage.
 

 


Also, the rising phrase that ends this theme, two second inversion triads a tritone apart (A-flat - D-flat - F / D-natural - G - B... C) is classic Trek/SW (via Stravinsky and Holst).

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On 12/7/2019 at 7:12 AM, Tydirium said:

"Speederbikes" seems to be this week's highlight, imo. What a great little cue—if only it were longer!

Agreed.

It feels a bit cut up between that one and the next track.

 

On 12/7/2019 at 7:12 AM, Tydirium said:

"Warm or Cold" is great too. It's just too bad that most of the track isn't even heard in the ep.

Hadn't even realised that yet.

Glad we're getting to hear the whole thing on the album then. :D

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On 12/5/2019 at 11:21 PM, Holko said:

Jawa Theme returns!

 

What's the Jawa Theme?  Can you post a sample?  (There's only one Jawa theme in my book, and I was sad to see it not get referenced in chapter 2.)

 

These scores have momentary highlights, but their style is so schizophrenic that it's hard to get through even these short albums without getting whiplash and/or skipping every time the grinding sound design kicks in.  The moment "Bright Eyes" kicked in in episode 5, I simultaneously thought, "Wow, this sounds like Star Wars!" and "Wow, this sounds nothing like the previous scene!"

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46 minutes ago, igger6 said:

What's the Jawa Theme?  Can you post a sample? 

 

On 11/22/2019 at 3:04 PM, The Illustrious Jerry said:

Here's a rough catalogue of motifs just to re-cap

 

[...]

 

Jawa Motif

Starting at 1:12.

 

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One thing I noticed while attempting to analyze the themes of The Mandalorian is that Goransson really, and I mean really, riffs on his themes, causing much variation in effect (and making it really hard to break things down on my end :P). In this case, the motif as it appears in Chapter 5 definitely bears resemblance to the Jawa motif, but significantly varies from what we heard in Chapter 2 if it is intended to be the same. That brings another item of note- there are no jawas in Chapter 5, which suggests that Goransson's themes aren't necessarily tied down by associations (i.e. the Razor Crest theme on solo woodwind, acoustic guitar for unrelated events in Episode 4).

 

Case in point, it's pretty much the same thing, but still very different. At the end of the day I have to remind myself to enjoy the music and refrain from over-analyzing, but it's possible to have a healthy balance of both.

 

I guess I haven't commented on the score's of the last two episodes all that much, but I will say that Chapter 4 is definitely my favourite thus far. Each episode has certainly delivered a set of highlights, but I'd say Chapter 4 is on the upper level of consistency. I can't wait for the end of the season when we can all share our playlists of personal favourites/highlights!

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