Godzilla's Theme (B Motif)

foist croment

I know nothing about music, but my favorite part of Godzillas theme has always been the drums. I just like the way they sound when combined with this. 

 Imo, they're especially good at about 1:00 of this video

Wait, are they called drums? They kinda sound like marching band drums to me. 0_0

G theorist,
Those are largely snare drums. But you can hear various in his theme.

@Gman,

I keep Noticing it in the other songs now, so that’s enjoyable for me.

While drums are in the song, in the original theme they used pianos percussion too

Yeah, there's really not a lot of percussion in Godzilla's theme until you get to the march portion G theorist is pointing out.

I've always admired how Ifukube gave it so much power without the need of heavy drums--Quite astounding if you think about it. Even Oshima's theme was heavily reliant on percussion.

Which is perfectly fine, but when you realize how little is in Ifukube's theme while being such a heavy, brass theme you appreciate the talent.

@Gman

That’s interesting because it contrasts so much with today’s world. Even the composer for GVK needed an 8 ft bass drum

Should've saved the cow used to make that thing and just hired a better composer...

True... I really thought the theme was gonna be good. Oh well... I can just pretend it’s the first two notes looped from and Ifukube theme

Might as well be.

@Gman does B Motif refer to the key this part of the song is in? Because after playing it on the piano, I think it’s either not B or minor (more likely.)

Also this is a little unrelated, in Shin Godzilla I noticed that the re used songs are not just the same tracks from 1954. The written music is still the same it was just re recorded. So your point about Ifukube’s music not needing heavy drums still holds up. Even in today’s modern music

I say modern, because I’ve already ranted about the classification of music

HinikunaGoji,
"B motif" refers to which motif in his theme. For example, the first portion of his theme is referred to as the "A motif". (Here from 0:00 to 0:41.)

Also the Ifukube tracks heard in Shin Godzilla were not re-orchestrated. Sagisu and Anno just insisted on using stock Ifukube tracks from the original film, King Kong vs. Godzilla and Terror of MechaGodzilla. Other tracks were also used in the credits.

I’ve listened to both the scores, and something seems different though, it’s best noticed in Godzilla Comes Ashore in both movies. It might be one is slightly louder or something. I knew the newer ones as the examples you providied I didn’t think we’re re orchestrated. But ones like the before mentioned Godzilla Comes Ashore and Battle in Outer Space have a slight difference from the original.

HinikunaGoji,
They definitely played with the volume in each instance. I know Anno initially wanted to convert each track to stereo. (Kinda like how the Beatles albums were done about 10 years ago.) But the process proved too difficult, so it seems like they just tinkered with the volume.

Ah that makes sense