Chromaticism in Pokémon!

Many of us are familiar with the global phenomenon known as Pokémon. Many of my childhood memories consisted of playing the Gameboy Video Games, and telling my parents that it’s pronounced Poké-MON, not Poké-MAN (jeez Mom!). Perhaps the thing I remember most about the Pokemon games, is their catchy 8-bit tunes that will forever be engraved in my childhood memories.

While composer and game designer Junichi Masuda wrote a plethora of memorable songs for the series, let’s specifically talk about his love and frequent use of chromaticism. I can think of no better example of chromaticism than the Generation I Battle Theme from Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow Version.

The composition, though starting in B minor, changes keys multiple times. For the sake of simplicity, let’s leave it in they key of C for now (with chromaticism we will already have enough accidentals to look at!)

Fig 1. Measures 1-6

Fig 1. displays the first part of a chromatic line that can be found before the first break in the song (depending on where you are listening, it’s around the 0:35 to 0:40 mark). In these first three lines of music, Masuda is using the compositional technique of prolongation. The first line starts on C#, and ascends to D# an octave higher up. On the second line, he makes the climax note E, and on the third line Masuda goes one note higher to the F. As you can see, he is simply adding one note to the top of the pattern every phrase.

The sneaky thing about this move is that Masuda set the idea up this way from the very first measure. The eighth note rest is the secret to his moves here, as it makes it so that the time signature doesn’t have to extend to accommodate him adding notes. The eighth-note rest at the beginning of the first line shrinks to a sixteenth-note rest by the second, and eventually disappears completely by line three. We see what you did there Masuda, not so sneaky now!

Fig 2. Measure 7-8

(Fig 4.) By line four, Masuda is out of space and needs to cut some notes. He decides to start one note up from the original C#, and begins the phrase on D. Masuda does this so that he can make his way to the next climax note from the previous measure, the octave-up F#. Concluding the entire idea, Masuda breaks the descending pattern half way through measure 8. The notes ascend back up the scale, creating a “chromatic cadence”, if you will, to end the passage.

Not only does this passage create a lot of tension for the intense battle moment, but it makes one blistering technical warm up for us guitarists (especially at 𝅘𝅥 = 190!). The fingerings in the examples should help for those who wish to learn it, I mapped it out at 11th position on the D-string, and it ascends to the 9th position on the e-string for the higher notes. The full Finale score of this passage is attached below!

Masuda is one of my all time favorite video game composers, so stay tuned for more analysis of his iconic Pokémon music!

See you next time,

-J.H.