More speculation

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Sunday, June 09, 2013, 21:17 (4195 days ago) @ Stephen Laughlin

The next part with the voices mirrors the chimes. The single voice expands to numerous voices. The rise of another race or power? The second rise of Humanit? Because we don't understand them, and because they feel unfamiliar as opposed to the strongly earthy/humanity-y chimes I think the voices are somehow alien. That aliens are mirroring Hunanity's rise could be interesting.

Great post. It's really interesting to consider what Marty and co. might be trying to reflect with the music that's been released so far. I think you hit some good points.

For my take on it, the upper-register vocals along with the chimes definitely evoke an otherworldly, almost sacred sort of presence. Perhaps they're meant to reflect the childlike innocence of first contact, or the hope and promise of the Golden Age following the Traveler's arrival. After the unison/solo introductory melody, when the first choral ostinato begins at 00:30 it really starts to remind me of chant, almost like a cantus firmus that the subsequent strings and male voices provide a counterpoint to when they come in later.

By the way, the upper-register ostinato consists of seven notes: C, Bb, C, Bb, D, C, A. The male vocal line that enters at 00:43 also consists of seven notes that rise continually until repeating again at the lowest point. While we're applying metaphors to everything, I'd guess the male voices represent humanity venturing out, rising to join the otherwordly presence implied by the female voices.

So...I hear a lot of sevens in there, but I don't immediately hear an obvious reason for the title of the piece. I wonder what it means.

Nice job on the exact notes and musical terms. Those were outside my area of expertise… if I actually have one. :p

I too was doing a lot of counting. I caught myself hoping for Eight repetitions of the chant but it didn't quite make it. As far as I could tell there didn't seem to be eight of anything. Moving beyond that I looked at planets (neptune is our eighth) and just generally typed eight and eighth into Bing and Google. Nothing relevant seemed to come up. Maybe it's story related, maybe Humanity is the Eighth race to be gifted a Golden age by the traveler and the Eighth to be knocked down… but that's completely unsupportable at this point.

Still, like I said before, I just can't imagine that Bungie chose this piece, these sounds, and this title without a purpose. Maybe we'll find out that purpose tomorrow! :)