Analysis of Eighth

I've been looping Eighth and the music from Law of the Jungle over and over. Law of the Jungle's is probably better analyzed along with its video component, but Eighth, to me, is special. In a lot of ways, despite it being audio, I consider it to be our first look at Destiny. I can't imagine they threw up any random audio clip. This one, I think, has meaning. Here's what I hear:

In the first few seconds we get some sort of chimes. For a long time I considered them wind chimes. The wind sound behind them supports that. They start out slow then slowly build in intensity and complexity. Alternatively I could see them being some kind of baby crib melody chimes. Either way, the feeling I get from them is one of starting out small both in numbers and ability and then growing stronger and more complex. Humanity's rise from Earth to space perhaps?

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.

All together the song seems to walk an interesting line. I tried listening for hopes, threats, fears, or warnings but didn't hear any of those. What I hear is a maturing (of Humanity?) followed by a... worshipful increase in power of some other group. Alien's misguided worship was certainly a theme or at least a major story point in Halo...

At the end the voices fade, but I see this as the camera panning up, away from them... to the stars and not the voices getting weaker. Not sure why, but that's what I get from the end.

Anyway, it's a very interesting snippet of music and I can't wait to see how it relates to Destiny. Any thoughts?

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Honestly at the time we were all looking at it as another clue, meaning we were ripping apart the track and data to try and find more leading to something else. I honestly think most of us forgot to analyze it for those kinds of things. Your analysis seems to pretty interesting. I'm curious to see what they use the music for. It'd be cool if for example this was the music from the very beginning, where you create your character and everything.

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This is an amazing in depth analysis of the piece. Great job, man.

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Very cool take on it. I wish we could ask Marty and the boys themselves

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Nice analysis. I love the piece. It's been my wake-up alarm since the day it was released. (It's perfect for that.)

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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.

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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! :)

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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! :)

Eight million = number of boners projected to occur during the E3 gameplay trailer?

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