The Music of Master Bonku and The Caretaker

In Forgotton Anne, we decided early on that each important character of the game should have their own theme music: Anne, Master Bonku, Mr. Fig/The Rebels, and The Caretaker. In this blog I will focus on Master Bonku and the Caretaker because they represent the two main opposing powers in the Forgotten Lands.

The Forgotten Lands are a world of forgotten objects and the presence of humans, Master Bonku and Anne, is an anomaly. I wanted this to be very clear in the music and have attempted to achieve it by using a diatonic scale for The Caretaker's theme and a chromatic scale for Master Bonku's.

The Diatonic Music of The Caretaker

Western music has been based on the diatonic scale since the Middle Ages and it's still used by most composers today. It has universal qualities which made it a natural choice as a basis for The Caretaker's theme and as a symbol of the natural balance of the Forgotten Lands. Below you see a natural a-minor scale, the seven white keys of the piano.

As the story develops, it becomes more a more clear that a deeper force or power is at work in the Forgotten Lands. The power is centered around the mysterious Caretaker, a kind of goddess who maintains the balance of the Realm.

The music of The Caretaker doesn't develop much during the game and there is no chord progression to give a feeling of harmonic direction. The reason is that the music describes the deep fundamental power that creates stability in the Forgotten Lands. But the balance is threatened, so I also used the diatonic scale to create an inner tension by playing adjacent tones from the scale simultaneously while holding a deep drone in the bass.