Why Everyone Wants Toby Fox's Melodies

Summary

The video explains why Toby Fox’s melodies are especially appealing to other composers: they’re built around memorable motifs that can be altered and reused in different musical settings while remaining recognizable.

Motifs and what makes them identifiable

A motif is a small, distinctive pattern of notes that can be repeated and varied to create a melody or help shape a larger piece. The narrator focuses on three features that give a motif its identity:

• Contour: The pattern of upward and downward movement between notes.
• Intervals: The distances in pitch between successive notes.
• Rhythm: The timing and duration of the notes.

A melody can be moved to a different starting pitch and still preserve its identity if its contour, intervals, and rhythm remain recognizable. Conversely, changing some of these features does not necessarily erase the motif.

The video briefly notes that a key is important musical information, but focuses on more flexible compositional techniques rather than formal rules.

Examples from Toby Fox’s music

• In Undertale, the relationship between “Heartache” and “ASGORE” shows how a motif can remain recognizable even when its rhythm and time signature change.
• Sans’s motif appears in both “sans.” and “It’s Raining Somewhere Else.” The songs differ in key and intervals, but shared rhythmic and contour features help the motif retain its identity.
• In the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Tera Raid Battle theme, the narrator identifies a central motif and traces how the song develops it:
  1. The opening idea establishes a recognizable rhythmic and melodic pattern.
  2. Variations repeat and extend the pattern, including echoes of its overall up-and-down contour.
  3. A contrasting B section introduces new material but connects back to the original motif through melodic echoes and a quotation of the A section’s ending.
  4. A C section presents another repeating idea, while its ending reuses notes from earlier sections to make the transition feel connected.
  5. Across these changes, later material can be traced back through variations to the original motif.

The narrator compares this gradual transformation to a “Ship of Theseus”: parts of the original idea change, but its identity remains legible. The process is also likened to a character arc, where development can be followed back to the starting point.

Why this matters

The narrator suggests that Fox’s motifs are dynamic: their contour, rhythm, and intervals are distinctive enough to survive substantial changes. This makes them easy for arrangers to adapt, quote, and recontextualize.

Fox reportedly composed and arranged the Scarlet and Violet Area Zero tracks, including the final boss music. He also said that one of his melodies was unexpectedly arranged into multiple songs across the game, effectively taking on a broader thematic role.

The video emphasizes that Fox did not invent this approach. It is a broadly useful compositional practice, but Fox applies it consistently and effectively, making it a recognizable part of his style.

Practical takeaways for composers

• Write motifs with a distinct contour, rhythm, and set of intervals.
• Develop a motif through variations rather than simply repeating it unchanged.
• Introduce new musical ideas, then find ways to connect them back to the central motif.
• Experiment with changing a motif’s notes, key, rhythm, or context while preserving enough of its identity for listeners to recognize it.
• Listen to favorite soundtracks and trace how their motifs recur and change.

The video closes with a brief channel update and promotion of the narrator’s music, Discord, and Patreon.

Speakers and sources featured

• Chris (the narrator): Explains the music theory concepts and analyzes the examples.
• Toby Fox: Discussed through the narrator’s references to Fox’s newsletters and reported comments about his Pokémon Scarlet and Violet work and the reuse of one of his melodies.
• Musical examples discussed: Undertale’s “Heartache,” “ASGORE,” “sans.,” and “It’s Raining Somewhere Else”; Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Tera Raid Battle theme and Area Zero music.