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There's been quite a bit of discussion of Galadriel's theme from the official soundtrack to the series (see and ). I wanted to share something pretty cool that my brother and I discovered after watching the premiere last night.

I tweeted this, but thought Reddit was a good home. Original Twitter thread . Here it is unthreaded:

While watching last night, I noticed something peculiar. Galadriel's theme by sounded eerily reminiscent of something from the soundtrack, also by Bear McCreary.

Galadriel's refrain kicks in at around 20 seconds in her song, and it kept coming up through the first two episodes of .

At first I thought it was the main Foundation Main Title theme, but after a quick re-listen to that, it was obvious that it wasn't the same.

But I couldn't shake the feeling, so I continued listening to the Foundation soundtrack until I hit Gaal Leaves Synnax, and about 35 seconds in, there it was, the same melody, and a very similar french horn too!

I'm no musician, but I was able to plunk both out on a virtual keyboard. The first four notes of Gaal are D, C, Bb, A; the first four notes of Galadriel are C, Bb, Ab, G. Same melody, shifted by one step. Gaal's theme is in Gm; Galadriel's is in Fm.

What's cool, though, is what comes after these first four notes. At this point, I had to get my brother involved who is actually a musician. I'll relay his words, because unlike me, he knows what he is talking about. Here he is:

It’s easier to compare between keys if we mark each chord with a Roman numeral. In a minor key, it would look like this: i - iidim - III - iv - v - VI - VII. Lowercase means minor, uppercase is major (and dim is diminished).

So, both songs start on the root chord, the i (Gm in Gaal’s theme, Fm in Galadriel’s). In Gaal’s theme though, the first three notes (D, C, Bb) move over the i and the fourth note (A) lands on the next chord, which is the VII (F).

The VII here has a very strong need to resolve, typically to the root chord but instead the melody continues to the VI (Eb) chord. This gives kind of a “halfway there” feeling, like we’ve resolved some tension but we haven’t landed.

It’s a familiar sound used in a lot of very popular songs. BUT the fourth chord in the sequence is an Ebm, which is VERY cool because in the key of Gm it doesn’t quite belong.

It’s a vi chord, so it’s minor when in this key it should be major, and it’s juxtaposed with the “correct” major version of the chord right before it. This creates some dissonance which isn’t present in the Galadriel theme.

It’s a really cool sound and kinda reminds you of older styles of music. The second half of the melody starts back on the i (Gm), then again shifts slightly out of key with a quick minor vii (Fm - which again “should” be major in a minor key) before landing on the iv (Cm).

This feels a bit different now because of how we got there through a minor vii - very cool. So Gaal’s theme plays around with our normal expectations of a minor key to create a bit more of a shifting/unsettled sense, which is really cool!

For Galadriel though, we move from the i (Fm) to the VI (Db). The four note theme we’re looking at (C, Bb, Ab, G) plays out entirely over the i chord (different from Gaal’s theme) and the fifth note doubles back to the Ab when the VI chord comes in.

At this point in Gaal’s theme, we were on a VII chord that partially resolved to a VI chord, but here we’ve skipped the VII and have just landed right away on the VI.

Then the melody lifts, starting on a C again but an octave higher, and overtop of a iv (Bbm) before landing on the VII (Eb). Not only does the melody move up in pitch, but the whole phrase ends on the VII (instead of a minor vi shifting slightly of key like in Gaal’s theme).

This makes it feel like there’s strength, purpose, and movement forward. The second half of the melody returns to the i chord (Fm - like in Gaal’s theme), but follows a strong descending motion in key from the i (Fm) to the VII (Eb) to the VI (Db).

Again, lots of purpose and direction, although landing on that VI leaves us in that sort of half-resolved space. But then we move from the VI (Db) through a diminished bVII (Edim) which is the only real shift out of key in this theme.

Instead of creating an unsettled feeling the dissonance here creates a really strong need to resolve to the next chord, the III (Ab), the relative major key, which gives an even stronger feeling of resolution, strength, and purpose than we had at the end of the first part.

In a way, this almost feels like the true “home” of the key, so we potentially could consider this theme to be in Ab major instead of F minor, but the minor key analysis makes comparison with Gaal’s theme easier.

One other interesting thing is that a lot of the note choices, especially the beginning of each melodic phrase (C in Galadriel’s theme, D in Gaal’s) are perfect fifths above the root note of the chord they’re placed over (Fm and Gm respectively).

This feels strong (the perfect fifth interval is the classic power chord in rock guitar) but less obvious than just going with the root note. Then the second note in that 4 note phrase is a perfect fourth (Bb and C respectively).

Together with the first note, this creates a minor seventh interval but when placed over the i chord turns it into a suspended chord, which creates some nice tension and movement forward into the rest of the melody.

Coming back to that four note pattern, it’s almost like a signature theme or motif! There’s the BB King box and the Chuck Berry signature intro riff that make you go “I know who’s playing” without being told, and yet will sound different and fresh in different contexts.

You’ve got two examples of compositions by the same composer with the same four notes in a row, but they function totally differently because of how they fit with the rest of the composition and the rest of the melody that follows.

But still it gives that sense of “I know who composed this." These four notes are part of Bear McCreary's musical toolkit, those certain melodies and patterns that musicians tend to reach for frequently.

And in the differences between these themes, we can see how a musician is able to use such a pattern to great effect. Props to for some truly wonderful scores, and to my brother for the analysis!

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