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What Lies Beneath

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Kingdom Hearts II
What Lies Beneath
Theme Notes.png
Arranger Yoko Shimomura
Composer Yoko Shimomura
Length 1:29
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX
What Lies Beneath
Theme Notes.png
Arranger Yoko Shimomura
Composer Yoko Shimomura
Length 2:18

"What Lies Beneath" is a musical composition by Yoko Shimomura that appears in the Kingdom Hearts series. It is the battle theme of the Underworld.

Appearances[edit]

"What Lies Beneath" is the battle theme of the Underworld in Olympus Coliseum in Kingdom Hearts II, Kingdom Hearts Union χ, and Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.

Kingdom Hearts II[edit]

Battles
  • Olympus Coliseum: Hades (first battle)
Cutscenes
  • Olympus Coliseum: "Lost in the Underworld", "From Zero to Hero"

Composition[edit]

"What Lies Beneath" is approximately two minutes and seventeen seconds long. It has a 4/4 time signature and a tempo of 160 beats per minute.

While the tonic (the root note) of this piece of music is C, the scale used by its melody is C Dorian #4 scale (C D Eb F# G A Bb). It shifts a fifth up to G Dorian #4 (G A Bb C# D Eb F#) before coming back down again. The Dorian #4 scale is variously referred to by many names: the Ukrainian_Dorian_scale, Altered Dorian, Hutsul Mode and Mi Shebeirach. It is traditionally common to the music of Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean, including Greece.

In the softer sections, the melody is carried by a contrabassoon; other higher-pitched instruments like strings carry the melody in louder sections.

The augmented 4th or tritone, an interval comprising three whole tones (hence its name), features heavily in the melody line, not as a direct interval, but as part of the scale used. C Dorian #4 has C and F#, an example of a tritone; the same with G Dorian #4 which contains G and C#. Tritones were historically considered one of the "unstable," "restless," "dangerous" intervals. Tritones and other intervals like it have been historically referred to as diabolus in musica, intervals with symbolic associations with the devil, used to suggest "evil" in music. Given that the Underworld is the realm of Hades, one of the evil characters in Kingdom Hearts II, the use of a tritone to invoke the idea of evil is only natural.

Albums[edit]