Undertale / Deltarune Motifs

I've wanted to make something like this for a while. In this series, I will break down undertale / deltarune motives, show where they appear, and how they work. Today, I want to look at the Snowdin motif, heard in Snowy, Snowdin Town, Shop, and Dating Start! (and some other places too, we'll get there.)

First, let's divide the motif up. Snowdin Town has three main pieces, A, B, and C. (C can further be split up into C1 and C2) There's also the ending bit, which isn't in Snowdin Town, actually.

Let's start with Snowy, the theme of, uh, the woods area that doesn't actually have a name. Snowdin forest? whatever. It starts with motif B repeating twice, then a variation playing. This happens again, with a new variation, then the song continues with variations on the same idea. I won't go into too much detail of how each song is structured, or how they work, because I want to focus on the motif usage. This song is almost entirely variations on motif B. At the end, we get a version of the ending bit, keep this in mind.

Next up, Snowdin Town itself. We get part 1 with motif A, Part 2 with motif B twice and a different variation (one part of which may sound familiar to deltarune players, - we'll get there) and part 3 with motifs C1 and C2. C2 ends after only one section. That's it!

Shop and Dating Start/Fight are mostly the same, other than, you know, the tempo, the instrumentation, and, the rest of the stuff that makes up a song. but the motives are the same. In part 1 we have motif B playing only once(!) then a new section. In part 2 we have motif C1, which is shorter than usual. It leads into motif C2, which now plays two sections. Then, we get the ending bit, as heard in snowy!

That's it for shop and Dating Fight, but Dating Start loops it all again, then adds a new part after! Part 4, as I'll call it, is mostly new material, borrowing an idea from part C1 and C2, but part 5 is actually a well hidden version of Motif A! This is the only other time it is used (in game*)

Ok, so, now the weird bit. Motif C shows up in weird places. First, it's in Confession, which plays in the gay love scene with the royal guards. That's.. odd. But, what's stranger, is it appears in Hopes and Dreams and Reunited. Now, I have a theory. Motif C1 of Snowdin Town… is actually motif B of Once Upon a Time in disguise!

Now, this makes more sense when you take in some of the more obscure uses of these motifs, such as Once Upon a Time in Last Goodbye and Toby playing Snowdin Town on piano for the 5th anniversary concert

With that aside, let me take a quick detour to talk about some *fan music* from Undertale Yellow. Snowfall, composed by MasterSwordRemix, is, uh, really good. It utilieses motif B in a unique way, not directly copying any undertale song, while developing its own idenity. The motif does not overstay its welcome, only making a short apearance. The Undertale Yellow soundtrack seems to really understand what makes Toby's music good, and, by jove, are they good at replicating it. This will not be the last time I talk about this fangame here, as there is another song [Fever Pitch] that is similarly creative in its motif usage.

Back on track here, let's have a look at the motif outside of Undertale. In deltarune, both School and A Town Called Hometown (again, mostly the same song motif-wise) have a version of Motif C1! But, now it ends all differently.

The Live Piano version of Snowdin Town is a unique arragement, with its own take on all the motifs. It's all mostly the same, but it has a version of Motif C1 that ends similarly to the deltarune version. It also starts with something resembling motif A.

That's all I have for now, please message me on my email (sleepyheadlbp@gmail.com) or on tumblr for questions!