Beginning of life

Beginning of life

Song Information

BEGINNING-OF-LIFE's banner.

Artist: QUADRA
Composition/Arrangement: Hiroshi Watanabe
BPM: 110
Length: 1:18
Genre: AMBIENT
Movie: MiZKiNG (beatmania, beatmania IIDX), VJ GYO (beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS)
First Music Game Appearance: beatmania 2ndMIX
Other Music Game Appearances:

• beatmania IIDX
• beatmania III
• DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX CLUB VERSiON 2

Lyrics

None.

Song Connections / Remixes

• An extended version of Beginning of life appears in the beatmania 2nd MIX complete album.
• A remix of Beginning of life, titled Beginning of life (THE GROUND PULSE MIX), appears in beatmania CORE REMIX.
• Anonther extended version of Beginning of life, titled Beginning of Life beatmania-DA!! Special Version, appears in beatmania打!! and beatmania打打打!!.

Trivia

• Beginning of life received HARD charts in beatmania 3rdMIX, although these charts are duplicates of Beginning of life's NORMAL charts.
  • These charts do not appear in beatmania THE FINAL.
• In the DanceDanceRevolution series, Beginning of life's title is shown as BEGINNING-OF-LIFE.
• Beginning of life received a Single ANOTHER chart in beatmania IIDX substream.
• Beginning of life is one of the eight revived beatmania songs that can be found in beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS.
  • Unlike the other beatmania revivals in beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS, Beginning of life did appear in the arcade version of beatmania IIDX prior to its CS IIDX debut.
  • Beginning of life received brand-new NORMAL charts in beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS, along with new HYPER charts that replace its old charts.

Song Production Information

beatmania 2ndMIX

A very popular song on the first stage, like REGGAE FUNKY MIX. This is the first time I've mapped slow-attack synth strings to buttons. Each button sound has its own presence and feels soothing.

beatmania completeMIX English site

You'll become addicted to the mesmerizing samples of synth-beat.

beatmania CS / APPEND YebisuMIX Music Column site

Hiroyuki Togo

The other day, I was invited by a young (?) friend who often goes to clubs, and so I went to an event at one.
The club was in Roppongi, inside a giant, lavishly decorated building that looks like it was built during the bubble era. In the basement of that building was a space that looked like ruins on the edge of a landfill, divided up into several floors. On each floor, battles between DJs of various genres were unfolding, with peculiar-looking people being free and intoxicated by the beats.
It's great that young kids these days do what they want with their appearance: piercings in noses, tongues, or various places (!?); shaved heads; tattoos; strange cosplays... I feel somewhat frightened writing that out... (When I was in high school, I used band-aids on my ear to hide a piercing! Back then it was still a big deal for men to get pierced!) In such a gloomy, brutal era, seeing young kids dress up and freely enjoy their own interests makes an old man envious and say, "What a great era this is, huh?" in a certain sense.

Well, I got off-track there, but in such a free open space was a floor to cool yourself down when you were tired from dancing, a so-called "relaxation room (?)" where this "ambient" music (the subject of this column) was being played. Directly translated, the word "ambient" means something like an atmosphere or an environment. On the topic of environmental music, there are genres like healing and new age, but those are based on themes like naturalism, healing, returning to nature, and so on. In contrast, ambient has sort of an intoxicating feeling, like tripping on drugs (?).
To explain it in terms of music, it's like music that doesn't have a sense of narrative, letting you just listen to music free from modern music theory (like chord progressions) that holds conventions like rising and falling (or things like "tonic" and "dominant," in musical terms). Something like that?
It's incredibly difficult to explain music through words, so if you're interested, go hang out at one of those places. Games are great and all, but you've gotta go to a club! ... The life of a flower is a short one!

Until next time, have a wonderful BEAT PLAY LIFE.
(Hiroyuki Togo, Composer & Sound Director for beatmania on PlayStation)

DanceDanceRevolution

The monotonous beat of fat, lo-fi live drums, and the ultra-low bass, known as heavy bass, gallop around these phrases. It sounds like the beginning of life, and current daily life. Small synth parts appear from such heavy bass parts. Something crawls in the eternal flow of time, will the life pulse begin from there?
The single note strings are used very impressively, and they cause the creation of time and small energies to stand out more.

Video Production Information

None.

Difficulty & Notecounts

beatmania difficulty rated from 1 to 9.
beatmania IIDX difficulty rated from 1 to 5 in 1st style and substream, 1 to 7 in 2nd style, and 1 to 12 from HAPPY SKY onwards.
DanceDanceRevolution difficulty from 2ndMIX CLUB through 5thMIX (and the Solo games) rated from 1 to 9. (Ratings and notecounts obtained from KANI KANI CRAB.)

beatmania

Original Charts

Game	SP Difficulty			DP Difficulty
	Normal	Hard	Another	Normal	Hard	Another
Notecounts	80	80	-	115	115	-
beatmania 2ndMIX	2	-	-	2	-	-
beatmania 3rdMIX→completeMIX	↓1	1	-	↓1	1	-
beatmania CORE REMIX	1	1	-	1	1	-
beatmania THE FINAL	1	-	-	1	-	-
beatmania III→III THE FINAL	1	1	-	1	1	-
beatmania CS	2	-	-	2	-	-
beatmania for WonderSwan	2	-	-	-	-	-

GOLD CS Charts

Game	SP Difficulty			DP Difficulty
	Normal	Hard	Another	Normal	Hard	Another
Notecounts	57	80	96	99	115	-
beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	-

beatmania IIDX

Old Charts

Game	SP Difficulty					DP Difficulty
	BEGINNER	NORMAL	HYPER	ANOTHER	LEGGENDARIA	NORMAL	HYPER	ANOTHER	LEGGENDARIA
Notecounts	-	-	80	96	-	-	115	-	-
beatmania IIDX	-	-	1	-	-	-	1	-	-
beatmania IIDX substream→2nd style	-	-	1	N/A	-	-	1	-	-

New Charts

Game	SP Difficulty					DP Difficulty
	BEGINNER	NORMAL	HYPER	ANOTHER	LEGGENDARIA	NORMAL	HYPER	ANOTHER	LEGGENDARIA
Notecounts	-	57	80	96	-	99	115	-	-
beatmania IIDX 14 GOLD CS	-	1	2	3	-	1	2	-	-

DanceDanceRevolution

Game	Single					Double
	Beginner	Basic	Difficult	Expert	Challenge	Basic	Difficult	Expert	Challenge
Notecounts / Freeze Arrows / Shock Arrows	- / -	83 / 0	131 / 0	167 / 0	- / - / -	90 / 0	167 / 0	- / -	- / - / -
DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX CLUB VERSiON 2	-	2	4	6	-	3	6	-	-
DanceDanceRevolution 2ndReMIX APPEND CLUB VERSiON vol.1	-	2	4	6	-	3	6	-	-
DanceDanceRevolution CLUB VERSiON (DC)	-	2	4	6	-	3	6	-	-