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Game Music Concerts Spread Gamer Culture
The Escapist, this week, is all about game music. A featured article by Kyle Orland touches on the phenomenon of game music concerts. That they're popular with gamers is unsurprising, but the piece also discusses the ways in which these events can make non-gamers aware of gaming's unique culture. From the article: "The most e-mails we get, oddly enough, after a show, will be from the mom who brought the neighborhood kids or the grandmother who brought the grandson or the girlfriend who got dragged there by the boyfriend. Those are the letters we get that go 'Wow, I never knew that videogame music was this powerful. I never knew that the graphics were this amazing. Thank you for turning me on to this thing. I get it now.'"
I believe the comment about video game music. I was interested in game music as a child, without really being interested in playing games through.
However, I don't buy the comment "I never knew the graphics were this amazing!" Non-gamers I know don't really care about graphics. Music has a universal appeal. Polygonal rendering does not.
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Anyone who wants to spread video game music to others should check out OcRemix. They have good mixes, and have created full albums of certain games, like Metroid and Chrono Trigger, and Doom. http://www.ocremix.org/
"In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people." James Madison
After watching this YouTube video, I have more urge to go to one.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Agreed. But partially, this is an error in terminology. "Classical" music, technically refers to a period of about 75 years of western art music in the 18th century that basically stems from Hydan to Mozart. Bach is the tail end of the Baroque era, and Beethoven is basically the grandfather of the Romantic movement, which turned its back on the black & white philosophies of the classical era. Unfortunately, we've used the term "classical" to refer to ALL western art music from the Baroque era forward. Many times, it's not a problem, but it does betray a certain elitist ideal toward a certain, very dated, era of western art music, that holds mathamatics above all else, even creativity.
Modern orchestral cinema music, and by extension, orchestral game music, is largely post-romantic art music seen through the lens of neo-classicism, impressionism, expressionism, jazz, and classic rock. Very little of anything out of this past century can be directly owed to Bach, and even less can be owed to Mozart. Probably, least of all, in art music, which largely regards Mozart as a formula composer with about as much innovation as a dime novelist.
There is really very little difference between today's movie music, and the Opera of the 19th century, or the Ballet of the early 20th century, which makes up a significant portion of highly recieved art music. Collaborative and multimedia efforts are not a new thing. For almost as long as there has been music, there have been visual counterparts to accompany it, in some form or another. Sergei Diaghilev's commissioning of Stravinsky to compose the music to his ballet, "The Rite of Spring", is no different from Fritz Lang's commissioning of Sergei Prokofiev to compose the music for his movie "Alexander Nevsky", Tim Burton's comissioning of Danny Elfman to compose the music to "Edward Scissorhands", or Sakaguchi's comissioning of Nobuo Uematsu to compose the music for the game "Final Fantasy."
The fact that the scope of the production has changed has little effect on the composer, as it is still largely written by one composer, working directly in conjunction with one director. As for the audience? Well, today's world is simply yesterday's concert hall.
Even the arguement condemning cinematic music is no different from that of Brahms' disavowing of all music that has any visual or literary counterpart. You may agree with Brahms, but as long as you can accept the legitimacy of the ballet (a vast plurality of well-known 20th century compositions are from ballets) you should not have any trouble accepting the legitimacy of the cinema or game score.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I went to a "Back in Time" C64 concert in London a few years ago. It was really good, and seeing someone play "Monty on the Run" on a violin was an experience!
I got into video games through music. I was studying composition at Oberlin Music Conservatory, and I had been delving into a lot of Progressive Rock on the side... listening to a lot of Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes, and Genesis. A friend of mine, with similar tastes in music told me I had to check out this stuff by this guy Nobuo Uematsu, who was largely influenced by ELP and Yes. He played me some selections from FF8 and FF6, and I was blown away. I immediately downloaded an emulator (didn't have a console at the time), and played through FF6 and FF8 immediately, and from then on, I was hooked. Then, I started transcribing many of various themes and pieces for piano. I finished out my stay at Oberlin with a piano recital of arranged game music, and packed a small auditorium with gamers, musicians, and all interested folks, alike... one of the best shows I've ever had the privilage of performing in.
Since then, I've been studying film scoring, in hopes to one day go into film or game composition. And I still play my daily dose of video games.
I got involved with the site "VGMix", and had a lot of my work up there, unfortunately, the site went down about a year ago, and hasn't come back up since. I put a few things on OCRemix, but I don't tend to follow the site very much. I have an album of piano recordings I did in the studio, but the cost of licensing prohibits me from releasing the recordings publicly.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.