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Video Game Music Recognition Gets a Boost
kghapa writes to tell us that for the first time ever, video game music is getting a much higher level of recognition through inclusion in this year's Ivor Novello Awards in London. "With the growing recognition of the immense detail and complex music compositions that are dedicated to video games, it seemed only a matter of time until game music was given some rightful spotlight. As the huge success and popularity of the fully orchestrated 'Video Games Live' concert has proved, modern and even classic games of days past have truly awe-inspiring musical scores. This concert alone has sold up to half a million tickets and featured music from a wide variety of games and gaming eras, from World of Warcraft to Zelda."
"Mario Paint -Through Fire and Flame" will get it's due.
It is about time video game music gets the recognition it deserves!!! You have to be creative to make good music for video games, although nowadays that is lessening due to the increasing capabilities of video game consoles....
Honestly, I'm not to surprised. The music in video games have increased in complexity and quality on an exponential scale. Now full orchestras are making music with real instruments versus the previous 8-bit simple tunes. But I still prefer the classic themes. Maybe I'm just overly nostalgic instead of knowing my music...
I was thoroughly impressed. I don't know how to describe it fully, but it was a great mix of Nostalgia, awe inspiring, evocative, cultured, and fun all mixed into one. The guy who started it and organizes it knows how to make everyone feel like they are doing more than just sitting and listening to music, he gets the crowd into it. There are even a few times where there will be crowd interaction. He knows how to play the guitar and is usually part of the Halo Theme song, since he loves to rock out.
All in all, I'd recommnd seeing it at least once. I don't know if I'd go again unless they add more music to the show that I'm familiar with, but it was still a good time.
Plus any opportunity a geek can get out and actually enjoy his or herself is like a winning lottery ticket.
As one who attened the Dear Friends concert in LA (The first concert of video game music in the US) a number of years back I'd say this has been due. Nobuo Uematsu is a great composer/musician and can be well appreciated outside of the video game medium.
Start with Vampire Killer and go from there.
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
there's lots of great games out that have no memorable musical score. Fallout3, COD4MW2, etc.
I miss the old midi music in games Brian Schmidt did some real good music in the old pinball / video games in the late 80's and 90's also Chris Granner did good work as well.
battletoads arcade is very good as well.
If you need a calm background tune that still has a tempo, listen to the Gustaberg tune from Final Fantasy XI. There's also an orchestrated version, in case you find the original one too blend.
As a music student, I can't wait for the day when I can quote Koji Kondo's music without my teachers saying, "Who?"
Given that video games have their own soundtracks with "real" instruments now, this seems like a natural evolution. There are plenty of movies, for example, that have unremarkable soundtracks that would never get considered for an award. On the other hand, I think quite a few people would agree that the soundtrack for Halo 3: ODST is probably one of the best soundtracks for a game or movie recently in that it totally sets the mood for the environment and is just as important as the imagery.
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I'm putting a note here, huge success!
Fewer and fewer people are appreciating classical music these days (which is more or less required to be seen "live". It seems that the trend is reversing because modern movie scores (score music, not source/pop), games and other orchestral music are gaining in popularity, probably due to classical's "stuffy" atmosphere.
There was a concert held a few months back here (Vancouver, BC) where they intermixed the traditional classical with the modern - moving from Halo, Star Wars, Final Fantasy and such and doing a seamless segue into a traditional classical piece. The trick is to do it such that the known transitions seamlessly as if the classical piece, written hundreds of years ago, gets "fresh" and "modern". It was a sold out show, too - the younger audience getting huge insights, and the older generation seeing that not all of today's music is noise.
I just wish the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, James Horner and the like would release the scores. I'd learn to play an instrument if I could recreate my favorite movie and game scores.
I had high hopes for video game music, expecting it to be a perfect chance to break out of the conventions of mainstream movie music. It didn't work out that way, though.
In fact, it seems that the music in most big games is even less likely to be very interesting today than it was a few years ago. It's like every top selling game out there sounds like the music was written by a bored John Williams, who even at his best, is pedestrian. Even worse is the trend toward just stringing together a bunch of pop and rock hits, just like in the movies.
I see that a lot of the commenters above thought Final Fantasy schlag and Mario Brothers tunes are the height of game music quality. Nostalgia can be a good thing, but it's not a great recipe for interesting art. And with the current "retro" movement infecting contemporary games, I don't have high hopes for the future of the genre of game music.
Even with the amount of creative energy going on in the Indie games world, the forces of corporate hegemony and consolidation are going to be just too strong. There's no reason to believe that the future of creativity in gaming is going to be much different than the future of movies: More big, bland blockbusters sucking all the air out of the room for creativity.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It seems to me that sooner or later, every sound or piece of music will be a repeat of an older piece.
What are we going to do when every possible piece of music (words excluded) exists? Sure hope the copyright overlords don't get their hands on all the tunes.
Oh, slightly OT, but a few days ago I was watching a rerun of Psych when I recognized one of the Stargate Atlantis gate sounds. I can't count the number of times I've heard Starcraft noises in TV shows.
Jeehun Hwang's soundtrack to that Activision 1995 Game of the Year stunned me when I first heard it. Each track was an mp3 on the game disc, and I played it like CD for years in my car. It transformed a giant robot game into Wagner.
If any of you remember playing MUSHA (Aleste), Herzog Zwei or Lords of Thunder, you know what I'm talking about. Best music I've heard on both the Sega Genesis and TG16 systems.
Life is not for the lazy.
Funnily enough, the topic of video game music came up in conversation the other day. The right music can put a great finishing touch to round of a game. I'm sure everyone is familiar with Braid, but Hardw[a]r had some pretty decent music to go with the setting of the future on Titan.
Additionally, if a game is good it creates a pleasurable association with the music present. Sounds obvious, but I still listen to the music from the original GTA because it reminds me of the fun I had. That and some of the songs were hilarious - listen to The Ballad Of Chapped Lips Calquhoun*, or 4 Letter Love by 'Stikki Fingers'). I loved playing Total Annihilation too, and thought the orchestral compositions by Jeremy Soule were great. For 10 years I had no idea they were synthesized! Doesn't detract from them, of course, I just assumed that because they sounded so *good* they must be recorded from real instruments.
Lastly, to this day I have a certain fondness for ragtime music (of all things!) that stems from days spent playing Virtual Pool.
* If you remember the lyric "the menfolk found their women scary, 'cause they were so big and hairy", this is the song. If you don't, well, that lyric sets the tone.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
My wife got me tickets to Video Games Live a couple of years ago, and we drove to Buffalo (the closest venue at the time) from Philadelphia for the show. While it was pretty cool to see, I was actually kind of disappointed that the performance was amplified and overused backing tracks (I'm not against prerecorded stuff, but use it sparingly please), and really didn't like when that guy came out on stage to wank off on his guitar in front of the orchestra during the final piece.
I guess I was expecting something sonically closer to the "Orchestral Game Music Concerts" performed in Japan in the 90s.
Still, it was quite a spectacle, and it's probably the only chance I'll have of seeing some of my favorite childhood music performed by an orchestra, even if what came out of the speakers was manipulated and pumped up beyond my taste. If you're into video game music, it's definitely something you should go see.
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In the meantime, those of us who have been following what serious music have been doing for the past 80 or so years don't really treat program music (including game or film soundtracks) very seriously. I mean, I appreciate them for what they are - I think Nobuo Uematsu does a great job, is a very capable composer, etc - but ultimately, it's schmaltzy, cliche-ridden, and sentimental. It sort of has to be to do its work: I don't blame it for being what it is.
But the inferiority complex about it being "taken seriously" is really sad - it's still, generally, re-using classical music (high-romantic, to be specific) tropes from Wagner through Shostakovich, with an occasional nod to Holst thrown in. It's a hodge-podge of borrowed goods, and not done better than what came before. Videogame fans only get excited about it because they don't know very much about music.
In any case, my favorite game music is Jonathon Colton's "Still Alive" for Portal - it's just the end-credit song, but it actually works so well with the black humor of the game, is so fresh and surprising - it stands out completely.
Those in the UK can listen to the lovely Richard Jacques - the man behind lots of classic Sega soundtracks and Video Games Live concerts - on Simon Mayo's BBC Radio 2 programme earlier today.
I guess it'll be up for another week or so:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pyqx5#synopsis
Not a lot of variety. Howsabout "Asteroids to Zelda?"
The Arcanum soundtrack was superb. A couple of example tracks:
Main Theme
Towns
The entire thing is available on the artist's website free of charge (losslessly compressed!) here, although it's some self-extracting windows executable.
Not all game soundtracks are classically themed. I LOVE my final fantasy soundtracks, but the best melding of music and game I've seen in years was Persona 4. That soundtrack was all over the place... orchestral, pop, jazz... the most aesthetically fresh approach to a soundtrack in a game I've heard in a long time.
those of us who have been following what serious music have been doing for the past 80 or so years
Christ, and I thought *I* was old...!
Huh...I thought there would be, though it's not surprising,if there isn't.
I remember the 7th guest having a terrific soundrack, and I expect other games do as well.
My daughter (16 yr old) plays a lot of video games and about 50% of the time she plays music from her iTunes collection rather than listening to the game soundtrack. For example, she plays World or Warcraft and rarely has the music or sound effects from the game playing. Even while in raids she'll listen to a mix of vent dialog and iTunes music. On Xbox 360, she uses the game soundtrack only when necessary (i.e. Rock Band), but at other times uses her own CD's or iTunes shared library.
This probably has less to do with the music soundtrack of the game and more to do with the multi-tasking that teens are doing. While playing Warcraft she has iTunes playing, AOL IM running with a dozen friends online, vent running with raid members, and her cell phone handy. When I play Warcraft I listen to the soundtrack and effects, but it's probably because if I had iTunes playing as well I'd get distracted. :)
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
I just wish the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, James Horner and the like would release the scores
Sheet music exists (at least for piano), you just have to find it before it goes out of print.
(note: I use cdjapan a lot and they're fairly decent, but I've never ordered from vgmworld, so I don't know how good of a store they are)
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
My friend and I went to it too back in October 2007. I have a writeup and photographs/photos. about it: http://aqfl.net/?q=node/5439 ... :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Perhaps we can give all winners a slice of cake?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthZgszykLs
For anyone who watched the Video Games Live trailer on their website and are curious: The first song is from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, was composed my Tim Larkin, and is called Gallery Theme. The second song is from Myst IV: Revelation, was composed by Jack Wall, and is called Main Theme. The third song is from Myst III: Exile, was composed by Jack Wall, and is called Main Theme.
I've played all the Myst games a few times, and I have each of those songs on my MP3 player.
Relatively oldschool, but had some simple-but-interesting instrumental themes. Even so, I turned its sound effects off and let my media player do its usual thing.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I thought I told you to get off my lawn.
WTF are you talking about? Uematsu's Dancing Mad is nuts in the way it successfully mixes so many styles into one piece that nicely reflects the character it's supposed to. There is no inferiority complex about this music. Classical music used to be church music. Worship was pretty much all it was for and it was highly regulated. Later things got more entertaining and music became the backdrop for opera and ballet to tell a story. My point is that music has always been purposed for many things, but things really got muddled when people started to realize 'Hey, I don't need a church commission in order to go make my own music' and they did. Besides all that you cannot write music without being influenced by someone. "experts" such as yourself mght say that it's being borrowed, or stolen, or copied, but in reality there is homage, education by mimicry, and the simple fact that the human brain cannot help but repeat musical patterns it has been exposed to.
I do not like VG's LIVE or a lot of the ways that video game music is going now because I feel that it is attempting to exploit nostalgia and replant some really good music in a completely different environment than it was intended. Not saying VG's LIVE or newer VG music in general is bad, just that I personally don't like it. I agree with you in some way at that level, I suppose. But I do say that video game music does deserve more recognition for what it is, especially given the appraise that Operatic, theater and film scores are treated with. They are not much different and those few differences are becoming fewer every day as VG's advance(?). But just saying that VG music is cliche and un-noteworthy simply because it bears much resemblance to music of the past is a little short-sighted and unfair.
If I only know four games, and all of them are just the most accessible, well-known casual games in the world - let's say, "Farmville" - and I go around praising Farmville because it's so engaging and original, aren't you going to say "you don't know what you're talking about - you just know about these games because you're on Facebook. I'm glad you enjoy Farmville, but it's neither deep nor innovative,"?
Well, you're being that guy, but for music.
Square routinely releases a piano score of the Final Fantasy music
I just wish the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, James Horner and the like would release the scores. I'd learn to play an instrument if I could recreate my favorite movie and game scores.
I can't agree more. It usually isn't too hard to find sheet music for popular movie scores, but up until recently video game music has been harder to find. I know that as far as the Halo series goes, fans have worked to re-create a lot of the score as sheet music, much of which is available on Rampancy and Google. I think that Marty may have even released a couple of pieces which you can buy/download from various places as well.
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I think the first time I actually took the mp3's out of a game and burned them to a CD was the Tribes 2 soundtrack. I remember those awesome nights running around as a Juggernaut for hours and hours. Honestly my favorite FPS of all time. And when I was in the "zone" killing everything in site I would find myself jamming to the soundtrack.
Good times! Good times indeed.
I might just have to catch the special on PBS.
I hope this means that the ThunderForce II soundtrack will get it's just deserts.
I just love that Technosoft sound.
You can't take the sky from me
anime music beats video game music any day.
The best era for 'computer music' was the 80's. Fact. Rob Hubbard, David Whittiker (sp?) to mention just two.
I also love the chip tune music that is sometimes still to be found today on 'cracktros'. Great, simple melodies that tend to loop indefinatly, sometimes making it very difficult to switch off.
I still have an serial-gen (windows) exe for Nero that has an amazing chip-tune.
THIS is what computer music is.
Oh and also don't forget the 8bit sound / pop crossover that has sort of happened with the likes of Max Tundra.
All this new stuff on your Xbox's and you Playstations is NOT computer music in my opinion...
To all the people who quarrel about which game had better music, just listen to this. Seriously, just listen to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U88zyFLzIXQ
The opening for that game set a standard I have yet to hear another game beat, though NWN 2 gets close:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGT7IY91jIE
fallout3 has no music composed for the game. It contains a pretty good selection of existing oldies.
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... Was the first video game music to really stick with me. Released for Amiga and Atari ST, featuring Bomb the Bass' "Megablast" as the title track (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgjNb-6EOYw)
- R
Anyone who doesn't think Okami had AWESOME music is deaf.
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The World Ends With You for the DS has a phenomenal soundtrack too, which also happens to be all over the place.