Slashdot Mirror
Video Game Music Is Saving the Symphony Orchestra (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As music distribution has flourished, the popularity of live performances in certain genres has begun to wane. Symphony orchestra attendance has been dropping for years. A new report says ticket sales have dropped by 2.8% annually for the past decade. The downward trend has caused many performing groups to experiment with ways to appeal more to modern audiences. One way they're finding success is by including music from video games. "Orchestral videogame concerts first gained a following in Japan in the mid-1980s and spread to parts of Europe in the early 2000s. They began appearing regularly in pops repertoires in the U.S. about a decade ago as orchestras sought younger, more diverse audiences. Unlike classical-music performances, videogame shows feature arrangements that blend looping tracks of music designed to match various moments in a game, such as a slow, eerie medley of piano, percussion and string as the videogame character navigates a castle dungeon. ... The story of The Legend of Zelda isn't a far cry from such classics as Mozart's The Magic Flute. Both tales involve a brave fellow in a quest to rescue a damsel from a villain's clutches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Almost ten years ago, still kicks ass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've attended several orchestra game themed concerts and they are a blast... And I don't play the games!
Or even classic rock like what Jaz Coleman did for the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Nirvana...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
.. because such games are so well known for their music?
Honestly, symphonies pair well with all sorts of things, it doesn't just have to be video game music. I greatly enjoyed the pairing of the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra with Skálmöld, Iceland's best known viking folk metal band. A symphony orchestra makes anything feel more "epic".
The War of 1812... the good 'ol days when the federal government actually tried to save New Orleans.
Huh? Is there some rule that anything symphonic must have been written over 100 years ago?
Good music, performed by professionals, should be enjoyable, no matter where the music originally came from. The London Symphony Orchestra did a great job with the Mario Brothers music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - does it not have any cultural value since it was created for a video game?
What about the soundtracks from various movies, like Star Wars?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Then came the game. There perhaps will be one day when orchestras are going to be extinct and Games are going to have an "orchestra theme" in them .
Alternatively, it's a stepping stone that will expose a new generation and maybe some of them will continue on to appreciate the classics. Since the first time humans started rhythmically banging sticks together, music has always adapted to our technology and culture.
When attendance is down, symphonies, theatre groups and other live performers retrench around the "pops" that they know the general population finds popular and puts people in the seats: Christmas songs, Broadway musicals, movie scores, adaptations of rock classics for Baby Boomers, and now video game music for Gen X and Millennials.
https://youtu.be/Nq_aXq7DT7k I loved this show. Not that I go to see an orchestra often, but seeing people cheering during a performance was quite a thing. Those geeks got excited there!
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
I remember going to see "Video Games Live" back in 2010 and it got me hooked, I bought season tickets to the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra a few years back and never regretted it. YMMV but I was surprised at how inexpensive tickets were, and how much music you got...
A lot of games incorporate an orchestral score, hearing the music live though is absolutely worth checking out (even if you don't play the games.)
crazy dynamite monkey
It's the cost of the damn tickets. My local orchestra hall is always complaining that only ~10-20 people attend their 1000+ capacity hall. I wanted to attend one for a date night out: $50/ticket. That is just absurd for a weeknight second rate (mostly student) orchestra.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
midi based music in games 80's to 90's was good. The Arcade BSMT2000 lasted a bit to long by the time games stopped using it midi based music was dated.
"Who cares about Nintendo kiddie games?"
Music is about culture, and Nintendo games have huge cultural penetration beyond dude-bro call of duty games for awkward teenagers and gun toting rednecks.
On the one hand I feel obligated to use my karma to support any and all scorn for the Angry Kirby Effect; I believe that the steady application of disdain and mockery has already delivered some amount of chemo over time.
On the other hand it's kinda forced, shoehorned. It's a music article. If I call SJWs out on it, I have to call you out on it. Zero mod, I guess.
Huh? Is there some rule that anything symphonic must have been written over 100 years ago?
"Symphonic" refers to a composition for orchestra or concert band in usually four movements, with the first in sonata form.
But I think the rule that people are getting at is that the composer has to have died over 70 years ago. Or in the United States, the sheet music needs to have been published more than 95 years ago or before 1923. Until the music belongs to the people, it's a "commercial product" more than it is "art".
The ultimate game design is the one you don't even know you're playing. Welcome to LifeSim (TM) where you sit in a cube and just code all day.
Nintendo could make that right now if it wanted. It could start with Animal Crossing, nerf fishing and shaking trees, and add another source of Bells by getting people to like your WarioWare DIY and Super Mario Maker creations.
I was agreeing with you until you mentioned Star Wars. Anything touched by George Lucas should not be given credit for any positive cultural impact.
I would go to one of these, if they'd advertise them better. I had a friend who flew out to NYC from Texas to see an orchestra play the entire score of LOtR live to the movie (with the score cut out and just the dialog and sound effects left in) somewhere in Manhattan. That is a really cool idea and they sold out all of the performances months in advance and only played at a handful of venues worldwide. I would pay good money to go see that if I'd known about it. I always find out about the Final Fantasy symphony performances the day before on social media.
The symphony industry has been leaning on classical music for centuries, and it's no surprise that they're having to look towards new material in competition to pop music.There's no problem with this, the arts should be catering to the public's interests, within reason. Video game music was a novelty, but clearly it has it's following and it's profitable. I just wish they would advertise better.
moox. for a new generation.
Music is music. Turns out the songwriters that vg studios hire are usually MUSICIANS, who have a history of writing various musics for various purposes. Even though those various purposes usually end up attempting the same thing - to invoke emotion. Turns out this shit ain't all that different. Music is music.
To be fair, most video game music has a narrower invoke scope, and your CoDs, your loldotas, your Flappy Crush games aren't really music'ing because they have no narrative. But many other games ARE a form of storytelling, and a big part of what music is is just that: storytelling (in more abstract "words").
To be fair, even the storyteller games are often pigeonholed by VG settings, VG tropes and archetypes, they wear the colors of revenge and fray, of liberation and ascension, of exploration and wonder. But not always. We have a lot of music to pick from! So there's going to be some coverage of every emotion, of every scenario.
And some of it - even a tiny sliver can fill a program - is going to be good.
(psssst! read the whole thing! s/he was sarcastic!)
The Civililization IV theme - first videogame music to win a Grammy.
The official trailer
Video Games Live orchestra and choir on PBS
views of performances on the Dubai Fountain
and lots more performances
It's a (WTF!) musical setting of The Lord's Prayer translated into Swahili - and well enough done to be a regular performance on a premier art attraction in the United Arab Emirates.
I've probably watched/listened to this more than any other thing on You Tube.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So what's the best examples of this on youtube?
The first orchestra concert I ever voluntarily attended was in 1978. It was a concert of Star Wars and Star Trek music, complete with laser show (lame by today's standards, but awesome to 14 y.o. me in the 70's) and WILLIAM FREAKIN' SHATNER hosting...and reading poetry about whales.
There's an entire song cycle, in fact; Baba Yetu is the first of a set.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's sad. People expect the video game, social media, mobile app experience from everything. It's like fast food.
You do remember that the 'symphony orchestra' was, once upon a time, a filthy innovation ruining real culture? It's certainly far from impossible to make value judgments about cultural phenomena; but just equating age with highbrow respectability is a lazy way to do it.
My favorite version of Baba Yetu.
Seriously?
Or...or...or combining rap music with real...err...classical music. Classical Rap, kind of like Folk Rap except without all the sex and violence.
I agree.
A few years back, I saw what was basically Symphonic Zeppelin, where they did Led Zep music with an orchestra backing a guy named Randy Jackson.
It actually was a lot of fun...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I am a performing professional classical musician who also happens to enjoy video games.
I am saddened by the attitude that many people have that by performing music such as what comes from games that the orchestras are somehow "cheapening their brand" or that it is "diluting the culture." To claim this is to completely ignore why people listen to music in the first place, and where much of "classical" music came from. This elitist attitude is what has significantly contributed to the decline in attendance numbers seen over the last few decades.
Mozart was a party animal. He was essentially a 18th century rock star, complete with the fame and lavish lifestyle that implies. As much as he was a musical genius, he was terrible at managing his personal affairs and died penniless, buried in an unmarked grave.
Beethoven, who is often called the "Father of the Modern Symphony" (thanks to his groundbreaking work in his 9 Symphonies), was also very much involved in the popular music scene of his day. His Egmont is music that was written to be performed alongside a production of a play of the same name (only the overture is performed with any regularity today, as the play itself is pretty awful). This makes it essentially 19th century movie music.
When Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was first premiered, a riot broke out among the audience. This wasn't just because of the nature of the music itself, but because that was the culture of performance at the turn of the 20th century - the audience was looking for something to get riled up over, and the music hit that emotional chord perfectly.
Modern performances are often formal affairs that remove the context of the music from its original conception. This isn't always a bad thing, as a good performance of a Mozart Symphony can be very exciting, but to try to stick to that because of some idea that it's meant to be that way is to ignore what the music actually is. Modern orchestral composers don't compose symphonies any more, they compose for movies and video games. That movie and video game music of today will be tomorrow's classical music. I've already seen performances of movie music from 50 years ago or so programmed into classical performances (not the pops concerts where such music usually resides), and such will become more and more common as time goes on.
In any case, something that increases awareness of the medium is a good thing. Today's kid that attends a video game concert performance might be tomorrow's grandmaster concert soloist, inspired by the music they heard when they were young. Even someone just making the leap from attending a video game concert to deciding to attend a classical concert isn't a very big one, but is extremely important to the long-term health and survivability of the genre.
Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
One of the best concerts I've ever attended was Dear Friends with Nobuo Uematsu.
No.. .not combining, like the "traditional" Kashmir, but rather a recomposition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Does Flappy Crush even have music?
Numerous artists are doing covers of video game music. One successful one is Taylor Davis. Search for her on youtube.
Somehow, symphony orchestras have managed to survive 50 years of the rock and roll era. I seriously doubt video games are going to suddenly "save" them.
Is it possible that attendance at the symphony is down because nobody's got any goddamn money?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Zomg, even Mozart was a sexist, that rat bastard. We need to get all his music out of circulation. How dare he write a piece of music suggesting that a damsel needs saving, let alone by a brave fellow.
The HORROR
This is, in fact, the opposite.
They expect more than amusement from video games.
The symphony orchestra have suffered from the disdain of classical music and classical music has suffered from snobs. It is a good thing we have films and video games to make people realize that, yeah, orchestral music can sound damn good.
Same thing for classical music itself. I mean, who sincerely doesn't like Mozart or Beethoven? This is music accessible to anyone, so don't make it the stuff of "elites".
I have loved classical music all my life and have been to literally hundreds of concerts over the years. Playing this type of music is fantastic and a great discovery! It's different for the musicians and the audience as well.
I was agreeing with you until you mentioned Star Wars. Anything touched by George Lucas should not be given credit for any positive cultural impact.
Star Wars music is not George Lucas. Star Wars music is John Williams.
Heathen.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Daft Punk's Tron soundtrack is a lesson in how it should be done. Symphony with digital mixing.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
From my personal experience, I find this to be true. While I am big fan of some classical music. Musical scores from movies and video games tend to get me a lot more excited and willing to part with my money.
Jeremy Soule's work on Dungeon Siege (Full Soundtrack*) is some of my favorite symphonic music, easily as good as some hundred-year-old classics.
* Main Theme Song starts around 2min.
Theme Song only.
The very basic premise of that summary is very very wrong, that less people want to go to live performances in general.
I think everyone, including those that do go to symphonies and purchase season tickets, understand that the decline in symphony audiences have less to do with people not having an interest in "live performances" but rather the orchestra in general and the music being played.
However, I think a lot of people would be interested in attending symphonies if the music had changed.
A very distinguished conductor once told the audience that if Beethoven and Mozart were alive today, they would most likely be creating some form of Dance/Disco (EDM) music.
He then proceeded to make his point to have the orchestra perform a few pieces in a more modern tone. (more pronounced beats)
Also, many modern artists who become successful are moving more and more to live orchestrated pieces.There are quite a few goth/industrial artists that are putting on full orchestral shows now:
(poor recordings)
Blutengel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BvhcH1GS08
VNV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qopBa3sfzXk
many others. There is a really really good orchestral revision of skrillex..
Especially in some genres like (j)RPGs.
Take for example, Nobuo Uematsu's work in the Final Fantasy series.
An excellent non-RPG example that comes to my mind is Christopher Lennertz' "Dogs of War" (main theme of Medal of Honor Allied Assault, IIRC). Too lazy to provide links from this crap of a phone, but listen to them. You won't be disappointed.
What about the soundtracks from various movies, like Star Wars?
For folks near/around North Carolina - look up the Durham Performing Arts Center
- Legend of Zelda Symphony came through in September
- Danny Elfman music - next week
- Star Trek Symphony is coming in Feb. 2016
At one time, pop music *was* what the symphonic orchestras were playing.
Live music was either what you heard live, or played yourself. And what you played yourself was either traditional (folk) music, or something you heard. And most of what you heard was folk music, or a professional musician, or a knockoff of a pro.
When attendance declines, symphonies, theatre groups and other live performers retrench around their origins.
An opera in which a man rescues a woman?! Quick, someone Kickstart a video series to analyze the woman-hating elements in operas!
ROFL
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
There's an entire song cycle, in fact; Baba Yetu is the first of a set.
Just listened through it once. I read the album as a symphony, of which Baba Yetu is the overture. Each of the songs seems to expand on one theme from it.
Thanks greatly for the link. It also brings up several of Christopher Tin's complete albums - on YouTube deliberately, pending better distribution channels for the recordings.
(He seems to like writing orchestra-and-choral-or-solo-singer pieces in a collection of foreign languages. My wife is one of the few hundred remaining speakers of
Chinook Wawa - the west-coast trade jargon - and has written some stories in it (using associated cultural themes and styles) that received some popularity. I'm tempted to try to get them together to see if he'd like to do one in The Jargon. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Depends on which snob you're talking to
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
That's not the London Symphony Orchestra, that's the Tokyo City Philharmonic. I recognize the recording from Game Music Concert 1.
.. because such games are so well known for their music?
Yes, they are.
Michael Giacchino was a computer of music in video games, specifically the Medal of Honor series (1999 - 2007) and the Call of Duty series (2003 - 2004). J.J. Abrams found out about him through his work in those game series, and brought him in to handle the muscle for Abram's new series Alias. After that, it was natural for him to write music for Lost as well, and then to jump into movies, including The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up (which won him an Oscar), Star Trek, Inside Out..
Good thing J.J. Abrams plays video games.
Tommy Tallarico makes entire world tours out of orchestral video game music. He sets up the shows with orchestras local to the venue, often youth orchestras with help of professional musicians. I saw them once live and it is one of best and most entertaining concerts I ever been to and except for one or two songs I had no idea what the songs were since my gaming days are long gone. I still whistle the theme song, well, more theme tune of Indoor Sports....