Thoughts on video game music

The constraints of video game music tend to be incompatible with concerts, yes. Lots of recorded music, really - think of all the songs that you've heard with fadeout endings - rather hard to do in a live setting! I must try that in a cheeky way sometime!

BitterDuck, I cannot accept name recognition among music-ignorers as a basis for the greatness of dead German composers. I resent the free ride that many of these composers get when we discuss them. Especially Mozart. I don't like too much of his music for the same reason that I can't get into the Megaman music. It bores me in the places that I look for stimulation. Yes, this is a mere mismatch of the music's intentions with my own expectations. I blame my expectations usually.

I see video game music criticized for its imprisoning form, for its repetitiveness, for its simplicity. This reminds me of much opera music (maybe even some strophic songs by Schubert which have some beautiful melodies going for them), much contemporary and older band music, even of a lot of folk music in its less unusual moments...and so on. Really, video game music doesn't stand out at all as a bad genre.

"Development" is nice but is not the only way to happiness. In its extremes it is a German Romantic way.

I see what you are talking about jacob. I like to say the difference between music in a concert hall and folk music is the audience. Although video game music is great when put in context but can it stand alone? I don't think so.

Derek,

I've now listened to most of the pieces you've linked to, and I'm afraid I'd have to say they are without exception dull, repetitive and simplistic; take out the drumbeats and there's little music left to them.

Now I'm not saying that *I* can write 'better' music than that, but in terms of your 'challenge' you should go and listen to some of the compositions that have been posted here and see if you still think that your choices are superior music - there is some very fine stuff being written by members of this forum.

From a personal choice perspective I'd point you at:

The (partial) piece in post #20 here:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/index....wtopic=50&st=10

This mp3 rendition:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/Caltec...estra-t822.html

This beautiful baroque symphony:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/index....owtopic=536&hl=

And take a listen at Matusleo's music as well for something a bit more modern, and many others too, and see if you still think that thud-thud-thud-tweedle-tweedle-ting-ting beats all that. You may of course, everyone has their own taste, but I think you'd find yourself in a minority of music-lovers.

I actually have some new thoughts to add.

Having just listened to a MIDI file of the music that plays at the title screen of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I felt some pretty strong association and emotion going on. Maybe it is in fact pure association instead of the raw music evoking emotions in me, but I think videogame music can be quite powerful due to the listener being immersed in the game while they are listening. Or maybe it's interaction between imagery and sound. Interesting stuff either way.

I think I've been sorely misunderstood. I never said that the video game pieces I posted beats ALL of classical music. They beat thousands of classical pieces. Similarly, classical music often beats thousands of video game pieces.

Adam: Some of the examples you gave me were nothing BUT tweedle tweedle. At least video game music has ting ting and thud thud in it as well!

Of those examples you gave me, CaltechViolist's is definitely my favorite...really awesome actually. No wonder he's so arrogant! Like me. His piece would sound GREAT in a Warcraft game!

CaltechViolist: "Hmph. Sniff. Snort. Grrr."

actually more like "I GOT AXE FOR YOU!"

Definitely better than mega man soundtrack. But...I'd rather listen to mega man than say, mozart's string quartets. By a long shot. Is that such a crime?

Definitely better than mega man soundtrack.

But...I'd rather listen to mega man than say, mozart's string quartets.

Mozart's string quartets seemed to be one of his strong points. You should especially listen to his quartet in D minor, particularly the first movement (although all movements are fine). Although there are many boring works composed by Mozart, he wrote many quality works as well, and to me, that piece is one of his better shorter masterpieces. It is actually this piece of music that inspired me to start composition. It is ironic how I ended up into the piano instead. But despite my strong liking of the piano, to this day, I still think that particular quartet is one of the best string quartets I have ever listened to. Listen to Mozart's string quartet in D minor, and tell me it is better than Mega Man.

We are moving into a far to subjective topic. I believe there is a key difference between music we like and where it is suited. We can agree that video game music has its merit for its field, but we cannot agree if the music is meant to stand alone. It is an out right lie to say video game is more important than classical composers(use that term loosely).

I love video game music. In fact, it was video game music that inspired me to compose my own music. I find it easier to listen to than classical music, because video game music is simple; it's beauty in bite-sized pieces. It can be upbeat, slow, sad, happy- so many varieties and emotions in like, one soundtrack. I'm intimidated by classical because i guess my ear just wasn't trained to be able to appreciate it. Moonlight Sonata, Canon, Toccata and Fugue are the only classical pieces i actually like. Everything else is....meh.

Oh, and Video game music CAN be performed live. Infact, there's a video game music concert tour being held right now. Apparently it's going to play in my city but i'm probably not going to be able to attend.

Beauty in bite-size pieces. Hmm. Instant-gratification culture, anyone? But what about depth of emotion?

And I'm aware of the concert tour... I seriously considered attending the concert in LA, but ended up not being able to. But the fact that it's on stage doesn't necessarily equate to it being great concert music - every single person I know who went to the concert was a video game fanatic and went because of the association with their favorite games.

I'm intimidated by classical because i guess my ear just wasn't trained to be able to appreciate it.

I can see where you are coming from. I do agree "Classical Music" is an acquired taste, by either studying it, or simply just getting older. I don't ever recall liking that kind of music until I hit 13. When I was younger, it was all crap to me. Ironically I listened to a record of Chopin back in the days when I was probably 8 or 9, and I remember dismissing his music as boring and uninspiring. But I didn't have the ears for it, nor did I give it a chance. I also hated the piano, and hated piano lessons. Now I think his music is superb quality. Apparently I had to do some maturing in order to appreciate the beauty that was right in front of me. It took until I was about 15 to rediscover Chopin and to take up the piano. Now, what was once my weakness, turned into one of my major strengths.

The point is, this type of music is very difficult to listen to and it does require a little effort to try to understand the music. Sometimes you just need to turn your own weaknesses into strengths. Of course, you will never acquire a true understanding of this kind of music if you don't give it a chance. Listening and studying video game music all the time tells me you are not truly giving classical music a chance.

In my case, I just happened to hear a piece that I liked without knowing who the composer was. Then when I researched the piece, I found out who the composer was, and listened to more of his works to see if he was just a one hit wonder. Apparently, to me, this guy was amazing and almost all his works seemed flawless. I trained my ear by having a favorite composer. By appreciating my favorite composer, I learned to understand all classical and romantic styles. If it wasn't for my favorite composer, I definitely wouldn't be able to understand Rachmaninoff, which I do think is very good sometimes. Perhaps you just have to find your favorite composer and stay loyal to him.

I think you guys are just jealous of video game composers because they can compose better melodies than you. So what if you can use sonata allegro or fugue form? Nobody cares if it sounds like crap.

I will take no sides and say nothing to influence the outcome of this (very interesting) debate, but it must be mentioned that Derek,

YOU GOT TOLD

:laugh:

I don't listen to people who support political philosophies responsible for the death and starvation of millions. Not that having an avatar necessarily suggests your beliefs. In my case, it does. I believe in kittens, and pianos. and mewing.

I don't listen to people who support political philosophies responsible for the death and starvation of millions. Not that having an avatar necessarily suggests your beliefs. In my case, it does. I believe in kittens, and pianos. and mewing.

Just like a kid. You aviod the issue at hand and make "witty comments". A clear sign that you have lost, restorting to personal attacks. :laugh:

Originally posted by Chris Shaver@Nov 2 2005, 12:48 PM

My political views have nothing to do with music, my sweet succulent little scallop.

Skinned and fried with a splash of garlic, kittens are quite tasty. They don't mew really in that case though. They kind of scream when you skin them though, but after maybe 15 minutes they don't make any noise at all.

That's outrageous! I must disagree categorically with that statement.

I prefer them over pasta, with grilled tomatoes and a sauce américaine. Expensive and time-consuming, though. ;)

* laughs *

That must be the first time I've ever heard anyone called a "sweet succulent little scallop"

Pretty impressive, I'm really enjoying this!

Ah, that's what I expected. Communists are so poor and economically destitute they can't afford to eat anything but stray kittens. How did you get permission from your government to make fire, or even obtain garlic? You seem to be pretty well off for a commie! You must be a member of the Party.

Btw the kitten in my avatar? It is a capitalist kitten, so you can't eat it. You can always tell that a kitten is capitalist when its fur has a healthy, non-mangy sheen to it.

so back to the topic at hand: Mega Man X soundtrack completely 0wnz0rz j00.

Alright, here is my perspective on melody writing and the quality of Mega Man X's soundtrack in particular. These are all opinions, so I don't see why it can be worth that much more to you than "mega man x ownzorz j00" because that's pretty much the bottom line of what follows:

I feel that writing melodies is a craft, and an art, that is available to anyone to learn, but which is mastered by few. The fact that so little video game music actually does have evidence of effort in this craft is not surprising, since what you say is true, most composers of video game music are often not passionate/talented musicians.

However in a few video games such as the Mega Man series, we see evidence of much more effort in the composition of the soundtrack. Let us keep our consideration entirely to rhythm and melody and not to form, since it has already been established that video game musical form is not suitable for the concert hall.

Objectively the quality of this music is hard to back up. It is my belief that the melodies in Spark Mandrill (for example) were probably not thought up in 10 minutes. The person who wrote it clearly has passion for music.

Take another listen to Spark Mandrill

http://www.mmhp.net/Sounds/MIDIs/MMX1/AR-MMX1SMandrill.mid

I'd say A starts at 0:00 and continues until

A' - 0:13 (has a simple rising line that introduces itself)

B - 0:24

C - 0:35

I dunno about you but I hear some very well done phrase structure here, using strong progressions (and some regressions, as is common in a lot of rock music) and the dominant chord (well okay, dominant bass tone) right before the end to finish the whole phrase. Not to mention that the instrumental lines are rather ornate. I'm willing to bet the guy who composed this piece was a rather talented synthesizer or guitar player.

as a postscript, I intend to rip the actual music from the game in MP3 form and upload it for people to hear, as I suspect the quality of some of your midi cards may do injustice to this piece.

[...]

However in a few video games such as the Mega Man series, we see evidence of much more effort in the composition of the soundtrack. Let us keep our consideration entirely to rhythm and melody and not to form, since it has already been established that video game musical form is not suitable for the concert hall.

[...]

I dunno about you but I hear some very well done phrase structure here, using strong progressions (and some regressions, as is common in a lot of rock music) and the dominant chord (well okay, dominant bass tone) right before the end to finish the whole phrase. Not to mention that the instrumental lines are rather ornate. I'm willing to bet the guy who composed this piece was a rather talented synthesizer or guitar player.

[...]

Let's analyze this 'particular effort'. I transcribed the main theme that's repeated a couple of times, but I left out the ornamentation in order to see the structure more clearly. (I transcribed it as e-flat minor - it could have been d-sharp minor just as well.)

In my opinion, the theme carries no particular motive. No material of the theme is developed or elaborated upon later in the piece.

Melodical analysis: the composer has used very little melodical tension. The only important note that is not the root note of the active chord is the b-flat. E-flat, a-flat and d-flat are all root notes, not even thirds or fifths of the chord. The contour (in light green) is very simple. The theme contains exactly one leap, not even a skip.

Analysis of the harmony gives that the progression used is i - iv - bVII - a generic rock progression.

I just can't see what makes this theme interesting. It might sound harsh, but I think what makes this so suitable for game music is the lack of tension and it's extremy simplicity.

You're conveniently ignoring the vast majority of the piece and all the aspects of it which work together to make it interesting. That's like 6 structural notes from the first melody of the piece. Please provide a more complete analysis of the piece. Or perhaps you and these others are merely prejudiced against video game music in general?

All theoretical analysis aside, my subjective response to this piece is such that I definitely feel melodic tension at several distinct places in the piece. And, if my ears do not deceive me, some suspended/melodic tension notes are used.

Note I never said video game music is better than classical music in general. But I would prefer listening to this Spark Mandrill piece than pretty much any classical string quartet---irrational and prejudiced feeling towards pure string sounds? Probably. Then again I love Vivaldi's concertos...maybe it is just the Classical Period that bores the heck out of me.

Hey everyone

http://www.personal.psu.edu/dga112/mmmedley.mp3

Here's a few excerpts from the Mega Man X soundtrack as it comes straight out of the super nintendo. I dunno about you but I think these are extremely well written little gems!

Definitely has a lot to do with me being a classical musician and a death metal musician now! I used to just sit and listen to mega man soundtracks. Great stuff.

Hey Derek, megaman was the game I played the most during my childhood and I have LOVED the music while playing the games... but when I listen to it just for the sake of listening, I feel NOTHING. When it all repeats, I turn it off.

How would you suggest I should listen to this and enjoy it? Because I tried to listen to it while doing other things, and guess what?! I forgot all about it! It could have repeated for ages and I wouldn't notice it.

The music serves it's purpouse well as BACKGROUND MUSIC and I can agree with you that the melodies are nice but they alone don't excite me at all.

One thing I have noticed is that alot of people seem to see music as just a background activity while doing other stuff and there seems to be alot of music "produced" for just that purpouse. How many of us really sit and listen to the music? I know I do

And by the way I'm no musical schnobb and I don't dislike game music, being a gamer almost whole my life. And I'm also in a death metal band.

/Bojan

Well I agree of course. This is not something I would, these days, stick in a cd player on a regular basis. The fact remains that on the ocassions when I do listen to it I have a strong response to it...could be an association with the heroic thrill of battling Sigma.

On the other hand, if one were to arrange these pieces for a melodic death metal band in the vein of Children of Bodom perhaps, it might sound pretty good! It's really how I got into death metal---I was searching for an entire genre of music which more often than not bore some sort of resemblence to the mega man soundtracks. And as pointed out, Mega Man X Spark Mandrill does use chord progressions much like Iron Maiden, and galloping rhythms.