Video Game Music Class: Happenings last week and this week.

I'm writing this morning from the airport, where I'm about to fly to LA for the sold-out GameSoundCon 2014.  Super excited for the trip-- not only to meet the game audio experts, but also to learn a bit of FMOD and Wwise.  Pretty sure I'll be the only faculty member on the UM campus who has familiarity with these softwares.  I'll be able to demo them live in class later in the semester instead of my usual playing some of the video tutorials from Stevens/Raybould The Game Audio Tutorial.  Exciting times.

Last week in class, we talked briefly about MIDI and iMuse.  A number of the engineers in class have used MIDI in various ways before, as have the Peformance Art Technology students, of course.  Virtually no one knew about iMuse, though, except one student who had played a game that made use of its technology.  There are some great videos on youtube via Peter Silk's channel that demonstrate some different features of iMuse that I show in class when we discuss iMuse.  The great thing about these videos is that its much simpler and clearer to hear how they're working in some cases than it is to describe exactly what's happening in words.

We also had a superb Skype chat on Thursday with Aaron Marks.  When we have in-class Skype sessions, I pass out index cards to take attendance and ask the students to write a brief thought/reaction to the conversation also.  Often, I get creative doodles on the notecards as well and one student's drawing of the Skype session with Aaron was too amazing not to share with the world.  Talented artist!

Finally, I thought I'd share one other list.  Because we'd been speaking with Chance Thomas two weeks ago and Aaron Marks last week, the theme of this week's online discussion was to get familiar with a game audio composer of the students' choice.  I suggested that they research one of their favorite games and learn a bit about who created the music/sound for the game.  (As I think about it, I'm probably also a bit motivated for this line of thinking as I continue to watch the Diggin' in the Carts series about Japanese video game composers.)  I learned several things from their choices, some about composers I thought I knew well-- for instance, I didn't know that Nobuo Uematsu was an English major (What Do You Do with a BA in English?!)-- and I also learned about several composers and foreign games I'd never heard of.  Cool people and games to get more familiar with!

If you read much of my blog, you know I love lists, so I present below the list of "favorite game composers" from my Fall 2014 video game music students.  There was a fair amount of overlap, so there are fewer composers than I have students!

Austin Wintory
Ari Pulkkinen
Grant Kirkhope
Gustavo Santaolalla
Harry Gregson Williams
Masaya Matsuura
Masafumi Takada
Junichi Masuda
Motoi Sakuraba
Yuka Tsujiyoko
Simon Viklund
Jesper Kyd
Christopher Tin
Jun Maeda
Yoko Shimomura
Daisuke Ishiwatari
Koji Kondo
Brian Trifon
Darren Korb
Jun Senoue
Kevin Manthei
Kan Gao
Robyn Miller
Jeremy Soule
Garry Schyman
Joe Hisaishi
Greg Edmonson
Kazumi Totaka
Yoko Shimomura
Ben Prunty
Magnus Birgersson
Jack Wall
Ryo Nagamatsu
Nobuo Uematsu
Daniel Rosenfeld
Steve Jablonsky
HirokazuTanaka
Setsuo Yamamoto
Jim Guthrie
Michael Land
Kow Otani
Kenta Nagata
Ron Fish
Marty O’Donnell
Mitsuo Terada
Carlo Castellano
Keiichi Suzuki
Christopher Lennertz
Glenn Stafford

Stewart Copeland

Video Game Music Class: Playing Games: A Link to the Past and NES Remix 2

One of the joys of teaching Video Game Music is that it often has me playing games or looking at game footage for examples of the current topics we're discussing.  In class recently we've been looking at the function of game audio.  What's the purpose of a particular sound?  How does where a sound is placed in a game determine certain features about it (i.e., menu music vs battle music)?

Over the weekend I got sick and had quite a bit of time to enjoy a few games.  One game that I replayed is A Link to the Past.  The music for that game is great!  I love the old games where voice acting was less prominent because music has such a powerful role to play in the storytelling and immersion.  Actually, what I was most struck by on this play through was in the credits of the game.  The ending is a lovely, long nearly 10 minute scene.  You hear themes from this game during these final scenes.  There's a particularly powerful moment that occurs around 7:43.  I've started the video at 7:00 in the timestamp below, but remember if you were actually playing, you'd have heard those 7 minutes before!

The impact of hearing the famous Legend of Zelda overworld theme as Koji Kondo's name appears onscreen is genius.   I'll have to remember if I ever score a video game to put my most famous sounds as my name appears as well!

A second game I've been playing around with is NES Remix 2 on the Wii U.  I can't find footage online that shows how the various games open as you play and progress, but perhaps there will be some up soon.  Or else, I can make a video to demonstrate.  In any case, when a new game opens for play-- say, Metroid-- the first thing you hear when the notice flashes onscreen is the main theme from whatever game has opened up.  Then, after you see your score for the level you just finished, you see the game open on the main menu and its main them plays again.  Definitely a cool use of audio as a reward in a video game.  This is probably much simpler and clearer to hear than describe, so I'll keep my eyes open for some footage that demonstrates what I mean.

This week in video game music, we're having a guest Skype session with Chance Thomas, and having a quiz later in the week.  I love the first quiz because it really lets the students (and me!) realize how much they've already learned.  More as the week progresses!