Crystalline Resonance Final Fantasy Piano Concert: (Detroit) A Review

 Last night, March 21, Vince and I headed to Detroit for Crystalline Resonance.  Since I'm finishing up my book on piano arrangements of video game music, I thought it was both fitting that this would come at the end of that process as well as be critical for me to see.  It is the first all piano concert of video game music that I've seen sanctioned by a publisher.  According to an interview with the creators of the concert, this is the first piano concert of Final Fantasy sanctioned by Square outside of Japan.  

So far online, I've only seen a few reddit threads here, and here, as well as one more extensive review here.  For the most part I agree with these reviewers and will share my thoughts below.  

The Detroit venue was the Crystal Ballroom in the Masonic Temple.  I'd never been before and can see why the name might have especially appealed to the Final Fantasy team when booking the space.  Upon entry, the audience was younger than a typical classical piano concert would draw, although there were few truly young people/children.  I would guess that 20-40 was the main age group at the concert.  Unlike other concerts where a number of people may appear in cosplay, I saw only one white mage.  Otherwise, folks were generally dressed casually at the event.  By my estimate, there were about 360 seats set up in the room and about 2/3rds of those were full.  Soft drinks and water were available for purchase before the concert and could be brought right into the room for consumption during the event.  

A table outside the performance space sold only the Final Fantasy Piano Opera CDs.  I have the sheet music for those collections and know them well, having assigned some to students before to play and played some of the arrangements myself.  This choice makes sense after reading the linked interview above, since the previous all piano concert of Final Fantasy music was to celebrate these Piano Opera arrangements.  

I had been extremely disappointed in the early marketing about the event that there was no mention of who would be performing.  It struck me very strange that we would be listening to a pianist for two hours and to never learn his name.  I was reminded of the early era of video games when the composers and others who worked on the game were not listed in the credits.  It's a shame that was how the concert creators chose to handle acknowledging the pianist.  

The other major disappointment for me was the piano.  There were cameras that alternated between gameplay scenes and showing a closeup of the pianist's hands or face.  Visually, the first thing to see on the piano was how dusty and fingerprint smeared the instrument was.  It would've only take a couple of minutes to wipe it down.  I've done this before recorded performances and don't know why the team didn't take a moment to make this small change.  Even worse, the piano was extremely out of tune.  The instrument was a small grand and simply sounded old and not well maintained.  The space was already a muddy one for a piano concert, and this piano did not allow for much clarity.  It had a boomy bass and weak high register.  I understand as a pianist that the quality of the piano is at the mercy of the venue.  

Also, I wasn't thrilled with the playing.  To be clear, two hours is a long time for a pianist to play a solo program and I fully understand that he is in the midst of a multi-city long term tour.  But if I had played that inaccurately, I would not have felt positive about the performance.  It could be that playing to the click track was difficult to maintain the sync between the video and the live music.  It's a shame that there couldn't be more flexibility for the solo performer rather than having to keep everything so timed out.  At moments, I wondered if the pianist had gotten lost in the click track as he simply rushed through the ending of some pieces and was concerned about taking too much time.  Furthermore, the programing was not thoughtful.  Too many of the arrangements sounded, in Vince's words, "as if we were shopping at Nordstrom's."  There could've been much more variety between them; more uptempo selections would've helped.  As it was, we went from ballad to ballad.  

There was no program for the event, so I can't be exactly sure of what I heard.  However, the game that a particular piece was announced on the screen.  So for instance, the screen may have read "Final Fantasy XV" before a certain piece, but no mention of the name of the piece, the composer of the piece or the arranger.  That would have required zero effort to improve and is a curious omission as well for me.  If we are truly celebrating the music and composers in the 35th anniversary, why not acknowledge them in some way?  Even if pieces change from one performance to the next, it wouldn't take any effort to have added this information on the first screen of each piece.  

Here are the pieces that we heard:

FF prelude (montage of the games 1-15)

FF 13 - Prelude

FF 4 - Overworld Theme

FF 11 - no idea the piece

FF 12 - no idea the piece

FF 12 - no idea the piece

FF 8 - no idea the piece 

FF 9 - Melodies of Life (from FF Piano Opera) 

FF 7 - Aerith's theme

FF 5 - Chocobo Theme

Intermission

FF 7 - Opening into Bombing Mission (from FF Piano Opera)

FF 6 - Dark World Theme (from FF Piano Opera)

FF 11 - no idea the piece 

FF 10 - no idea the piece 

FF 9 - no idea the piece 

FF 15 - Somnus (from Piano Collections)

FF 10 - To Zanarkand 

FF 8 - Liberali Fatali (from FF Piano Opera) 

FF 14 - no idea the piece 

FF 1 - Overworld Theme

FF 14 - no idea the piece 

FF 15 - no idea the piece 

Overall, I felt this was the weakest performance of video game music I've ever attended.  There was no charismatic MC to lead us through the evening.  There was never a video from an arranger or composer or producer thanking the audience or explaining any significance of the program.  The pianist was never mentioned by name.  If I hadn't been there for research purposes, I would've left after the first half.  Members of the audience milled in and out, one notably walking in very loud shoes right down the main aisle in the middle of the performance.  I wonder if there could've been some way to keep people more captivated.  That said, everyone jumped up and gave a standing ovation as well as cheers to the pianist at the end of the program.  I think there would've been some ways to make the event more engaging and can only hope that if this kind of program happens in the future that these changes might be incorporated.  

Video Game Music: Live Performances

I recently saw the video below of Tina Guo playing a medley of Final Fantasy VII pieces.  This is part of her album Game On! which has recently released on Sony.  There are links saying that she'll tour in performances of this this year, but on her website there aren't any tour dates listed.  Other game music fans may know videos that Tina made of The Legend of Zelda (the one I've seen before) or a massively popular Skyrim video she made with nearly 4 million views as of writing.  I didn't know this particular arrangement, but all my readers know I'm a huge fan of Final Fantasy VII and its music.  The production value with this video is really impressive and probably my favorite visual part is when she plays in the train station in an homage to the Midgar train system.  I love how much attention video game music covers are getting these days and the complexity of their production.  Check it out.

Live Performances: Video Games Live and rePLAY

There's been a fair amount of internet buzz recently about some upcoming game music concerts.  After my recent post about the benefits and interdisciplinary possibilities of bringing Video Games Live to a college campus (particularly UM), I was really pleased to read this interview with Tommy Tallarico about Video Games Live returning to London in its 2014 European tour.  Tommy attributes part of the success of video game music to the fact that as the player you are engaging with the game firsthand.  Thus, he deduces that the music becomes "the soundtrack of your life."  Contrast that with a movie where you are a passive watcher where the music underscores someone else's life and activities.  Definitely an interesting idea that I haven't considered.  I have to say, though, I think he nails it more concretely when he says that the game music is "being pounded into your brain for hours and hours" when you play.  Since games have generally (dangerous, I know) 1-3 hours of music, if you play for 40 hours, you definitely are drinking a lot of that music.  Again, here, contrast that with a movie where the soundtrack is around an hour.  You may watch the movie 40 times-- particularly if it's Frozen and you have kids-- but likely you won't have the same degree of repetition.  

That interview with Tommy is really cool, to hear how he tries to keep ticket prices low, changes the set list depending on the audience, etc...  It gives a behind the scenes glimpse of Video Games Live.  Check it out if you're at all interested in this genre of music or live game music performances.   

I also noticed that a concert called rePLAY, which sounds similar to VGL is coming to Houston and Atlanta among other US cities.  I mention these because I have family in each, but won't be close to either city at the time.  Finally, I also just saw that an updated Final Fantasy concert is coming to Chicago among other places.  Ironically, I'm playing a concert here in town that weekend and can't travel to attend...  Regardless, I'm glad to see that video game music concerts are happening this summer and beyond.  Hope one comes close when I can attend!  

Live Performances: Super Mario theme played on a Sheng

I saw this floating around social media a couple of weeks ago, and as I searched for it this afternoon, I notice that it's quite popular on the web-- pages and pages of hits!

The number one thing I'd like to add to the discussion is to name the player.  Almost every web hit says something like: "a young Chinese student," or "a girl" plays Super Mario Bros theme on the Sheng.  According to this video, which has had just short of 3.5 million views as of my posting today, the performer is Li-Chin Li.  As a performer, I can attest that it's definitely nice to have your name attached to a performance so many have enjoyed, rather than just "a student" or "a girl."  I have no idea how to play the Sheng, but have no doubt that this performance took a lot of time to perfect into the version that so many have enjoyed.  Congrats to Li-Chin Li!

Also, check out more about the Sheng.  I, for one, didn't even know it existed until seeing this video!  Cool sounds and fascinating instrument.

Live Performances(?): Two videos.

My students are always sending me various game music links that they find interesting.   I'm usually floored by these videos and have no idea they exist!  Here are two recent ones that I've really enjoyed.

Smooth McGroove has a ton of awesome videos where he makes a cappella arrangements of various game music tracks.  I've listened to numerous ones and think they sound incredible!  Really glad to hear these!

Here's another one that where I'm not sure I understand exactly what's happening technically.  That said, it's clear that MIDI data and Tesla coils are somehow working together to create a musical and light show.

Both of these project represent labors of love that required lots of time to program, perfect, and perform.  Congrats to the creators!

Live Performances: University of Michigan Marching Band Plays Video Game Music

In my previous post, I mentioned that I read in a newspaper article that "6 out of the 11 schools in the Big 10 (what?) had performed video game music in their halftime shows" and wondered if UM's Marching Band had been one of them.  Indeed, the question has been answered affirmatively, as Kevin Hochstein sent me a link to this video of the UM Marching Band performing video game music.  This was almost 10 years ago.  Cool.  Go Blue!  

Live Performances: Symphonic Odysseys: A Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu

While researching for my Final Fantasy Battle Theme comparison analysis, I found an incredible symphonic performance from July 10th, 2011 of a Tribute to Nobuo Uematsu.  If you like live orchestra music, Final Fantasy, and Nobuo Uematsu, you'll enjoy this, the first part of the video.  The information about the arrangers is in the "about" section of the video.  The complete concert is here.  

Live Performances: The Legend of Zelda Timeline

Tonight, I watched The Legend of Zelda Timeline movie from gametrailers.com.  While there's no specific mention of the game music in the video, it's fun to hear snippets of the game music.  Immediately I realized that most of the soundtrack seems to be from the Legend of Zelda 25th anniversary CD that came with Skyward Sword.  Of course, I've listened to that MANY times already.  The credits list Zelda Reorchestrated and Twilight Symphony as the other sources of music.  These sites are in their infant stage (much like my own blog) and I hope to see them grow over time.

The coolest thing I found as a result of watching this video is this incredible guitar cover of my favorite theme from Skyward Sword, Faron Woods.

Live Performances:Video Game Music Half-time show

One thing I'm interested in getting more familiar with is when video game music happens and we're not playing games.  Here's a great example I just stumbled upon.  A game music medley during a half time show from a HS facebook friend's post.  I love this!

Live Performances: Koji Kondo plays Super Mario

This is the introduction of a new label on the blog, Live Performances.  Entries under the "Live Performance" heading will have performing musicians playing game music.

Following some footnotes from that Wikipedia link I just posted, I found a couple awesome videos of Koji Kondo playing his own Mario music on the piano.  Most applicable to my last post is this first video where he plays themes from Super Mario Bros.

My friends and I have made our own live versions of these songs for years, but when you hear the composer do it himself, it's different somehow.  For me, it brings him out of the shadows and puts more focus for me on him and his creation process-- sitting at the piano and creating these themes all those years ago.   

Here's one more link to a longer performance where Kondo plays even more Mario themes.