My Gaming Audio History: Tetris (1989)

Here's the first Game Boy game I'm revisiting in My Gaming Audio History.  I played this game a bit, but my mom really liked it a lot!  I wasn't very good at the game-- I got too stressed out when the pieces started speeding up.  But, I loved the option of selecting what music I wanted to hear.  As best I can tell from looking back at the games I played, this would've been the first game with a musical option to choose the audio I wanted.

Music is commonly credited as being by Hirokazu Tanaka.  This is true to an extent, as, to the best of my knowledge, he did compose the B theme, opening music, and high score screen music; however, he only arranged the A and C themes for Game Boy, he didn't compose them. A is a traditional Russian song and C is a movement of a French Suite by Bach.   It's very fitting that the A music is a traditional Russian folk song since Tetris was created by a Russian computer engineer.

The music's pretty simple, with three choices that play throughout the game.  Since there's no way to win, even if you max out your score, there's no ending music needed.  Since I've not examined any GB games before, I'm not sure how much music to expect in a typical game, but I'm keeping in mind that this game has about 3 minutes of music, and of course, some sections repeat.  Here's a little gameplay if you've been under a rock and don't recognize this game somehow.

Opening: Eb minor to Eb major.  38 sec.  A B B' I love the countermelody that comes in at B'.  This music makes use of all four GB channels, as you can hear, Bass, Melody, Harmony, and Percussion.  The other musical pieces don't use all the voices to allow for sound effects during gameplay.  This is a cool piece of music; I love the B section!

Theme A: A minor.  39 sec.  A A B  An arrangement of the traditional Russian song Korobeiniki.  The translation of this song talks about a young guy selling and haggling to a young woman while flirting all the while.

Theme B:  E minor.  35 sec.  Irregular phrase pattern: Intro (4) A6 -A'10 -B8 -B'8 -C8.  I can't find anyone who recognizing this song on the internet and I don't either.  I'm thinking it Tanaka's own composition then.  It's definitely the most musically "interesting" of the three pieces (forgive me, Bach).  I like the irregular phrase patterns.  It also just sounds more like typical video game music.

Theme C:  F# minor.  38 sec.  A A' B C.  This is an arrangement of the Menuet section of Bach's 3rd French Suite in B minor.  You can hear the amazing Glenn Gould play it in this video (5:48-6:25).  The only difference between the Tetris version and the original, other than the key, is that the last four bars of the piece are removed, probably to allow for looping without an ending cadence.

High scores: A minor.  30 sec.  A-A'.  Samba.  Reminds me of FF7 Costa del Sol music, which is in the same key!

Game Music Online: Audio mentioned in G4 Top 100 Video Games: Part 5

And the final of the best of the best list.  The top games of all time whose music was worthy of being highlighted in G4's series.  I've learned a lot from this process and will reflect on it in a journal follow up next.  Enjoy!



13 Portal:  GLaDOS-- computer female voice-- a "you're being taunted by HAL's sarcastic sister with her very pleasant speaking voice and her passive aggressive nature."  -Todd Stashwick  This is the highest spoken game audio highlight.  Not a game I know, but one I definitely think I should check out.

12 Doom II:  One of the members of Soundgarden mentions dreaming about the audio effects in Doom II.  I've dreamed about all kinds of music-- definitely game audio as well-- but never thought about the importance of this level of musical engagement with game music.  As a classical musician, I regularly dream about operas/musicals/chamber music/ songs that I'm studying.  I've definitely done it with game music before, but interesting to really consider how deeply this sound event enters our consciousness.

11 Zelda 64 (Ocarina of Time):  "Adding to the Legend were the music moments made possible by the Ocarina."  "They completely integrated this thing where you actually got to play the music in Zelda."  "So to call your horse, you actually play its song."  Music is such a central part of the Zelda series and why I love it so much.  I'm interested to consider some of the newer additions to the series-- I think Skyward Sword has incredible music.

6 Legend of Zelda  "LoZ mixed a high fantasy adventure with some of the most memorable music and sound effects in gaming history."  "The whole Zelda series is one of the most powerful pavolvian audio experiences you can have in terms of the sound effects you hear that trigger crazy reactions in your body." --Tim Schafer

5 Tetris  "most obnoxious get stuck in your head music ever"  -Claire Grant.  I love this music-- and as I know it, a Russian folk song.

1 Super Mario Bros:  Introduced by nearly all the hosts singing a part of the theme song put together in a montage.  I used to play this game at the local Pizza Hut growing up.  The audio was life changing.  Incredible.  An article about this game audio inspired me, in part, to start this blog!

SurveyIng Literature: The Evolution of Video Game Music (NPR, All Things Considered)

Today I'm listening to an NPR story from 2008, The Evolution of Video Game Music. If you've not heard it, I totally recommend it.  Not overly technical, but for a video game/ music lover, it's a good intro. One of the best parts is hearing the video game music in the background!

Some highlights for me are:

The mention as far back as Space Invaders of game designers testing to see the effect of the sound effects to have an effect on the player's emotional state. This has me thinking about the interplay between marketing and video game music-- wondering what sort of marketing video game music principles exist. 

The program compares video game music in comparison with film music-- but, says that unlike film music which has, according to Tommy Tallarico, "background" music, video game music has "foreground" music.

A question seems to be resounding as a theme in several of these sources: Is video game music serious music?  I wonder, why does it matter?

The audio story goes on to mention Video Games Live and how successful these concerts are selling versus a classical concert.  Video Games Live concerts are a multimedia experience where the audience is encouraged to be loud and energized compared with the "stiffness" of a classical concert.

Very interesting to learn that Berkley and USC are teaching video game music composition.  As a college teacher, I'd be interested to teach a video game music history course.

Just hearing the music excerpts in the background of the NPR story as the music becomes more contemporary in time is awesome!  Or follow links on the left side of the NPR page for live performances of a Final Fantasy piano medley and some of your favorite classic themes from Tetris, Super Mario Bros, and Myst.