Game Music Online: 8-bit Music Theory

One of the old series I definitely want to bring back is the "Game Music Online" series where I highlight cool things that are game audio related on the internet.  I tend to like quite specific, in-depth analysis and explanation.  But, I can also like a viral fun video too.  In this case, I'm going with something a bit of both, but probably more in the first category.

Over the summer, YouTube suggested to me a video from a channel called 8-bit Music Theory.  This channel has incredible videos that are beautifully made and that have clear explanations of the musical analysis.  They are artistic and pleasant to watch, with a clear voice over game play as well as examples in western notation.  These videos are really fantastic resources that explain these music theory applications in a straight-forward, engaging manner.  I really wish more educators knew about these videos as resources when teaching.  Not only could they work well in a music appreciation sense, but also they would be great for AP Music Theory classes.  They could even to give ideas for how a college level teacher might incorporate using video game music in the teaching of a particular concept.

The channel isn't even a year old and has already gotten an impressive collection of videos and followers.  Having made some videos to teach musical concepts, I can't imagine the amount of time that it takes to create just one of these videos!  I'm also quite interested in knowing more about whomever is creating these.  I didn't notice a name or link on the YouTube site about the creator.  With a light bit of digging, I only find that the creator is from Canada and goes by "8-bit."  I'd love to know more-- if you do, leave me a comment.

One of the first videos I saw on the channel, and also one of my favorites, is the video on Nonfunctional Harmony in Chrono Trigger.  Chrono is one of my favorite games and I love the discussion of harmony presented here.

I also particularly enjoyed the video on the compositional style of Mega Man II.

There's a series on the music in Breath of the Wild that I enjoyed too.  Here, I link to the last video of the series on the music of Hyrule Castle.  I've planned to highlight the music on Hyrule Castle in my own post on BotW.  What the video misses for me is discussion about why the instrumentation changes between the inside and outside make sense for the player and the information that conveys.  Thankfully, it gives me a point to write about, since the other aspects of the theme are handled so well.  

I look forward to seeing what comes from this channel in the future.  Check it out and subscribe if you find it worthwhile, as I do.  

Game Music Online: Indie Game Soundtracks

About a month ago, Casey Jarman contacted me with some questions for a bandcamp article on Indie Game Soundtracks.  His article is finally up and completed and I'm pleased that I made the cut with a small quote out of our conversations.  A really interesting read for me as well, since I don't know the indie game scene all that well; I tend to play big release games, particularly those that win audio awards.  But, as the article says, I am enjoying a play through of Undertale this summer.  I love that he incorporated audio examples right into the article with excellent conversations from composers.  Superb.

Check out Casey's article, The Cottage Industry of Indie Game Soundtracks.

Game Music Online: Ultima Final Fantasy Podcast

Often when we're road tripping, Vince will play podcasts as we drive, switching it up from radio all the time.  He recently put on an episode of the Ultima Final Fantasy Podcast.  I'd never heard of it before but enjoyed hearing the episode he put on.  It's a spotlight on Nobuo Uematsu, part one.  Part two will hopefully be out soon.  The podcast is made by Joseph Degolyer and Kaleb Schweiss and has been around for several years-- guess I'm late to the party.  Not all of the episodes have a musical focus, but the Uematsu one definitely does and would be so much work to put together.  Wow.   

While I wish there were more technical explanation about some of the music discussed, the coolest part for me was simply to hear so much of Uematsu's work chronologically.  From early games that I didn't know he had a hand in through Final Fantasy VI, this episode consists, significantly and happily, of a lot of listening.  I didn't love the fact that they opted so often to play remixes of the music; I like to hear the originals!-- and they have too much of a preference toward rock remixes that sound like the Trans Siberian Orchestra.   That said, remixes are a cool way to involve a huge fan group and base online.  

I find Uematsu to be one of the greatest composers in game audio and one of the most influential composers living today.  I think history could easily look back on him as a Beethoven in the game audio genre.  If you love his work as much as I do, his sweeping melodies and fascinating harmonies, you'll really enjoy hearing his progression in game audio in this podcast.  

Game Music Online: Neko Atsume theme by the Emblems Quintet

A friend of mine whom I played with a few times this year, Alex Hayashi, is an oboist in a new woodwind quintet, Emblems Quintet.  They're just getting their name out and started up with some new music projects and I was thrilled to see that one of the videos they first released is an arrangement of the Neko Atsume theme.  It's awesome when musicians make arrangements of game audio and play it live-- I love it!  Nothing fancy in the recording quality; looks like they just recorded a bit of a read through in a rehearsal, and yet the video is going viral on Tumblr.  I'm thinking: this video will get more views/shares than any classical video they ever post.  No slam to classical music intended-- it's just the power of game audio.  Especially online, where there's such a following for it.  Amazing that UM graduates/students are into game audio in this way.

Check it out and share with friends!

#NEKOATSUME FOR WOODWIND QUINTET @emblemsquintet #ねこあつめ

A video posted by Alex Hayashi (@ryutalex) on May 24, 2016 at 5:20pm PDT

Game Music Online: Brian Schmidt details composing in the SNES and Genesis era

Want to get into blogging more regularly again. So, what pulled me out of my long hiatus?  In part, a wonderful post by Brian Schmidt about working as a game composer in the Genesis and SNES era. The fact that there are gems like this simply lying in Internet forums is pretty amazing. Brian is also remarkable for his work with reaching out from the game audio community to those who want to learn more about it. If you want to learn more about game audio, check out GameSoundCon, which he runs each year. It's a great place to learn more and this year there's an academic track as well.  More soon...

Game Music Online: Diggin' in the Carts

This morning, I found that Red Bull Music Academy is making a six part documentary on Japanese Video Game Music, Diggin in the Carts.  It's going to be a six part series, each episode coming out on Thursdays.  So far, online the first episode is out and I watched it this morning.  Very cool to see old handwritten charts by which the composers were working in the 80s.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of these in coming weeks!  Check it out.

Game Music Online: Notable news in the last weeks

Recently, I've been using a google alert to keep me up to date with the latest online with video game music.  Not exactly sure how it works yet, how it decides what's worthy of mention and what's not, but it's opening my eyes to some of the current activity online with game music.  Here are 9 highlights from the past two weeks:

1- One of my best finds of the week, Hugo Aranzaes' blog entry about the Power of Video Game Music written for The Punk Effect, is a worthwhile read.  A psychologist by training, Hugo studies and writes about video games.  He also actually researches and uses sources.  Pretty awesome and too rare, it seems, in a lot of writing.  If you like this kind of reading, you might also read this post about the role of sound in immersing players in video games.

2- From this article, I learned much more about a rapper, Mega Ran, who definitely has some cool remixes, like Black Materia, which I've already discussed on the blog.  I didn't know much about his history, the way he worked, or that he'd made other albums.  A fan of Mega Man?  Give this awesomeness a listen.

3- Jake Kaufman, whose music I first encountered in his work with DuckTales Remastered, began something called "Fusion Challenge," where he takes requests to make mash-ups of video game tracks with another genre of music.  Follow this link to hear the first result of this challenge, Ace Attorney with 80s synth rock.

4- It's a little mystery to me about why Harmonix would want to fund via crowdsourcing, considering their track record with games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but they're doing it nonetheless.  They describe this game as being a project dear to their heart but not with major financial backers.  If you might be interested in contributing or learning more, here's a link to their Kickstarter page about a new Amplitude if you want to help fund that project.  Side note: I'm eager for their upcoming release of Fantasia.  Sounds amazing.  Can't wait to try it.

5- Playstation also posted a video to its YouTube channel of an interview with composer Keiichi Okabe discussing music for Drakengard 3.  It's crazy to me that Okabe doesn't consider himself to be an artist because the music he writes is not absolute.  In other words, music just for the sake of music.  He seems to think that music composed to accompany visuals or a storyline is a second tier of composition.  I couldn't disagree with him more-- he's clearly an artist!-- but fascinating to see that this is a view of someone in the field.  More composer interviews please!

6- A composer interview was published with Jeff Broadbent talking about his work on EA's Dawngate.    Again, haven't played Dawngate-- don't know anything about it.  Love the composer interviews, though, keep 'em coming!

7- David Buckley also has a short interview with CraveOnline about writing for Arkham Knight.  Love to see that he admires classical western music composers.  Great questions here about source material and how he works.  Although short, awesome.

8- Here, GameCentral readers name their favorite video game soundtracks of all time.  I love the reader participation in this discussion.  My favorite part of this page, though, is the admission that the writers needed a fast, easily relatable topic because of a holiday cutting into the normal time for discussion.  The result: "one of their busiest Hot Topics in months."  That's the power of game music.

9- A news story from KSDK in St. Louis, with a video that discusses a bit about video game music, chats with a game music composer, Jim Calahan, and discusses some of the progress of game music, including Journey's  2012 Grammy nomination.   The way these anchors discuss game music shows how out of touch they are with it, yet they're potentially bringing the subject to non-gamers, so I have to give them props for that.

Game Music Online: EuroGamer's behind gaming's greatest soundtracks.

I found a cool recent post online at a site I didn't know, EuroGamer.net, about video game music entitled "Block rocking' beeps: What's behind gaming's greatest soundtracks."  I enjoyed reading another blog entry about video game music and seeing how someone else handles blogging about game music.  

My favorite aspect of this particular blog entry was the wide chronological variety of music that's shown here... 8-bit music like the Legend of Zelda overworld theme and Deliverance: Stormlord 2 as well as a Dreamcast game, Jet Set Radio.  I typically focus on one game at a time or one era at a time in my postings, so to read and hear a wide variety of music in one post was really cool.  I'm going to consider if there's a way I might incorporate a diverse time period of game music in a post or post series like this.  Awesome.

This EuroGamer post is written by Paul Butler who runs a blog about video games.  The game music feature of the blog is called Block Rockin' Beeps.  I scrolled through and read some of these entries to get a greater feel for how Paul writes about game music.  We come from a bit of different directions, with my writing perhaps a bit more musically technical because of my classical training background. Still interesting to see how someone else writes about game music.  

If you've got a favorite video game music website or blog, leave me a note so I can check it out and see what others are saying and how they're writing about music.  

Game Music Online: Square Enix Final Fantasy 13 Retrospective

Vince and I have been playing around with the Final Fantasy 13-3 demo that we downloaded a few nights ago.  The new game looks awesome, and any follower of the blog knows how much I love the FF series.  In another case of nostalgia-- just after my Campbell's Soup memory lane trip yesterday-- I'm really floored by this Square Enix video.  It's a retrospective on Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 made to look as if it's from the SNES era.  

While Vince and I watched this, one of the things he said immediately was that the sounds were not as good as they could have been from the SNES.  Some of the sound effects are, of course, exactly the same as FF VI, but considering the musical sounds, I feel he may be right.  Why does the sound quality feel even more primitive than FF IV or VI did?

Why might the designers of this video take this direction with the music?  Why would the creators of this video choose to go with such a primitive sound quality?  Does it create even more feeling of "age" for the old game?  Or perhaps music composed for modern systems is created in a way that makes it difficult to translate back into 16 bit sounds?  I do think that the use of various voices actually does give a cool build up to the themes.  Also, it's a little mind blowing to think of this music in that old 16 bit style.  It was a Dali inspired moment when I heard this.

I want to write that I have no problem with old school game audio transitioning to live orchestra, and thus am wondering why this re-imagination in the reverse direction (orchestrated to 16-bit) is less successful for me.  However, now that I think about it, I don't love game audio when it's orchestrated.  Sometimes it's very successful; for instance, I think Zelda's Gerudo valley theme is orchestrated and performed well.  But other times, I feel orchestrated arrangements don't really do the original composition justice, changing rhythms or adding tacky tags/ intros (here, Matoya's cave theme, at 2:40... the change in melodic rhythm is not to my liking at all).

Perhaps, then, this FF 13 music is just another case of a transition across mediums that I didn't think worked as skillfully as it could have.  Yet, I suspect there were more deliberate choices in terms of voicing and sounds that are trying to make these SNES sounds seem even older than they were,  telescoping it to an even earlier era.  It's another nostalgic reach out to folks around my age who know and love these old games.  Seeing this video does make me think about how far game audio has come and its progression through time.  I think FF 13 has some of the greatest music I know.  In terms of interactivity, the game designers use of it is not cutting edge-- simple fades in and out are most of the "interactivity" with the audio.  And yet, because the music is brilliantly composed, orchestrated, and performed, that doesn't matter too much.

Considering all this, I suppose I should enjoy that this video gave me reflection on the progress of game audio.  Yet, I wish the look back 20 years didn't sound quite so exaggerated...

Note: follow the link to the YouTube video and notice that the quality of the audio is actually a topic of conversation in the video comments as well!  Nice to know that others had the same reaction!

Game Music Online: Introduction to Game Audio: How Games Are Different from Anything You've Worked on Before

Talking to a friend when I went in to UM today about my game music class and he pointed me to this video of Brian Schmidt delivering what appears to be the introductory talk at GameSoundCon in 2010. Wow!  I've got to get there!  If you haven't seen this before, give it a view.  It's amazing.  The best part of it is that Brian is a clear and effective communicator.  Seeing this makes me all the more excited to have him as a virtual speaker in my class.

SoundWorks Collection: GameSoundCon 2010: "Introduction to Game Audio"

from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

Here are my notes and reactions to his talk:

First and foremost, it pleases me greatly to have read most of this before.  While the way he presents it is very unique, after a year of intense study, there were very few ideas I hadn't encountered before here.

I really like his closing the door analogy for game audio.  Basically, you could brush it closed, slam it, or never close it at all-- in a movie, a fixed medium, we know how it'll be, how hard the door's shut, when it's shut, etc.  In a video game, you don't know when or how...  you need to be able to encompass all of those scenarios and more.

A random thought as he's describing game audio: Musically, we need a new way to think about game music analysis, since it's interactive.  Traditional methods still apply in plenty of cases, key, meter, phrase shape, etc.  In other ways, they need to evolve-- the phrase can be broken many places and a new cue jumped to.  How can music analysis adjust for this?  Not really sure how or what exactly that means, but listening to this made me realize there's much work to be done in this area.  Interesting to think of it here because I've been realizing that I'm up for some hurdles in the "My Gaming Audio History" section of the blog as I move forward in time to modern games that have adaptive audio.

I knew the term "spotting session" from film audio, but good to hear "event planning" is the game music equivalent.

Spore-- real time compositional synthesis.  I know nothing about this game.  I want to check it out.

It's very good for me to hear about how game engines and audio engines interact.  I really didn't know anything about the process, and while his explanation is simple, the personification makes it easy to understand.

I love the turn of the century theater pianist analogy as being comparable to the audio engine and game sound.  What makes this analogy work is that the theater pianist was making music live, often playing from a collection of pieces with varying moods and styles that were easy to jump between as needed for the onscreen action.  In this analogy, the theater pianist represents the audio engine and the music he played off of the collection of game assets.

Brian sums up four unique audio challenges:
1- Lack of precognition for player action
2- Duration of experience is unknown
3- Sounds must vary with action
4- Unlike movies, games have resource constraints

Probably my favorite statement from the video was that "as a game composer you're working on a work in progress."  When you read game composer interviews, they discuss one of the best ways of getting inspiration for the game music is to play the game.  I'd never considered that they weren't looking at the finished version of the game, just a build.  I can identify with this as a musical director where I've worked on shows.  They often need to be adapted for the venue, pieces shortened, keys changed, parts re-written, music inserted or removed.  That flexibility, which at times can seem like chaos, is an extremely creative environment and necessitates a fine balance between being flexible in the moment and simultaneously keeping the big picture in sight.

Game Music Online: Game Music Mash-ups: The Mako Album and Black Materia: Final Fantasy 7

A little over a month ago, I was blogging about how I'd discovered a couple of game music mash-ups online.  Well, actually, I need to be honest...  I didn't just discover game music mash-ups, as a person who doesn't really listen to popular music or follow pop culture, I was just discovering what mash-ups were period.  Anyhow, at that time, regular reader/commenter Kevin suggested that I check out a couple of game music mash-ups that he really liked: The Mako Album and Black Materia: Final Fantasy 7.  I gave both of these albums a listen today while I was organizing/sorting/putting away some art song and arias I've played in the last few months.

It's an interesting experience for me to hear these albums as I don't really listen to rap.  Now, I don't dislike rap-- when I was young Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, and Sir Mixalot were popular-- so I grew up with the best of them!  (Actually, I can't think of any style of music I dislike.)  I just don't really listen to much popular music, rap included.  The emphasis that rap puts on the lyrics is really awesome and that's a large reason why I liked Random and Lost Perception's Black Materia so much.  This album really isn't a true mash-up-- I'm not sure what to call it exactly!  In a mash-up, music and rap that were made independently are put together, but in this case, the lyrics were written and wrapped to the already existing game music.

For me, this creates a much better effect in so many ways.  First of all, the music isn't as distorted as it can be (speed, pitch, editing) with a true mash-up.  Now, I'm not opposed to changing music to fit in a mash-up, but the music lover and purist in me wants the music to be as true to the original as possible.  If the pitch is changed greatly, it doesn't sound right to me-- the original sonority is too engrained in my mind.  If it's too sped up (or slowed, though I've yet to hear a track that's slowed significantly), again, it doesn't have the right feel.  If the track is heavily edited with extra pauses or beats, it just doesn't sound right-- too schizophrenic .  Think about it: these game tracks that are popular enough to get mash-ups were composed by top notch musicians and if the music gets altered very much at all, some of the craft and genius of its original form is lost.  Secondly, I love that the lyrics are specific to the tracks and the game.  They remind me of Pac-Man Fever, where the lyrics are akin to an insider code that a gamer understands at a different level than a casual listener will.

The other album I gave a listen to, The Mako Album, sort of fits all the things that I don't love as much about mash-ups.  I'm sorry to say that and intend no offense to The Specialist, but that's why there are lots of styles and opinions in life.  I like pure, less manipulated audio.  The rap and music needs to fit together more naturally than it does here for my taste.  Still, I like the creativity and that people are taking this music and putting their own stamp on it.  In every interview I've read or heard, all the game composers love that their music has inspired so many people to listen, play, and remix their audio.

Thanks Kevin for these suggestions!  You were right on about which one I'd like more.  Now that you all know even more specifically about my tastes (as I myself am learning as I encounter the genre), what other tracks/albums can you suggest for me to hear?  Much appreciated!

Game Music Online: List of Video Game Musicians

I stumbled across this list of video game musicians on Wikipedia yesterday while searching for some info about the audio to 7th Saga.  I'm sure it's not exhaustive, but with this list and Wiki's video game coverage in general, I'm pretty impressed!  I think online thrives for game info in part because the electronic medium is attractive for people who like gaming.

Game Music Online: It's Dangerous to Go Alone... The Movie

Vince showed me the trailer for a new documentary online last night called It's Dangerous to Go Alone... The Movie.  This looks really good to me.  I'm exactly the same age as these guys in the film.  Game music has been a part of growing up and is a huge part of my musical life experience.  This movie just makes sense to me on so many levels.

I was just thinking recently about how important audio is in the gaming experience.  If you want to experience this for yourself, check out the above website and "Explore the Website."  This is a Zelda-like game you play in browser, but there's NO AUDIO.  It's crazy.  I had no idea if I was about to die or at full health (although, on the other hand, I didn't get nervous and make dumb mistakes because my heart monitor was bleeping!).  The lack of audio definitely made it harder for me to immerse myself in the game.  Interesting, though, that audio is highlighted as so important in the trailer!

I'd have to give up my title of video game music nerd if seeing this trailer didn't inspire me to play the game to completion to see the extra scene.  Because it's a completely musically focused scene, I'm posting you the "you win" video link as well.  Last night, I was the 18th view...  Can't wait to see this!

Game Music Online: 8-bit Analysis

A few posts ago I mentioned I'd stumbled upon Jason Brame's blog 8-Bit Analysis doing some internet searches.  I've taken some time between now and then to read through it throughly and really enjoyed his postings.  Reading through a blog a few years older than mine definitely gave me a heads up on some of the challenges of maintaining a blog long term.  The hardest thing as I see with many of my favorite blogs are continuing to update regularly.  Also I realized that by linking to YouTube videos, over time my links will become broken and require updating.  I guess that goes with the territory of online blogging!  

If I'm honest with myself somewhere inside, Jason's blog is in some ways what I thought I wanted to make of this blog.  He does some very specific analysis and lots of detail with just a tiny piece of music.  However, as I read through it, I realized that I've definitely got a different audience in mind.  He shows the most impressive transcriptions and musical analyses, but the people who can read that sort of information and process it are few.  His blog is aimed at classically trained musicians.  So, even though I know basically all of the music he's listed (SMB 3 World Map 7 music is a little vague to me because I sucked so much at that level!), the advantage of having transcribed the music in standard notation is that a classically trained musician can look at it and hear it very clearly in the mind regardless of linking somewhere.  That said, some of my favorite posts were where, despite the transcribed versions, the videos he links to make his point perfectly clear with only aural means.  This post where he compares the water music of SMB and the Title Screen theme from SMB 2 is a perfect example.  

He's also got several links up at the bottom of the blog that I want to follow to keep learning more.  We would have overlapped at UNC by a year, but I don't think I knew Jason.  I'm definitely going to give his article "Thematic Unity Across a Video Game Series" a read soon.  

Analysis: Reaction to G4 top 100 Games of All Time whose audio was highlighted in the special

Of course, watching the G4 Top 100 Video Games got me thinking about game audio differently-- so what did I learn?  First of all, questions: How does one decide what game audio should be known?  What parameters make game music "worthy" or "important?"  Historical studies often point to the first occurrence of something as being very important, but weight also must be give to those whose widespread popularity has great effect.

I had trouble deciding what audio had been "highlighted" in the course of the G4 series.  For this project, I defined it as an extended spoken sequence about game audio.  However, sound effects and game music were on display in other ways.  For instance, the intro of the Ms. Pac-Man video.  To me, this is still highlighting the audio, but in an unspoken way.  If I included examples like this, there would have been many more games listed because audio effects and music often played both in the background and as the main focus.  Also I skipped a couple of games with a passing mention of "great soundtrack."  My requirement was spoken time in the series being devoted to a discussion of the audio.

I began to wonder about the methodology of game music study.  Watching game play videos is not exactly the same as playing the game because there's no interactivity... and yet there are games that are too difficult for me to complete (Punch Out, for instance).  Is a fair compromise playing some of the game and then watching the rest?

I need to survey the internet for game music information-- most game audio everything is online.  This is a massive project.  Interviews, some analysis, and lots of game audio information exists on the internet, but it's not corralled into a centralized hub.  Wikipedia, YouTube, and some gaming sites have information on various game music, composers, and links to more information.  How do gamers who get interested in game music search for more information about it?  Hypothesis: most  people get interested in the music of a certain game and then seek out more information on that game's music, rather than a systematic study of music across games and genres.

Consider the source!  The G4 special had a few game designers and musicians who comment about the audio, but most of the time the audio quotes were from celebrities.  These sort of statements are great for just making you think about your gut reaction to hearing the game music, not necessarily a studied, thoughtful reaction.  Remember: Game music is popular music-- main stream folks love it, listen to it, encounter it, sing it.  It's part of American culture and heritage.  Almost anyone can sing some memorable bit of it.

I found myself often pulled back to my childhood.  How does nostalgia play into this music and its listeners?

This project gave me a way to encounter popular game music that I didn't know.  I've been wondering how to expand my knowledge base of game music and also make sure I wasn't just going to obscure games for an audio detail.  That's something I hope to do, but first I've been wanting to check the pulse of mainstream "greatest hits" video game music.  Where are games tonally, rhythmically, stylistically?

Are there any similarities between classical music and game music?  Do their developments share similarities in any way?  Immediately coming to mind is a comparison of early music's polyphony and the use of the distinct sound channels in early game music.  And what of popular music and game music? 

This project also helped me validate the game music experience of my childhood as a worthwhile one.  I knew several of these games and plenty of others.  As a child, I owned Super Mario piano sheet music (simplified and inaccurate).  I grew up just at the demise of the arcade and the rise of the home entertainment system and loved video games, playing them for hours at a time.  After this project, I'm considering recreating a similar journey (links to gameplay/soundtracks) through game music as I experienced it growing up.  Maybe these wouldn't be considered the "most important games ever," but they fostered enough interest in me for this....

Oh, and if you're curious about a relation between marketing and video game music?  As soon as I watched the series, I bought Red Dead Redemption and have already played it for over 30 hours...  

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!

Game Music Online: Audio Mentioned in G4 Top 100 Video Games of All Time: Part 4

Continuing my journey through G4's Top 100 Video Games of All Time whose audio was worthy of special highlighting in the series.  A best of the best list, if you will.  I'm having a blast getting to know these games, (re) experiencing their music, and thinking more about their soundtracks.  Hope you will too....


40 Space Invaders:  Tim Schafer: "I remember hearing... this thumping... strong bass sound.  You had this emotional reaction to it.  It was really the first to use audio in that way... to make you feel something."  Space Invaders is often cited for the first continuous soundtrack, as well as Schafer's credit for being the first game to use music to heighten the game play experience as the descending bass line and alien ship movements speed up.

37 Halo Combat Evolved.  Scott Porter  "There are certain songs you hear from games that just make you so happy or take you back to a time that was so awesome.  And every time I hear (sings the opening theme)...  the theme song is so incredible...."  Not a game I've played, but one whose music I'm currently listening to.

32 Mike Tyson's Punch Out.  "It was awesome watching him run along with his coach and that song..." (he sings the song) Danny Pudi.  I've been thinking about this cutscene music for a really long time and seeing this finally got me to look it up.  Of course the best one was the nighttime training-- love it!

I also watched this awesome video, a 40 min longplay of the Punch Out, to remind myself of the music experience.  When I hear this music, it strikes me as straddling the ear between arcade and home entertainment systems.  If it just played the transition music, start of the fight, winning fanfare, etc this game music could be for arcade.  However, once home entertainment systems started to become popular, game designers needed to create a more specific audio experience.  Presumably, a household only had a TV or two-- that's how ours was, at least-- and if someone were playing games in one room, it needed to create a continuous soundtrack with underscoring that builds tension and keeps players and observers engaged.

Also, I LOVE the classical music references: Glass Joe: La Marseillaise, Von Kaiser/ Super Macho Man: Ride of the Valkyries, Don Flaminco: Carmen Overture.  Is this kind of stuff happening in contemporary games, or have we lost these references?  Also read that Soda Popinski plays a Russian folk song-- wouldn't know it, but I do like how the music introduces each character.  I don't know if I recognized these musical themes as a kid, but much like the Looney Tunes episodes, I liked the music when I was a kid, and now, I get the musical references on a completely different level.


30 Super Street Fighter II Turbo.  "The best thing about Street Fighter II was all the sounds they made when you were fighting.  -Mo Mandel  I didn't play this Street Fighter, but I did play Street Fighter II on the SNES.  When my friends and I played together, we totally imitated these effects for our super powered punches and kicks.

Game Music Online: Audio mentioned in G4's Top 100 Video Games of All Time: Part 3

Continuing my journey through the G4 Top Video Games series, Part 3.   These are the best games whose audio was worthy of being highlighted in the show.  A best of the best list.


52 Rock Band 3  Scott Porter:  "Everybody wanted to have the keyboard.  I think it's the best instrument that lends itself to a music game that I've ever seen.  My dad's on the drums, my mom's on the mic, I'm on the guitar or the keys... it's really an amazing thing..."  My mind goes back to the 19th century when a family might get together and play through music together, each on a different instrument.  Is Rock Band 3 the 21st century version of chamber music?

It does me good to hear Chantal Claret say that she "failed Rock Band at her own song."  The couple of times that I've played this type of game, I'm not very good at it.  I always feel like the music and gameplay are ever so slightly out of sync.  As a classical pianist, I wonder if that may have to do with a difference in time of the mechanical action on my piano and the electronic sync up with game controllers?  I've certainly got rhythm...

47 Myst  Will Wright: (What made Myst successful was) "the connection between the high resolution graphics and the sound effects."  There was something about it that was enchanting in an almost musical hypnotic way.  -James Gunn  I played Myst just a little, but my mom played it for days, up all hours-- she was hooked.  I remember how shocked she was that the ending is right at the beginning.  I'm listening to the soundtrack-- it strikes me as being minimalist, unobtrusive music, that does indeed have a hypnotic effect.  Here's a little gameplay for you:

46 Red Dead Redemption:  "And in true Rockstar Games fashion the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack was a stand out on its own."  "All the music in the game is actual tracks from these old spaghetti western movies.  They did an amazing job putting this stuff together and really capturing that feeling."- James Gunn.  Not a game I know at all, or had ever heard of, but I've enjoyed hearing the soundtrack.  One of my favorite tracks is Ashtar Command's Deadman's Gun.  For an audio flavor of the game, here's the opening.  Love how communicative the music is at moments like 1:17.

I also found an incredible short documentary with a behind the scenes of the Red Dead Redemption Soundtrack.  This makes me wonder if Gunn's statement above was just referencing a feeling of old Westerns.  Also, I learned from this that the music has a layering effect where jumping on a horse causes a bass line to come in.  Clearly, I need to play this game to fully appreciate its musical cleverness.

Game Music Online: Audio mentioned in G4's Top 100 Video Games Part 1

While watching G4's recent five part series of the Top 100 Video Games of All Time, I kept track of all the games whose audio is highlighted in commentary.  This documentary series has amazing audio editing, often introducing a game by playing its theme, or having a cut away to an iconic phrase in the game audio, either spoken and musical.  As I watched, I was surprised by the number of people interviewed who sang the theme song or audio effect when describing a game.  Seeing this made me realize that game music has a way of connecting with its listeners, and becoming a powerful association with players.  It's a part of our culture.

This list is cool to me because I've been trying to decide what game music might be considered "important."  What music might be in a standard canon of game music?  In other words-- there are so many great games with great music, but what are the best of the best that a person who wants to be a master of this subject should know?  How can one decide that?  By popularity?  Or games notorious for good music?  Is there a way to bridge the two?  Which games should a player go about exploring not just for the sake of great gameplay, but also to hear great music?  Thus, in a way, this is a "best of the best" list.  The best games of all time, whose audio was worthy of mention as to why this game was one of the best on G4's Top 100 Video Games of All Time.

# 98 Pitfall:  The yodeling "scream" sound effect as you swing on the vine.  The death sound effect is also classic-- Roszo/Schumann Killers/Dragnet.  Pitfall harkens from the early 80s where continuous music was not yet standard.  However, memorable sound effects depicting various gameplay events are already becoming iconic.

# 96 Guitar Hero 2: This is the first "music" video game to make the list.  Jenna Marbles says:  "The wide appeal of Guitar Hero 2 is that not everybody can play guitar, it's hard... but four or five buttons?  I can handle this.  I'm rocking out."  It gains music celebrities appreciation as well, my favorite of which point its historical passing down of music and ability to make players hear music more specifically.   David Ellefson (Megadeth): "It's introduced our music to another younger generation that probably forgot there were guitar solos." Dee Snider (Twisted Sister): "It breaks the music down and forces people to appreciate why it's so cool."  

I like the relation of music and image, where this game assumes a sort of "driving" through music view, as rhythmic button combinations approach the player as if on a conveyer belt of time.  

# 88 Double Dribble: One of the early games to use actual speech, "Double Dribble!" on the title screen.  Theo Von: the sound effects seems to be from a war game.  Every three point shot has an explosion (~1:14).

#81 Resident Evil: Haven't played this game, but interesting to learn that at one point you have to play the Moonlight Sonata to open a secret room.  Apparently, one of the characters is skilled at the piano, one can't play at all, and one has to practice to be able to unlock the room.  Clever!

Game Music Online: Visualization of The Legend of Zelda overworld

I found this video via the retro game audio tumblr site I posted about last time. To be honest, I've probably watched this video 20 times in the last few hours since I found it. I'm very interested in how the connection of visual images to audio can get people listening more closely to music, and this realization of the various channels/waves from the NES is both impressive and artistic to me.

Here, we see the two pulse waves on the top playing the melody and harmony/countermelody. The sawtooth wave on the lower left is the bass and the lower right video is the noise channel, percussion.  Amazing connection for me between the physics of the sound waves, and the NES audio channels.