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.  

Behind the Scenes: Video Game Pianist, Dr. Martin Leung, U-M Residency

I've just finished up an exciting week at U-M that involved Dr. Martin Leung's visit to U-M.  He completed many different activities while here: teaching lessons to my studio, speaking to the piano majors, being a guest in my Video Game Music class, making a Vodcast that will come out later in the year, speaking to students at large about incorporating the internet and video game music into their portfolios, and playing a concert as well.

Dr. Leung's visit was a major event in my year of research about this kind of music.  I was really glad to see how much enthusiasm some of the piano majors had regarding this material.  Even the faculty seemed pretty supportive of it as well.  Most of all, I was just glad to make an School that in many ways is slow to update repertoire outside of the traditional canons and acknowledge career paths beyond the traditional "super star performer" face up to someone who has had success in another way.  Although it definitely made a difference in the present culture, I think and hope it has the ability to make a difference down the road— that students and scholars who come after will be able to look back and say: "hey, this guy X years ago had a piano studio that played all video game music, so why can't I do Y?"

I'm sure some of my colleagues think I don't belong in this space, doing this research or teaching, and/or that the repertoire is not worthy of attention and focus.  But I'm really learning this year just how much of a community this music creates.  One of my favorite take away's from the week was when one of my students greeted Martin at the start of his lesson by explaining that finding Martin's YouTube channel over a decade ago also led him to a community of music lovers who were passionate about video games and video game music.  One of the things I've learned in all my years of work in game audio is that gamers have a "coming out" process— many people play games, but they don't talk about it often.  However, because of my work, people DO talk to me about their interest in gaming and what they're playing.  I'm always glad when anyone can express him/here self more, and it was an emotional experience to see one of my students explain that he'd found inspiration from Martin and his playing video game music for years.  Wow!

Lastly, I'll leave with a comment about the recital Martin played.  (If you're interested in any of his arrangements, you can find them for free for a limited time on the sheet music portion of his website.)  As you can see from the above picture, the recital was well attended by all sorts of students and even guests who had driven a long way to get to Ann Arbor to hear him.  I really enjoyed the event and was delighted to play some duets with Martin at the end of the program.  Turns out these are the first video game music duets that he's ever performed!  I put these duets up on my videogamemusicnerd YouTube channel, but I'll share my favorite of these duets here.  I absolutely loved playing Super Mario Galaxy, and also the reference to Super Mario Bros 3, in the middle of this duet.  Despite the fact that we probably had only about 45 minutes to rehearse, these duets really came together.  In fact, one of my students wrote a reaction to the recital, commenting: "The duets were incredible— really in sync— you seem to play off each other well."  I think that playing piano duets is one of the hardest things to really have exactly together because of the percussive nature of the instrument, but we did it!

I think that Martin will eventually post the whole recital and I'll link to it here once he does.  For now, you can see the other two on my channel if you like.  Including some antics jumping around during Mario Kart Double Dash: Baby Park.  About this duet, one of my students wrote: “BLUE SHELL!  DUCK AND COVER!— that sort of thing is something you simply can’t get at a normal concert/recital.  Part of why I love video games so much; in the end, it’s about fun.”

Overall, a tremendously busy week, but also an important one in my research that I'm still digesting.  Have you heard Martin play video game music?  Did he inspire you and help you find a sense of community?  I'd love to hear about it, if so.

Behind the Scenes: A snapshot of some current research

I thought it'd be fun to give a little view of some research that I'm currently working on.

Just about a year ago, when I hosted the North American Conference on Video Game Music (NACVGM) at the University of Michigan, I made a presentation about video game piano transcriptions.  I titled the talk "There's no question you'll be popular after performing these in front of your friends: the pedagogy and performance of piano transcriptions of video game music."  The title is a line from the beginning of a Zelda collection and I thought that was perfect.  In this presentation, I discuss the variety of piano material and how the game audio is adapted to work well in a linear format for live performances.  In doing this presentation, I also became the first person to perform on a traditional instrument live at NACVGM, though others before me had made music on game systems.

As I say at the end of the talk, I was planning to have a studio of pianists to have lessons and study video game piano music with me in the coming year.  That's this academic year, and I'm in the midst of that research.  Although it's a lot of extra work to have five piano students and a studio class on top of my normal teaching schedule, I've learned a lot and am hoping in upcoming years to publish about my experience, my students' experience, and about the repertoire.  My hope is that if more teachers of piano knew about this material, they would incorporate it into their teaching.  One outcome that's already clear to me is that this sort of material will attract students who would not otherwise be interested in studying piano.

The year is going so well.  I have a variety of students to help explore the repertoire from a beginner who had never had piano lessons before (though he could read music as a violinist) to a student who could easily have been a piano major if he'd desired it to a doctoral student who helps me with researching the pedagogy of these collections and other aspects like how to program a piano recital of all video game music.  My studio had our first concert at the University of Michigan Museum of Art a few weeks ago as a midway project and Peter Smith took some great pictures from the event, including this one of the studio just after we finished.

As far as I know, this is the first collegiate studio of pianists working on video game music.  Pretty cool!  Although only one of them, the DMA student, is planning to go into the profession, I'm delighted to have inspired the others to revisit their piano playing and hope they'll stay with it through life.

There are some other upcoming events that are exciting too.  Video Game Pianist, Dr. Martin Leung, will be coming in about 10 days to give lessons to my students, and speak to the piano majors at U-M as well as other students about his career and how the internet has changed the modern musician's career.  He's also playing a concert and I'll be joining him for a few duets he's arranged-- they're hard!

This concert is free and open to the public if you're in the Michigan area.

https://www.facebook.com/events/2375425089412635/

https://smtd.umich.edu/performances-events/events/event/?id=12185

We have an end of semester recital planned as well, April 13th.  So it's a busy few months.  Meanwhile, my students are keeping journals about their practice and work and have formal interviews that I'll be able to study through as I'm working on publications I hope will come out of this year.

Since I started this project, I learned of another pianist who is doing research in this area, from Tarleton State University, Dr. Leslie Spotz.  She gave a recital after a sabbatical researching video game piano transcriptions the day after my studio recital at the UMMA.  So cool to realize you're not alone in interests and what you're researching!

That said, I bet there are more folks out there in a similar case.  Do you use video game music in your studio teaching?  I'd love to hear about it if so, and especially if you're a pianist.  What works well?  What doesn't?  How long have you done it?  I welcome any comments or chance to connect about this.

Music making in Video Games: Final Fantasy 5 piano

Last year, I played through almost all of Final Fantasy 5 on my PS3.  It's not a game that I knew as a child, since it wasn't released then in the US, but I probably would have loved the piano progression that takes place in the game.  I bet I would've wanted to play all these pieces-- which, in fact, I did anyway, except for the Schubert.

For those who haven't played the game before, let me explain: there are keyboards (visual is organ, internet lingo calls them pianos and the pieces performed are for piano) in various towns across throughout the game that you can play.  The pianos are found in: Tule, Kerwin, Karnak, Crescent, Jachol, Lugar, Moor, and Mirage.  At first you start out with basic beginning scales and exercises and eventually progress to simple classical piano pieces.  It's pretty cool to experience this progression.  The first scale is hesitating and inaccurate, the hands not quite together in 2-3.  4: The start/stop/start, then double time of the Hanon feels like a sudden leap in skill.  From 5 on, there's no metronome anymore.  6: The Schubert is brilliant except for the last note.  7:Beautiful Dreamer has a more subtle mixture between two measures in four and two in three.  The Mozart and Debussy are both pristine and common pieces for those who progress to an intermediate level of piano study.

1: Single handed scale up
2: Two handed 9 note scale up and down
3: 5 note pattern of thirds, in octaves
4: Hanon The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises-- exercise 1
5: Franz Schubert March Militaire, Op 51-- intro
6: Stephen Foster: Beautiful Dreamer
7: W. A. Mozart: Turkish Rondo  K 331, Third Movement from Piano Sonata 11
8: Claude Debussy: Arabesque No. 1

I was surprised that there wasn't already a video of this progression of piano ability online, although there is a live version of these pieces played by VirtualHarmonies in this video.  For me, the coolest thing about this progression is this: it's Uematsu's idea of how to represent someone's achievements and skill building at the piano.  From the first couple of exercises that are really fumbled around, rhythmic inaccuracies emphasized by the metronome, assuring the listener hears a steady pulse so the playing sounds "right" or "wrong"-- all the way to the intermediate classical piano pieces.

From 1992, Final Fantasy 5 is the first game I can think of with a musical progression that your avatar makes as the game progresses and that which unlocks certain skills as you progress through it.  Do you know of an earlier example of musical skill building by an avatar in a game?  What other musical progressions do you enjoy watching your characters make in video games?  I also used to level up my piano skills in The Sims, but that title is from 8 years after FF 5.