Gario

Preface:
I am a formally trained musician. Went through public school band from 6th grade through high school, got 3 undergrad degrees in music (education, horn performance, and classical composition), and am almost finished with a master's degree (classical and jazz composition). I finished my undergrad with 214 credit hours and am currently 23/31 hours through the master's degree. I am a professional performer (classical and jazz), and a high school band director, but have taught theory and private lessons and classes on guitar, bass and piano. I have performed in almost every genre that uses live performances, on many different instruments.

I see many discussions about the importance of music theory, and honestly most of these discussions disappoint me, but not in the way you would think by the preface above. All musicians fall into one of two categories - Music theory is necessary, or Music Theory is unnecessary. There are no other categories, although there are subgroups.
I'm going to start off by saying, that by far, modern music theory is one of the worst taught classes in the history of classes. I put it below most high school Spanish classes. If you compare the standard expected of music theory students to that of a standard biology or English class, it is almost laughably low. I don't know many classes where it is not only normal, but understood by the *teachers* of a class that half or more of your students are going to not learn the material. This is absolutely absurd. Further than this, I don't know of any creative art other than music where the system of organization used to understand it is emphasized so heavily as rules.
 
Let's give an analogy to help this sink in.

You're in an English class, studying Shakespeare. You're learning about the plays of Shakespeare, but it's communicated that the traits that were used in Shakespeare's style of writing are the rules that dictate how books are written, and if you don't follow them, you're wrong. Right off the bat, you should see some red flags with this. "But what about Earnest Hemingway? He breaks the rules here, does that mean he's not a real author?" "Yes. He broke the rules, so he doesn't write real books."
This is about how music theory is approached by many teachers. If you see this, and understand that this is not what music theory is supposed to be, you'll see why almost all arguments against it fall apart really hard.
 
So what is music theory?
Music theory IS a form of analysis. It is a way to listen and analyze music and understand what's going on. It's a way to learn music, and a way to communicate music.
Music theory IS NOT a bunch of "rules" that tell you how to write music. It IS NOT a way for classical musicians to point at things they don't like and say "this is worthless." If it is used that way, it's used very wrong.
Music theory IS a way to compare styles of music to see what is similar and different, and be able to understand what makes an unfamiliar style of music relatable to styles you are familiar with.
Music theory IS NOT tied to or directly related to sheet music. If you don't read sheet music, you are no less of a musician. Theory actually doesn't have much to do with notation on a fundamental level.
 
You know how I mentioned I used to teach guitar classes to high school kids?
When I taught guitar classes, I taught theory. But I didn't say "we're learning music theory today, here are the rules." It really was more like this:
Let's listen to this Johnny Cash song. Let's learn it, do this now. Alright, how is it similar to <song we learned last week>? These chords here, are they the same as <other song>? Yes. This is called a 12-bar blues progression. Let's look at it. The class learned 25 songs in the next week.
Because we had the framework of what a 12-bar blues progression was, and the theory behind it, we went from learning one song a week, chord by chord to 25. We learned 25 songs that used the 12-bar blues progression. This was music theory applied directly to understand music better. We then did a quick lesson on lyric form (the rhyme scheme and whatnot) of most 12-bar blue songs, and I had them write one. There was no lack of creativity here. They could write a song then teach it REALLY easily because everybody had the common language and framework.

Further than this, in similar ways, my students could play in all 12 major AND minor keys. They could figure out how to finger chords they didn't know. For example, this chord is an Ab major 7th chord. How do you finger it without looking at a chord chart? They knew what notes were in that chord, and what do do with the strings to get that chord to happen, and then they remembered the fingering.
 
This is what music theory is
If you're looking at my description and saying "But you didn't teach music theory." You're wrong. I gave them the same written test that I gave the students I was just teaching theory to. They did just as fine as guitar students as the ones who were specifically theory students. Test scores showed very little deviation when compared. This is how music theory is supposed to be. Music theory is the inner workings of music, and why things sound the way they do. Music theory is the reason I can hear a song I've never heard before, and learn it in a short period of time. Any time you hear a song and go "That's the same chord progression as <different song>" you're using theory. If you write music AT ALL, you're using music theory. You may not think that's what you're doing, but that's what you're doing. If you know that *this chord* followed by *this chord* sounds good, but don't know what those chords are called, you're still using theory. If you know that writing a song using the form "Intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus" makes your song make sense, you're using theory. All musicians who produce music are using theory whether they know it or not.
The advantage of knowing theory is that you can talk about music in a consistent way and help others understand either the music you write, or the music you like. If you hear something I write, and really like it, I can tell you EXACTLY what I did to create that sound and where I got that chord progression/texture from, so you can learn more about it.
 
You know how I mentioned that I have degrees in composition?
I have a degree in composition, and am almost done with another one. I took 14 theory classes in my undergrad. The same 4 intro classes, and 10 specialized classes (such as jazz theory, 20th century analysis, 18th century counterpoint, and electronic music). In all of these classes, the professor (a composer) would ALWAYS have us listen to the piece before doing any theoretical analysis on it. It didn't matter if it were by Bach from 1730, or if it were by Charlie Parker in 1950. We listened to it and thought about how it was similar and different to what we knew. The analysis ALWAYS fit what the music was doing. If we were analyzing a Bach chorale, we looked at it using the style tendencies and traits that defined that style. If we were analyzing a Charlie Parker tune, we looked at it using the style tendencies and traits that defined that style. We didn't do this with one set of rules and traits for both styles, unless they were similar enough where we could do that and actually make sense of that.
As a composition student in lessons, if I wrote a piece in the style of Glenn Miller and his big band, we would look through Glenn Miller sheet music and listen to the charts to find out "Why does it sound the way it does, and what can you do to get that kind of sound in your pieces?" If I wrote a piece in the style of modern, 20th century classical music, we would analyze pieces of classical music from the 20th century and find out why they worked. Then, when writing a piece, I could express myself in that style.
The argument that music theory destroys your creativity is valid only if you're viewing music theory as a set of rules that you have to follow. If you view any creative adventure like that, your creativity will be stifled. However, if you view it as a series of tendencies and style traits that make music sound the way it does, it frees you to write in any style you want, authentically, and express yourself. As a composer, I write a lot of music that blends jazz, fusion, and classical. I write things I'm proud of and think are pretty creative. But they are that way because I know how to look at music I like and take things from it and use them to express myself.
 
THIS IS THE WAY MUSIC THEORY SHOULD BE TAUGHT AND USED. THIS IS WHAT MUSIC THEORY IS AND WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE USED FOR.
 
One little side note
If you're using your knowledge of theory to say that somebody else is not a real musician, or they don't know what they're doing, or that music has rules, shame on you. You're giving formally trained musicians a bad name. Alternatively, if you are one of those people who brags about not knowing theory and tries to flex on the people who say you need to know theory, you're as big of an ass as they are.
 
I hope that my little essay here has helped you understand a new perspective on music theory and why I feel the argument against it is not particularly valid in most cases.
 

*Ahem*
Yeah, I gotcha. I think almost everyone has their tracks submitted now, so a good deal of the work left is on my end. Things have settled down now that the new judges are finally announced and doing good work for OCR (I did a lot of work behind the scenes making sure that would happen smoothly), so hopefully I can be in a position where I can make some more official announcements this weekend.
Also, on the down low, much of the panel so far is pretty impressed with your track, so I'm glad it got the second chance it deserved.  
Thanks for the bump; here's hoping I can breath more life into this thing soon!

hello !
in 2017, I've worked on the MUSHA Aleste soundtrack, to make covers of this awesomes 16 bits metal pieces !
I played this game when I was 15/16 years hold and I was subjugated by his metal soundtrack with a lot of nice melodies and strongs rythm guitars.
I've made midifiles from the emulators vgm files and I'haved try to performed, recorded all parts as close as the original source of the 10 songs from the game between "Theme of Musha" (intro) to "For the Love Of..." (credit)
So, I'm proud to present my MUSHA ALeste Covers Album !
you can listen and download (for free) this album on my bandcamp channel: 
https://jmabate.bandcamp.com/album/musha-aleste-ost-cover
you can also watching my guitar playthrough on my youtube channel : 
I hope you will enjoy this covers as I taked to covered them and I want to thanks Mr Toshiaki Sakoda (composer) for this master piece. I love it so much I wanted to give it a tribute as best as I can.
thank you
Abate jean marc
 
 
 

- ReMixer name: ANTOX
- Real name: Anthony Nemer
- Email address: 
- Website: https://soundcloud.com/anthonynemer/tracks
- User id: 18006 - Name of game arranged: Final Fantasy VII
- Name of arrangement: JENOVA's Witness
- Name of individual song(s) arranged: J-E-N-O-V-A

- Additional information about game including composer, system, etc.
Final Fantasy VII by Nobuo Uematsu for PlayStation   I was inspired by New Age music from the 90s, mainly Enigma for the beats with a blend of Synthwave.   Many thanks!  

Ah yes, the single greatest title that I've ever seen for a remix thus far. I would LOVE to see this posted on those grounds alone.
However, I do need to question the mixing on this track throughout. The lead is often buried behind the rest of the arrangement (an issue that actually gets worse as the arrangement gets more dense as it progresses), and as the track gets more dense the mix more and more crowded/muddy. As much as I like how the vanilla synths were handled in general, the mixing is indiscriminate (with the textures often overtaking the leads, an example of which can be heard at 0:40), and the resulting soundscape is too muddy.
I like this track otherwise, but in order for me to pass this the track needs another pass on the mixing. The textures need to have their levels adjusted so they don't overtake the leads (or the leads should be in a different register so that they're not fighting for the same sonic space), and the pads that all fight for the same space must be either mixed down or made to be less dense, just so the arrangement has some room to breath.
Fun track, great title, but I don't think this one is there yet. I do hope to hear this one come back soon, though!
NO

No one remembered Dies Irae in the Final Fantasy VIII Intro? That's the first thing that pops into my head whenever I hear Dies Irae. Just like when I heard it on youtube maybe 20 minutes ago 
How Remakes Go WRONG – feat. Disney's The Lion King and Aladdin – Wisecrack Edition https://youtu.be/_u5_PJHi3jY?t=161 Starts at 2:40 just in case the timestamp fucks up

Downloaded for safety reasons; hopefully OCR can host the album once again.

Thanks for doin' the LORD's work, Black_Doom.

Downloaded for safety reasons; hopefully OCR can host the album once again.

Thanks for doin' the LORD's work, Black_Doom.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10w0IagDgf0OoiTx5JAc5qj9IjDBKQeTU/view?usp=sharing
Found it!  Had to do some tagging, since a couple of tracks lacked them completely for some reason, so there may be some mistakes, but I don't think it matters that much, honestly.

I know some of the people with finished tracks and wouldn't mind helping reach out, see if we can pry some WAVs out of their hands. You know where to find me if you need a hand

New update time. Sorry for the delay on my end everyone, I'm bottlenecked yet again and today has been particularly fucked, but I've got enough to update with all the same.
I've gotten some more WAVs from people, I appreciate that and I'll listen to them here soon. I had an ear thing late last week/early this week that made it so audio work was not in my interest, but that has been accomplished and I've downloaded and kept the .WAVs given to me all the same.
Finally got to talk to the previous project creator Brandon to see if he would release back to us the .WAVs he had on his end and he was not willing to support the project's revival (to put it mildly), which is what I expected. And as expected, this project will need to see a fairly full "Un"Brand"ing" so we can respect Brandon's wishes and the fair artistic work he put in to start with. This does not mean starting the entire thing from scratch, it just means taking what we can from the previous project attempt, putting a new frame/encapsulation on it, seeing where we need to go to from there.
I'm trying to think up some ideas of what to do that with - I've actually spent the last several weeks replaying the game on the DS unrelated to the project here and I am refreshed on the source material, so that helps. So far my best idea is Manifest Obscura, taking after the game's major plot of the big world below being shrouded from knowledge, but I'm not solid on it yet. I'm not doing the "Light and Dark" theme again - that was my last project and it has been done to death.
Most likely will need a brand new project thread for it too.
So I'll be speaking with Rexy and relevant personnel about that stuff when I can. That's what I got for now. Please keep sending me your .WAVs and let's see where we can go from here!

For the technical aspect brought up on the "wind" lead (more likely a synth), it sounds like a minor mixing concern - it's mixed considerably louder than the other instruments surrounding it, which makes it punch through the rest of the mix too much and gives you less sonic space to work with overall. It presents a twofold issue: it makes one item sound out too much over the other items, and it limits how loud you can make the rest of the track (since it only takes one loud instrument to hit the -0 mark for a limiter to consider it "clipping"). It's not THAT problematic an issue, but it's something that could be toned down, improving the quality of the overall track somewhat. On the bright side, it's the lead that's punching through, so at least it isn't a texture or something overpowering the lead (which is a considerably worse position to be in).
Pretty gentle arrangement, and definitely a different direction to take the track. I like it, here's hoping you can get it to what you consider finished sometime soon.

Love this track - great instrumentation and overall arrangement, and the rock-opera singer is pretty beast. Gotta be careful with such a singer, though - intelligibility gets lost in the mix, in part due to the lack of articulation on the consonants, and in part due to the fact that she shares the same overall range as the rest of the instruments (which obscures the vowels that she's using quite a bit). It's tricky business, but it doesn't take away from the generally amazing arrangement that we've got here.
Wish I could make out the words better without the lyrics in front of me, but otherwise some great stuff, here!
YES

Don't you worry - we're still alive and kickin'. Lots of work on the back end of the site going on at the moment in order to make sure that things keep moving on the site, which while less noticeable is important in keeping the site moving along with little problem.
Generally, it's easy to think that OCR isn't what it used to be, and in some ways you're correct - what OCR used to be was a monolith of a site where most VG arrangements were vetted and distributed. Today, though, we have sites like Youtube, the Materia collective, Pixel Mixers, etc., that all distribute VG arrangements elsewhere, which is only a good thing for the community at large. It does look like it shrinks OCR's contribution to the community by comparison, but it's really an illusion: take a look at OCR in 2009 and compare it to today, and you'll find that we've grown considerably in that time. Forum activity has waned, but that's true across the spectrum; a lot of communities have moved onto things like Discord (of which OCR still has an active and thriving community - check it out), so that's less telling of OCR's condition and more the state of the internet in general.
Concerning albums, we generally don't officially direct any albums - that's entirely community based. If you want more albums to be made, then by all means help out with those that are already in the works (you can check em' out in the Projects forum), or you can get to recruitin' for one. Had a wonderful album come out recently from a relative newer member (who isn't a remixer herself), so it's not unheard of.
Really, though, it's not a bad thing to hear fans "lament" OCR's glory days - it means we still have something to live up to, which is encouraging. That being said, don't despair, OCR is still quite an active force on the internet; we're not going anywhere.

We scoured the land for the most evil people we could find to join us, and we're proud to add @prophetik music and @Rexy to the judges panel.
I'm personally aiming to finally have that submissions queue go to 0 by the end of this year, and we're excited to have their help.
Revel in their fresh perspectives and presence now before they become entrenched in the system and simply become part of the evil mass of musical oppression that the rest of us have morphed into.  (a.k.a. WELCOME!)

Hi Everyone!
Sorry I've been away for a bit with many things getting in between me and coming here more often!
Here is a new piece I've finished:  Hyrule Castle.  It's an arrangement for Orchestra of the Hyrule Castle Music from Breath of the Wild, Twilight Princess and WindWaker.  I did my best here to let the different themes mix and flow into each other here, which I'm quite pleased with.  I do hope you enjoy!
 

Not too many people left to submit for the final deadline, which is great. Got a few stragglers, though, so @Ivan Hakštok, @Gario, @djpretzel, @Sil, we're going to need to hear back from y'all.
It's wrapping up, so let's push to the last stretch!

Not too many people left to submit for the final deadline, which is great. Got a few stragglers, though, so @Ivan Hakštok, @Gario, @djpretzel, @Sil, we're going to need to hear back from y'all.
It's wrapping up, so let's push to the last stretch!

I went and watched it. Pretty darn solid if you ask me - go enjoy it. 

Oh, a judge rules question! Here's where we'd come down on it:
At the moment, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the rules built into the question (which means we should perhaps clarify on the submission requirements page). When we look for source in an arrangement (rule of thumb: at least 50% of the arrangement should reference the source), what we're looking for is the arrangement/ReMix to be referencing the source at least 50% of the time, not for the arrangement to reference at least 50% of the source. As long as it's identifiable as the source, one could theoretically make a remix that only references 25% (or even less) of the source and it would still qualify for OCR as long as the arrangement was referencing that source for a significant period of time (again, rule of thumb is 50% of the arrangement). It would be odd leaving out so much source (and people might get upset that their favorite parts were left out!), but that's not technically a Judging requirement.
Concerning your actual question, though, which source would we give credit to in this case? Very likely, in this case it would be whichever source the artist claims to have been arranging since it's not technically wrong to call the arrangement a "Link Between Worlds" arrangement, even when it's similar/identical to the Link to the Past source. In the past I've sourced Dracula X's Stage 6 track for my submission (which is itself an arrangement of the Castlevania 3 "Beginnings" track), so I have some personal experience on that front to help come up with that conclusion. Forcing people to use "official" versions of the source would, I imagine, cause the staff quite a bit of headache figuring out which source is the "actual" source, which otherwise we'll only do if the VG track is in fact an arrangment of a well known non-VG track (like, say, one of Michael Jackson's songs used in his "Moonwalker" game - can't ReMix "Smooth Criminal" just because it's in his game, folks!).
Hopefully that answers your question!

I would like to put the wonderful 'Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness!' in the SNES MSU-1 project as one of the soundtrack options for this game, would I have your permission? All authors will be duly credited.  

@Gario Yeah that's basically it - we only do artist bios if the album website decides to feature them, which is less common these days. Track comments ALWAYS good.
BTW I've got 1'30" on my mix and do hope to finish it shortly!

Track comments would be solid, the permission form so that we know we can use your music for the album will also be necessary (which I need to go through the forms we already have). Otherwise, I'll need to talk to DjP after the project finishes up to see if there's anything else that we need from the artist. 

Handed in my track yesterday. Glad the bugger is done, it was killing my DAW

Bumpity bump response!
Yeah, sorry 'bout the mod review thing not working as it should as of late; the staff that normally run it are experiencing a critical existence failure.
I'll give some thoughts on it to help you out (you might've actually asked me earlier, but the message got lost in the discord shuffle - really sorry about that!).
I do like the overall quality of your instruments - much better than the Silent Hill instruments, even - but I'll be straight and say this is likely too conservative for OCR. The instruments are pretty close, and the overall arrangement is similar to the source (without the texture change made in the source in the piano). I hear the subtle changes made in the arrangement (like at 0:55 - 1:12, for example), but it's likely not enough for the panel to call it sufficiently interpretive. It's great stuff in it's own right, OCR be damned, but it'd likely be rejected for being too conservative.
(Note: I'm only commenting on whether it'd pass the OCR panel or not because you're marking it for mod review )