Evolution of Video Game Music

[bio595]

I'm doing a music research project about the evolution of video game music.

I found out about this website and know that this is the perfect place to ask any questions.

What in your guy's opinion are recognizable eras of video game music?

What soundtracks really showed evolution in the genre?

Cheers, Michael

[Mirby]

All I can say is that I remember Nobuo Uematsu saying in an interview how back in the Famicom days, the hardware limited the music to 3 simultaneous sounds, at most. Obviously it's better now.

Yeah, other members might be able to help more. But I gave a start!

[Iggy Koopa]

Don't forget the SMB theme. That's important.

[Mirby]

I'm gonna say FF7's soundtrack showed evolution; it was the first game in the series that had a final boss theme with vocals. Probably was made possible by the hardware it was on, but still.

Feel free to tell me to shut up if I'm wrong on any of this.

[Theophany]

I'd say some of the "eras" of game music could almost be broken up by decades. In the 70s, it was mostly 8-bit sound effects, and maybe a few melodies or jingles, which I guess you could call the arcade era. The music got more complex in the 80s, and I think a lot of stuff had definite melodies for different levels, etc, themes, etc. You could say the next "era" of game music was around the time when stuff like Nintendo came out, which is mid to late 80s. There had been consoles before the original Nintendo, for sure, but I wasn't really around for that stuff. If you're going to try to divide things into eras, you may have to be a bit arbitrary, and do it in terms of "generations" of music and game composers.

With stuff like nintendo, then sega genesis, super nintendo, I'd say games had pretty full and memorable soundtracks with higher resolution sounds and fuller, melody-driven compositions than the 70s and early 80s arcade stuff (someone correct me if that's inaccurate). You also had more types of soundtracks because you had more types of games--especially RPG games, which began to use music more like films use music, for things like cues and cinematic sequences, and characters, other than just zone and level area music. That stuff wasn't totally unique to RPGs, because even level-based fighting games had cinematique sequences, but the music in RPG games very quickly became more story-driven. I think this is the era when game music first started to earn a lot more respect and notoriety in a lot of ways.

I'd say now in the current era game music is much higher profile. Game OSTs and composers are kind of a big deal for a lot of people in the gaming community. It's no longer as much of a niche thing, like it was when overclocked remix started. Music now has a much higher production value, and in many games, a more pronounced cinematic influence. In a lot of ways, games are replacing movies as a more interactive cinematic experience, and the music has definitely moved into that territory for a lot of titles.

I'm not an expert by any means, but that's kind of the simplified way I look at it. I'm not well versed in older game music, since I grew up in the 90s, but like I said before, I think the evolution of game music has been pretty fluid, so the "eras" I speak of are kind of arbitrarily drawn up and probably a bit inaccurate. Hopefully some 70s and 80s game music buffs can give you better insight into the early days. Or just better insight period. I think OCR originally started as a spin-off from people remixing Commodore 64 tunes from the 80s.

You should really be looking this stuff up though

Cheers

[Mirby]

OCR was started based off of the idea of a remixing community that only allowed C64 remixes. DJP felt that all games for all systems should have remixed music, not just one system. So he spun OCR off of the comic he made at the time, OverClocked, and now we have this.

Read his interview at my website for a better explanation.

[Rozovian]

You can't really call video game music a genre. Rock is a genre. Jazz is a genre. Bluegrass is a genre. Video game music isn't a genre. Movie music isn't a genre either, a soundtrack can contain any genre. Just pointing that out.

But to answer your question, each console is basically an "era" of its own, whether it used simple waveforms, samples, fm synthesis, or audio tracks. Or something else. You should look into the consoles and look up music from them. You should find some similarities between consoles of the same era. Where an era begins and ends is a bit tricky to answer, so draw your own conclusions from the music.

[Deep Thought]

While I can't say I'm an expert in the era's of video game music, I can give a theory that I have come up with to describe what I feel has had the most influence on it.

A calculus teacher of mine once described "the holy trinity of classical music:" Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. Beethoven was seen as a composer who could wrap his mind around an idea and create a symphony. Mozart was able to instantly create music that was easily remembered, a true genius. Bach was a man who really put the emotion into the music.

I then applied that to whom I consider the "holy trinity of video game music:" Uematsu, Kondo, and Mitsuda.

Kondo has the gift of taking melodies and getting them recognised by a large amount of people. Look at Super Mario Bros. for example. I have seen parties stop just because somebody starts playing the SMB Overworld theme on a nearby piano. The parties then turn into a request for more. Kondo also did well for Legend of Zelda, which has just as much recognition as Mario.

Uematsu has music that matches the game very well. When playing FF7 for the first time, I actually felt like the theme from Cosmo Canyon actually belonged. Aeris's theme brought me to tears, although seeing her die brought me to tears as well, (because I wasted so much time leveling her up.) And I was thrown for a loop when I heard One Winged Angel, just because of the complexity.

Mitsuda has a talent of putting a story in the music alone. I heard the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, and was litterally blown away at the variety that was put forth. I then managed to fall in love more with the celtic sound of Chrono Cross. The point of his music is that you don't have to understand where the story of the game went to understand a general plot of the music itself.

[EC2151]

I think you'd really ought to give some focus to the actual hardware specs of the old systems- what was the soundcard of the C64 actually capable of? What was the same with the Atari, or the arcade machines? Look into that.

If you actually do some digging, you find that a lot of games that no one has ever really heard of have paved the way for more complex music design.

Ever hear of Monty on the Run?

Didn't think the C64 was capable of a lot?

This shit's all over the fucking place.

If Monty on the Run was actually a good game, it and its soundtrack would have been a big rival for Super Mario Bros. (the games were somewhat contemporary).

If you just want recommendations, Hip Tenaka is obviously someone to look into. As well, the Metroid II soundtrack is probably the first game OST to attempt an

, and this was on the original Gameboy.

[Bahamut]

OCR was started based off of the idea of a remixing community that only allowed C64 remixes. DJP felt that all games for all systems should have remixed music, not just one system. So he spun OCR off of the comic he made at the time, OverClocked, and now we have this.

Read his interview at my website for a better explanation.

That aforementioned C64 mix site is http://remix.kwed.org/ - I find it interesting that OCR has grown to be larger, but I guess that shouldn't be a surprise given how much more it encompasses.

[Rozovian]

If you just want recommendations, Hip Tenaka is obviously someone to look into. As well, the Metroid II soundtrack is probably the first game OST to attempt an

, and this was on the original Gameboy.

*Tanaka

The evolution of the arrangements would be interesting. What were the first melodies, how long were they? Then what? WHen did we get multiple songs in a game? What was the first boss music? What was the first multiple-song boss fight? What was the first character theme (as opposed to just this boss' battle music)? What was the first game to use recurring themes/leitmotifs (same melody in multiple songs, and where the melody has plot-significance)? Stuff like that.

[OceansAndrew]

Norg has already answered this in a completely awesome way:

[K.B.]

completely awesome

YES.

Thank you for that.

Someone more famous than I once noted that with the advent of the CD as a medium for games, file size - and for that matter hardware capability - was no longer the harsh limiting factor it once was. As soon as music could be streamed (as opposed to sequenced), the only barrier was how much the developer/publisher was willing to invest in and wait on its music. If they had the time and the cash, they could make an entire soundtrack of live music and make the game span an extra disk or two to accommodate it. DVD, Blu-Ray, and so on has made and will continue to make this more possible, but it was the CD that broke down the doors.

Not that this was the only notable development in vg music history, but it's a big one and you can hear the difference in games as they started to utilize this capability. Though it took years to change the music standard to streaming, it started fairly quickly. Case in point (as it's one I'm familiar with): Wild Arms, released at the two-year mark of the PS1, utilized several sequenced tracks with live instruments, most notably on the opening movie and the epilogue sequences. [For more details, check out the readme addendum on the minipsf library here (you can youtube the streaming tracks).] I wouldn't call Wild Arms a landmark soundtrack; it simply illustrates the point I'm making.

Also, something about Guilty Gear.

[Powerlord]

YES.

Thank you for that.

Someone more famous than I once noted that with the advent of the CD as a medium for games, file size - and for that matter hardware capability - was no longer the harsh limiting factor it once was. As soon as music could be streamed (as opposed to sequenced), the only barrier was how much the developer/publisher was willing to invest in and wait on its music. If they had the time and the cash, they could make an entire soundtrack of live music and make the game span an extra disk or two to accommodate it. DVD, Blu-Ray, and so on has made and will continue to make this more possible, but it was the CD that broke down the doors.

Not that this was the only notable development in vg music history, but it's a big one and you can hear the difference in games as they started to utilize this capability. Though it took years to change the music standard to streaming, it started fairly quickly. Case in point (as it's one I'm familiar with): Wild Arms, released at the two-year mark of the PS1, utilized several sequenced tracks with live instruments, most notably on the opening movie and the epilogue sequences. [For more details, check out the readme addendum on the minipsf library here (you can youtube the streaming tracks).] I wouldn't call Wild Arms a landmark soundtrack; it simply illustrates the point I'm making.

Also, something about Guilty Gear.

Even before that, though, some games had music as CD tracks. Whether they used real instruments or not, I can't say.

Some examples of this era: Sonic CD (both the US and EU/JP versions) (1993), Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (1993), Lunar: The Silver Star (1993).

Getting back to the original topic...

I don't know if any of these 3 papers are useful or not. They were collected at VGMusic.com over the years:

"Video game music: not just kid stuff" (Matthew Belinke, 1999)

"Levels of Sound (Eric Pidkameny, 2002)

"Quality Video Game Music Scores, Considering the Standards Set, and Personal Reflections" (Daniel DeCastro, 2007)

GameSpot also has two features on Video Game Music:

A Brief Timeline of Video Game Music, written in or around 2001.

A History of Video Game Music, written in or around 2004.

[Rozovian]

It just hit me, you could also ask this on demoscene forums. They probably know what the hardware can do, and what can be done with it. At least on the computer side of things. Dunno about consoles and the scene.

[Ravich]

That's a very broad topic. Can I ask what the research project is for?

[Liontamer]

That aforementioned C64 mix site is http://remix.kwed.org/ - I find it interesting that OCR has grown to be larger, but I guess that shouldn't be a surprise given how much more it encompasses.

Correction, it was http://c64audio.com, which hosted a collections of free arrangements back in the day. Now, it's a label.

[bio595]

That's a very broad topic. Can I ask what the research project is for?

Our project was to find an area of music we were interested in and ask a question about that area that answering would further our understanding and knowledge about that area.

[bio595]

Sweet, this is really awesome stuff.

I don't know that much about earlier consoles and games. My first console was he PS1, so I only know about more recent consoles.

[Arcana]

While I can't say I'm an expert in the era's of video game music, I can give a theory that I have come up with to describe what I feel has had the most influence on it.

A calculus teacher of mine once described "the holy trinity of classical music:" Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. Beethoven was seen as a composer who could wrap his mind around an idea and create a symphony. Mozart was able to instantly create music that was easily remembered, a true genius. Bach was a man who really put the emotion into the music.

I then applied that to whom I consider the "holy trinity of video game music:" Uematsu, Kondo, and Mitsuda.

Kondo has the gift of taking melodies and getting them recognised by a large amount of people. Look at Super Mario Bros. for example. I have seen parties stop just because somebody starts playing the SMB Overworld theme on a nearby piano. The parties then turn into a request for more. Kondo also did well for Legend of Zelda, which has just as much recognition as Mario.

Uematsu has music that matches the game very well. When playing FF7 for the first time, I actually felt like the theme from Cosmo Canyon actually belonged. Aeris's theme brought me to tears, although seeing her die brought me to tears as well, (because I wasted so much time leveling her up.) And I was thrown for a loop when I heard One Winged Angel, just because of the complexity.

Mitsuda has a talent of putting a story in the music alone. I heard the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, and was litterally blown away at the variety that was put forth. I then managed to fall in love more with the celtic sound of Chrono Cross. The point of his music is that you don't have to understand where the story of the game went to understand a general plot of the music itself.

Uematsu said specifically that he was greatly inspired by Koichi Sugiyama, of Dragon Quest fame, and that in Japan Sugiyama is considered the grandfather of video game music. Uematsu was specifically asked to produce something that sounded different from Sugiyama when he was hired for Final Fantasy.

But there are also little differences in video game music compared to when composing music for a movie for example. Hardware limitations, compression of files (MP3/OGG for example made a huge influence in PC and console music because it meant you could now have fully-recorded soundtracks), the need for looping, and the need to record enough music to last a player tens of hours (compared to the 2 hours or so for a movie soundtrack).

[Bahamut]

Correction, it was http://c64audio.com, which hosted a collections of free arrangements back in the day. Now, it's a label.

Ok I'm way off . Guess I need to lurk moar!