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Game Music Theory


XPRTNovice
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Neat, I'm completely butt at theory but I love reading stuff like this. He botched some composers though (Kondo didn't write Gusty Garden or Pikmin); sent him some corrections through the Tumblr askbox WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS

For anyone who wasn't around four years ago, we had a thread where Gario and some other folks did analysis like this: [thread]23673[/thread].

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Hey guys!

While I a big member of the OCRemix community I am slightly familiar with this website, and I'm super excited to see that you guys are fans of my blog so far. I saw that tumblr user geoffrey1218 linked to this thread when he reblogged one of my posts so I thought I'd stop by. Thanks so much for your support!

Addressing some of your concerns:

Addressing the text size -- The images sizes are big enough that, at their full resolution, they are easy to read, however when using the stupid Tumblr built-in image viewer the resolution gets shrunk to an uncomfortably small size. It's bugged me since day 1 and I really dislike the application :(

My solution has been opening the image in another tab by right-clicking the image in the image viewer and selecting "open image in a new tab," which will let you zoom in accordingly. Increasing the size of your browser will also increase the resolution in the viewer. It's not ideal, and I can see what I can do about increasing the size of the font again, but I am also trying to be space-efficient with my format.

I guess the short answer is I'll see what I can do, but until then here are some ways to alleviate the issue. :)

Secondly, there are a few reasons I haven't tried doing a video. The primary reason is that I have no freaking clue what I'm doing with video editing and it could end horribly. The second issue I'd run into is I don't know how I would format it and simultaneously be happy with the format. I'm currently very happy with the format as it allows people to digest the analysis at their own pace. I feel like putting as much analysis into a video form would be incredibly challenging, particularly as I can spend entire paragraphs on minute details that may pass in a few seconds, or possibly shorter. I like that people can listen to the track before reading, then listen critically along with the analysis. I like the flexibility.

Just some unformatted two cents on the topic, I would love to hear some ideas in regards to video content, especially if this takes off even more.

Lastly, @CHz, I tried to reply to you via Tumblr message (but again, that's another feature I'm not particularly fond of), but I will give all of my composers a check tomorrow to make sure they're correct. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, as I want this blog to be the best it can be :)

Before I stop my rambling (if you're read the blog you know that I'm overly verbose :S), I'd also like to remind y'all that I am still taking all requests and would love to see what you guys are interested in!

Also one last LAST thing, it sounds like some of you are interested in the concept but don't understand the theory, PLEASE let me know what concepts in particular you're having trouble with and I'll see if I can elaborate more on them in future posts!

Thanks for the love you guys, really appreciate it :)

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Have you thought about using pdfs instead of jpgs or whatever format the pictures are in? I think it would be a lot easier to read through as you could scroll instead of having to click through multiple pictures. It would also make resizing/reading the text a lot easier. Maybe you could keep the pictures so that they show up in the tumblr post, but also link to a pdf?

Anyway, love what I've seen so far and I'm looking forward to reading more! I don't know how many requests you get, but I guess mine would be either

or
from Valkyrie Profile if you ever want to do either of those.
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Lastly, @CHz, I tried to reply to you via Tumblr message (but again, that's another feature I'm not particularly fond of), but I will give all of my composers a check tomorrow to make sure they're correct. Thanks for bringing that to my attention, as I want this blog to be the best it can be :)

Yeah, messaging other users on Tumblr is kind of a pain. I think the intended method of communication between users is posting/reblogging, and I didn't think reblogging your posts just to correct some composers was entirely ideal. You don't have any contact info up, so I made do with what I could find! =D

I'd also like to remind y'all that I am still taking all requests and would love to see what you guys are interested in!

Since you're a jazz writer and professed fan of the Paper Mario: Sticker Star soundtrack, I'd love to see you pick apart the Bowser Snow Statue boss theme:

.
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Have you thought about using pdfs instead of jpgs or whatever format the pictures are in? I think it would be a lot easier to read through as you could scroll instead of having to click through multiple pictures. It would also make resizing/reading the text a lot easier. Maybe you could keep the pictures so that they show up in the tumblr post, but also link to a pdf?

In the past I've included the score in a separate .pdf file along with the image album, mostly because it's very easy for me to convert the score into .pdf and I figured people might be interested in such a thing (the first post or two were basically piano reductions, which I thought people might want to try playing the song themselves). However, how I do the annotations is I create image files from the score and manually edit them in MSPaint, and then I convert them to a .jpg to post online. I'll just have to experiment with ways to convert an image album into a .pdf file, and then find a reasonable hosting site (in the past I used Google Drive, will probably stick with that). Might take some time to iron out the kinks but I'll give it a go.

Meanwhile, I got those composer edits in, thanks CHz. I will double-check those from now on. I've also logged all the requests and I'll give them a listen right now :)

P.S. I forgot to mention that I did post last night! The Arena (Naked Mix) from Persona 4 Arena!

Edit: P.P.S. These requests are ridiculously good! I think I'm gonna spend a good chunk of next week checking these out :)

Edited by GameMusicTheory
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Great stuff you've got! For a request: I would love it if you would analyze

from Sonic & Knuckles - I can even provide the sheet music and a midi of it! http://sdrv.ms/16fTMmf . I made this a few years ago using a few midis lying around the internet, Finale 2003, and my ears. That should at least save you some time transcribing :). I look forward to more of your stuff! Edited by Sengin
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Great stuff! What's your background in music theory?

And have you ever thought about doing a long-form analysis of an entire soundtrack, along the lines of what my colleague Steven Reale does in this article?

Check out http://www.ludomusicology.org/ if you're interested in this sort of thing -- I'm sure that conference organizers would love to get more submissions!

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  • 3 weeks later...
Great stuff! What's your background in music theory?

And have you ever thought about doing a long-form analysis of an entire soundtrack, along the lines of what my colleague Steven Reale does in this article?

Check out http://www.ludomusicology.org/ if you're interested in this sort of thing -- I'm sure that conference organizers would love to get more submissions!

Thanks! I just recently graduated from University of North Texas with a bachelor's degree in jazz arranging, however every music department has a very intense music theory requirement, so I have a very well-rounded theory background, although more recently I've been focused on jazz theory from an arranger's perspective.

I kind of forgot this thread existed for a while, so sorry for the late reply >.> I had a chance to skim those links you posted and they seem very interesting. I would love to do a long-form analysis of more than a few game soundtracks. It may take a while as my schedule is quite packed as it is, but I definitely have some interest in a project like that.

Meanwhile, I'm working on tonight's post, and it's a request from this thread where you'll see my jazz background come into play :) Look out for it tonight!

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  • 2 weeks later...

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