Ethnomusicological Help!

[Phrygian_Gamer]

Hi OCR!

Long time fan, first (or maybe second) time poster.

I'm currently a senior working toward my degree in music composition and have been assigned a project that requires me to look into a specific musical culture.

Well naturally, I went to video game music.

This community has been so fantastic in bringing VGM to the general population (as well as offering me personally continued inspiration during my studies), and I want to be able demonstrate how OCR has helped both advocate and sustain the VGM fan-base (as well as popularize it!).

Is there anyway I can get you guys to answer some survey questions for me? It would really mean a lot.

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

3. How did you hear about OCR?

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

Thanks for helping me out guys, I really want to be able to show my academic environment what VGM and OCR has to offer.

You guys rule!

P.S. If for whatever reason you any of you guys/gals/aliens/abnormally colored anthropomorphic farm animals have any questions, or would be up for a personal interview (that would be AMAZING if you could) send me a message here on OCR, or send me a message through my website: http://phrygian.weebly.com/

Thanks again

And keep rockin' \m/

[BardicKnowledge]

I'm a musicology graduate student at the University of Minnesota, and am happy to do an interview if you like. Hit me up at @BardicKnowledge on Twitter or DM me.

In any case,

1) My first encounter with game audio coincides with my first encounter with games themselves -- a Dig Dug clone from the early 1980's named "Digger" for an old model IBM XT. I can still clearly recall the BGM from that game. To put the time in perspective, that computer had 512 KB (yep, kilobytes) of RAM.

2) I've been a fan of game music since #1, above.

3) The younger brother of a personal friend from high school introduced me to the site in 2002. I lurked for a while and joined the forums in fall of 2004, my sophomore year of college.

4) Many of us are avid board game and card game players as well. The forums themselves are a non-musical example of our collective culture...what exactly are you trying to reach with this question?

5) Game audio has greatly affected my life -- my professional career revolves around it, and I have made a great number of friends because of a common interest in VGM. Similarly, I've a number of good friends in the OCR community, for which we all have game audio to thank.

One warning: I'd suggest that "game audio" does not represent a singular culture. It transcendes genre in the same way that film audio does. Even across a single film franchise -- for instance, the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- the audio can vary wildly. No one would ever mistake Alan Silvestri's orchestral score to Captain America: The First Avenger for the rock-heavy soundtrack to Iron Man, for instance.

[Pl511]

Hey there! I'm a student currently studying for a maths and music degree so maybe I can help a little. As of yet I've only had a single OCReMix, and that's currently still not posted, but I guess I could help a little.

1. My first encounter with VGM was when I got my first Gameboy with a copy of Pokémon Blue. I was pretty young at the time and consider Pokémon Blue to be the game that led me to love video-games, a somewhat life-consuming hobby that I've had since that point.
   
2. The first time I started loving VGM was with Pokémon Mystery Dungeon's soundtrack. It was the first of many to follow where I found myself playing particular levels over and over simply for the music, something I hadn't ever thought about doing before that game. Things like Pokémon RSE also are memorable as being the reason I bought my first set of headphones so I could listen while playing without annoying anybody else.
   
3. My first point where I actively became an avid listener to OCR's stuff (and VGM in general) was when I discovered bLiNd's Final Fantasy XIII remix 'Blue Skies' after searching for the FFXIII soundtrack. This discovery also led me to the rest of OCR. I'd loved a lot of soundtracks of games before that, but at that point I developed a massive interest in this area and this inspired me to make my own arrangements and compositions. I'd say that to this day that remix has been my favourite track of all time because of how perfect and expertly crafted it is.
   
4. I don't really contribute a huge amount to the OCR community other than the occasional arrangement and remix, but I think the community as a whole is incredibly welcoming and friendly, with a large amount of people open to discussion of just about everything that could be discussed. It's a strange feeling reading threads where some of your favourite ReMixers are talking about things completely unrelated to video-games, but I'd say it's one of the best forums for finding friendly interaction that usually doesn't get overly angry.
   
5. Recently I abandoned ideas of doing a Maths degree after years of wanting to do it because I knew that my dream is now to be a composer instead. A lot of this has come from the talent I've seen displayed by members of this community, and I'm striving to use every arrangement or remix I've heard or made in creating my own music and style, so I have OCR to thank for a lot of my ambitions and for a lot of the paths I've chosen to go down academically.
   

[Yami]

1) Well, I think my first VGM experience must have been, when I got Megaman for the Gameboy. I instantly liked most of the music.

2) Considering myself as a VGM fan came when I really wanted to play Secret of Mana mainly because of the music which I really liked. There will be additional details when I answer #5

3) Well, my ex-girlfriend liked VGM as much as myself and she sent me some OCR material in 2004. In 2005, a while after we broke up, I remembered it and looked for it myself. And I'm here since (at least as a listener)

4) Well, the community is always helpful regardless of the topic (for example look at the discussion about depression)

5) Ok, bear with me, because I feel there's a lot of interconnection of different things in my life:

As I already mentioned, I wanted to play SoM again, I heard about emulazors. Because of this I met a lot of people online, I was able to play Chrono Cross, which changed my life (literally), and I found OCR, which inspired me to making music myself

[MindWanderer]

1. I remember noticing VGM in an extremely primitive form from arcades--I found the minimal music of Rastan quite catchy, and I'd hang out in the video arcade of my local roller skating rink watching people play and getting that tiny musical phrase stuck in my head. Pitfall II for the Atari 2600 was the first game I remember playing that had a real, catchy "score" (even if that score was just variations on one song).
   
2. I realized that I enjoyed VGM, and remixes, as music in junior high. I put a tape recorder up against my TV to record Final Fantasy IV's Black Chocobo theme, and Beginnings and Vampire Killer from Super Castlevania IV. It didn't dawn on me until just now that all three of those are remixes!
   
3. I've been browsing for VGM remixes since college (late 90's). I believe it was rpgamer.com that used to have MIDIs of RPG music available for download, and I had quite a collection of them. The Castlevania Dungeon was also a major source of music for me. I'm not sure exactly when I noticed OCR as a specific site, but I've had remixes from OCR in my music collection that must date to within a couple of years of its founding. Short answer: just Yahoo searches for specific game music, probably Final Fantasy or Castlevania at the time.
   
4. Not much. There are a few, small groups of friends that have formed for non-musical socialization, but I'm not among those. There's some off-topic chat, but it's pretty random.
   
5. VGM is music to me. I listen to music from OCR, game OST's, and other remix and cover artists every day, almost to the exclusion of all other music. It's familiar and comforting, but exciting at the same time. The music played at my wedding was 90% VGM. I went to the More Friends concert at Universal Citywalk many years ago, and when they played the FF main theme I had to actually fight the urge to stand up and put my hand over my heart. I'm a gamer, and VGM is the music of my culture, no less than hymns and contemporary Christian music are to someone religious, or Mariachi is to a Latino. It's a huge part of who I am.

[The Coop]

Ooooooooooo... essay questions!

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

My first memorable encounter with the bloops and bleeps of yesteryear was with my Atari XE's

. It has a funk-inspired, jazzy intro song that's catchy as hell, and got stuck in my head for a while afterward.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

I probably became a VGM fan after hearing the soundtrack to the arcade game, Darius. More specifically, "Captain Neo" ("Cosmic Air Way" was a close second). This was back in the mid-80s, and that song really captured my attention. It's short, but good and memorable (enough that I eventually did a remix of it... which is on this site). And while the rest of the soundtrack was good as well, it was that particular song that really got me paying attention to VGM. Then came my SEGA Genesis and games like Thunder Force II and Ghouls 'N Ghosts to cement the love.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

I heard about OCR back when I was a relative newbie on the now dead version of the website, VGMix. It was the beginning of 2002, and I'd been submitting remixes on VGMix for a couple of months when someone on the forums there mentioned OCR as a website similar to VGMix. I came by and checked OCR out, and eventually signed up in May of 2002.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

Well, it kind of depends on what you want out of the website. If you just want to make remixes without having to potentially butt heads with the OCR judging standards, you have various fan competitions and occasional projects like "An OverClocked Christmas" that aren't official site projects, and thus are open to everyone, regardless of their talent level. There are signature making threads, where people can use their artistic talents to produce small images for people to use on the forums. There also used to be fan art competitions, where you'd have a couple of weeks to draw something relating to a game/game series. There are Workshop forums to post original music and remixes where you can get feedback, a forum called "Off Topic" to just shoot the shit about anything, and of course, all the officially posted remixes and remix albums to grab.

Then there are all the discussions taking place that range from talking about games and music, to helping people with relationships, various kinds of mental or physical illnesses and treatments, even finding answers to niggling little things that bug you sometimes (like trying to remember a movie or game title). The forums are filled with topics that range all over the place, so even if you're not into game music or remixing, you'll still likely find something to talk about at least once in a while.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

VGM got me to pick up a keyboard so I could learn to play the game music I liked, and that led to me writing my own original music. As for OCR, it was in the then-called "Unmoderated" forum that I first learned how to do pixel art (for a signature I wanted to use), and I've since gotten better at pixel work. So basically, the two things introduced me to a pair of new areas to be creative in.

[Brandon Strader]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

I played games ever since I was a little baby. Mega Man came out the year I was born and I played that, and I played Sonic the Hedgehog series a lot on the Genesis. But I don't remember actually encountering or noticing VGM until Final Fantasy VII on the PS1. It made me cry when Aeris died.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

I think I started considering myself a vgm fan when I discovered OCR and started getting social on OCR maybe in 2001 or so. That's when it actually became listening to vgm as music specifically rather than just hearing it in games.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

I don't remember. I was probably yahoo searching for game music midis or mp3s.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

It's like the Mafia but with less rules.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

Taught me to do what I want and love it even if I'm not appreciated. It makes me happy, so I do it.

[ad.mixx]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

I started noticing VGM on my gameboy. I'd let the Pokemon Gold Title theme go on forever while listening to it close to my ear. Family said I was wasting the battery, but I really enjoyed the music. From there I'd just listen to the music while playing a lot, pausing games at certain points and what not. I just grew up with a unique appreciation for music that most didn't have.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

I just started listening to a lot of VGM and downloading soundtracks randomly one day. It was a progressive thing but it probably started sometime in high school. Was fun.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

Youtube videos. Saw a video with Passing of a Blue Crown in it, but didn't actually know it was from OCR. Eventually found a Pokemon remix by ProtoDome on this site (by random searching) and fell in love with the site.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

Not sure I completely understand the question, but I think fan art is pretty close. It's also a breeding ground of sorts for future VGM musicians.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

Inspired me to learn and make music. About 1 1/2 years after finding the site I was posted. It was pretty awesome : D

Edited April 15, 2014 by urdailywater

[timaeus222]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

I had many before I actually really paid attention to it. The first one I paid attention to was MegaMan Battle Network 6. I wasn't a remixer yet, so all it did was inspire me to do game music modding to import external songs into that game (and tweak instruments to compensate for the newly assigned voicegroups).

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

I was truly a VGM fan when I heard my first OC ReMix from DarkeSword, called "Beamsabre Beat ZERO v2" in 2007.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

In 2009 I went back to OCR after hearing DarkeSword's remix to download two remixes per week (this was back when OCR published remixes often!) to use in a Pokemon Crystal playthrough on youtube until I got through all 39 parts, so I "re-heard" about OCR, but I don't think I really thought much about OCR the first time I was there for like, a minute.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

There's a lot... TheGuitahHeroe golfs, I do martial arts, graphics design, web design, and video production, and we have plenty of graphic artists. I dunno, there's a bunch.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

Everything. VGM got me much more attuned to any type of music, and OCR helped me and everyone here improve their music production and arrangement skills, oh, let's say, a LOT. I don't think I'd be listening to interesting music without OCR.

[Gario]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

I grew up on the NES - I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't involved with it, and I honestly can say I've always enjoyed it to some degree. Perhaps not the first, but one moment that really sticks out is the opening for Mega Man 3 - I danced to it quite a bit as a kid, and I don't regret it for a moment.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

Hmm, that's a toss-up between listening to the music of Mega Man 3 and Silver Surfer. Both of those really defined me as someone who loved VGM music. Later, games like Final Fantasy 4/6 and Chrono Trigger further cemented my love for the genre.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

As odd as it sounds, I thought it would be really cool if someone would make a website that could compile people's arrangements for video games rather than trying to randomly find arrangements on Limewire/Napster/whatever filesharing site was popular at the time. I did some research to see if someone did this already and found OCR - pretty much did precisely what I was hoping for, and I've been hooked ever since (~2005).

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

If Community is representative of OCR's musical side, the Off-Topic is the ever vibrant community of OCR's other various talents. I've seen incredible writing talent, great artwork (pixel and otherwise), as well as well thought out debates and philosophy (as well as some not-so-well thought out things, lol).

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

I write and study VGM music actively when I can, so I'd say it shapes what I do, as well as how I enjoy my life. I can't say it's the only thing that introduced me into the world of performing and writing music, it's certainly a huge factor in getting me involved in it actively and publicly. While I've always had a deep passion for VGM, OCR has given me a consistent outlet for further exploring my passion.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

Street Fighter Alpha's music was probably the first soundtrack that really caught my ear as a kid. Totally blew me away. The music just had this awesome groove and style that I hadn't really heard before. I'd say that the music is pretty much what made me a Street Fighter fan.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

After Street Fighter I started paying attention to the music of every game I would play. Jet Moto 2 and Twisted Metal were the first discs I had that spent more time in my parent's stereo than in the Playstation.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

I heard this epic Street Fighter 2010 remix on YouTube and I found my way here.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

Insanely good artists hang out here, I've seen a dancer or two, writers, actors, voice artists etc.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

It has actually affected my life immensely. Since hanging out here I've started composing in a lot of different genres, got to write music for some indie-games and an upcoming short-film, learned more about music technology, collaborated with some really talented people. Last year, I came to realize that what I was studying in college wasn't what I really wanted. I kicked around a lot of different ideas and I finally decided that life is too short to worry about studying "normal people" stuff and for the past month I've been studying digital audio/music production as well as music business and honestly it's turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made. I've learned a LOT in the past month. Video game music and the OCR community were definitely influential in making that choice. I've actually made a lot of friends just through an interest in VGM as well.

[Mak Eightman]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

NES Lunnar ball(or something), when I was 7 or so. Effect on me? Well, I wish that music stop!

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

"Battle toads and Double Dragon" and Konio Kun soccer/hockey. I was 8 or something.

Nekketsu was a mind blowing stuff, not only music.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

In 2009 oct I came in this weird world called internet(first time in my life). I was searching for Contra Hard corps covers and found AMT's wip. Then suddenly I found Goat's Contra RMX. Searching for more showed me OCR.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

Not sure I understand this question.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

VGM did nothing to my life. Actually I'm not a VGM fan or fan at all..

OCR helped me to create music I like and listen to others great music. That is why I'm so thankful to this community and trying to participate in projects.

Unfortunately I'm represented here with only 3 remixes, which not the best examples of my "likes". My best representation still waiting in projects list.

[Crulex]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

My first VGM experience was playing my cousins NES and my first video game experience, Super Mario Bros. I didn't really notice the first stage theme, but I remember once I got to the next stage underground, that the music was hilarious to me at the time for a lack of apparent "normalness". I was used to music never really have a pause or weird characters like slightly altered notation like the underground theme, and so it became memorable like anything humorous or fun does for someone at the age of five. So I guess sort story would be that the effect was enjoyment and humor. I still didn't think much of it until about a year later with DKC2.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

I actually became a fan of actual VGM when I listened to the soundtrack of Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (as I said in my last response). I'm not sure what created that "spark" for me, but he entire game made me a fan of video game music because the music fit the mood of the stages and was just so well made that I never considered it video game music from the point on, just simply music. And I started paying more attention to the music in games that I played after that.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

I read about it in a Game Informer article. Being a fan of VGM, I naturally wanted to see this site that had ReMixes of game music for free and I was hooked from the moment I found it.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

I've seen plenty of non-musical work from the OCR community including creative writing, advice on life from people who care about others, some people do martial arts, some people debate existential questions and politics, fan art for sure. We even have some arts and crafts around here! OCR was built on the love of VGM, but you can find a boat load of other talents here. It's a large community of talented folks, what can I say?

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

It's basically taken over my musical interests. I still enjoy music from normal radio broadcasts and such, but nine times out of ten, when I listen to a song or any music, it's come out of this site's posted mixes, albums mixes or compo works. And I guess the reason why OCR has been so prevalent in my musical interests nowadays is because VGM sound tests originally did that for me as a kid. And personally speaking, VGM allowed me to experience what it was like to really enjoy music as a whole, and OCR refined that love.

Hope this helps a little. Best of luck in your studies, Phrygian_Gamer!

[Phrygian_Gamer]

Thank you everyone so much for all of your insightful comments!

I can't believe I got this much of a response in only 48 hours. Every experience I've had with OCR has been an immensely positive one and you guys just keep raising the bar.

I'm hoping to start remixing as soon as I finish school, it's unfortunately eating up a lot of my time, but I can't wait to join this kickass community!

[Chernabogue]

1. What first encounter with VGM? What kind of effect do you remember it having on you?

The music of Bug! (PC) got me into VGM. I was 8 or so. Then, it's Castlevania (especially Super Castlevania IV at my cousin's) and much later Kingdom Hearts, who brought me back into VGM. I enjoyed a lot their music.

2. At what point do you remember considering yourself a VGM fan (or OCR fan) in relation to your first VGM experience?

When I started downloading OSTs and searching for remixes. Around 2006, I began a small collection and started coming to OCR anonymously.

3. How did you hear about OCR?

I thought OC ReMix was a kind of DJ or some stuff like this. I was young.

4. What do you feel would be some non-musical examples (fan art, videos, interpretive dance, horse racing, rock-throwing) of the OCR society?

I'd love an OCR-like website for video.

5. How has VGM and OCR affected your life?

A lot, yes, a lot. I gave up on doing music a long time ago, and OCR gave me the motivation to start again. And today, posted mixer, composer for my short films, and happy community member.