Classical inspiration for remixes?

[Siermitch]

It's been in my mind every now and then to use a similar motif to one of Beethoven's piano sonatas, namely the lighter-themed ones, like the first movement of his 16th. Or Mozart's 16th piano sonata. Something jovial.

Not really sure of a good pairing though. I've tried similarly simplistic themes, like the song of storms, but it's not providing a good mesh.

Any ideas for a newcomer? I've been playing piano 5 years now and feel pretty confident in my abilities, but i'm really not sure of my prowess when it comes to more technically difficult pieces, like Beethoven's tempest sonata, no. 17.

Thanks.

[Nabeel Ansari]

There is a lot of game music around, and it's very hard to find themes that actually mesh well with the classical dogma.

Early video games had to create very interesting and engaging standalone motifs as a result of only having a few sound channels on the soundboards, like in NES and whatnot. A lot of video game music, harmonically speaking, is too distant from classical music to directly mashup. A lot of video game music uses Aeolian mode (natural minor, see Zelda, Mega Man) and a ton of syncopation. Mario music is all based on ragtime and jazz tendencies, so we see jumping basslines, blues scales, and a lot of swing.

Song of Storms particularly doesn't mesh with classical music because it's in Dorian and only uses a leading tone in its last chord.

If you want to mesh classical with vg music, you have to either find a theme that is written in the major key or classical minor (natural minor with a raised 7th) or reharmonize/rewrite a theme so that it conforms to classical tendencies. You also have to remove any syncopation if you go that route; but you should do it tastefully that it still sounds like a complete theme.

In short, you're going to have a hard time simply mashing themes together. You're going to have to slightly rewrite most examples of vgm because hardly any of it follows stylistic preferences of people like Beethoven and Mozart.

Take a look at 1:43. He takes a Chopin song written ~200 years ago and applies a very Final Fantasy battle-esque rhythm to it while keeping it the same notes mostly. That's the point; if you want to mesh two stylistically different things together, you should be able to either make the song you choose sound like 18th century music or make the 18th century music sound like the song you choose. They need to stylistically fit or they won't go well together.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

They need to stylistically fit or they won't go well together.

This is what I would suggest here. I would actually not try so hard as to directly reference classical music (unless it feels natural), which is generally quite different in melodic contour and rhythmic tendencies, but instead just imitate the playing style to remind people that it was an inspiration to your ReMix. For example, this ReMix feels like it has some Beethoven influence (Moonlight Sonata) at 2:15.

Edited July 30, 2014 by timaeus222

[Moseph]

A ReMix of the Sting Chameleon stage from Mega Man X that sounds similar to Barber's Adagio for Strings called "Adagio for Stings."

I actually looked into doing this recently. The Sting Chameleon melody really kind of meanders when you slow it way down, which is a plus, but even at a slow tempo, its harmonic rhythm is still so much faster than the Barber piece that I think it would be difficult to make it work well.

Edited July 30, 2014 by Moseph