To Another World and Back
games music concert review
It’s halfway through 2009, and I think by now it is a given that the gaming community as a whole has a soft spot for Nobuo Uematsu and his 22 years of notable compositions. Ever since 1989’s Symphonic Suite in fact, there have been concerts held of his music. Children in Japan’s elementary schools learn Theme of Love from Final Fantasy IV as part of their standard repertoire. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of remixes and arrangements of his music from nearly every game he’s composed for. People have, within good reason, acknowledged that this man can write great music.
Distant Worlds is an evolution of a concert series that conductor and orchestrator Arnie Roth started back in 2004, inspired by the 20020220 and Tour de Japon concerts in Japan. Originally called Dear Friends, Distant Worlds marked the decision to tour world-wide as opposed to just within the States. Last night, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend one of the performances in Seattle of the latest iteration.
Kicking off the concert right from the get-go, Uematsu himself came out on stage to an uproar of applause and standing ovation. Even without playing a note, the sold-out Beneroya Hall was on its feet to acknowledge the composer as he took his seat down about 10 rows ahead of where I was sitting. From there, standard concert etiquette welcomed the conductor Arnie Roth on stage and the first piece began.
Liberi Fatali from FFVIII seems to be a standard concert opener now, as it has lead off nearly every one up to this point I believe. It was a great opener for the game proper, and it still is a good statement to begin with: strong, but not too elongated. Amusingly, this was the chorus’s only piece for the first half of the concert, so after Fatali they took a seat and remained for the rest of the half.
Moving right along into To Zanarkand from FFX, the piano soloist collaborated with the orchestra on a gorgeous arrangement accompanied with an array of cutscenes from the game, ending fittingly with Yuna dancing over the water for the piece’s conclusion. Afterward, an interesting segue appeared on screen: In-game footage from FFVIII, which got a laugh out of the audience. The party ran across a bridge… until, yep, in comes Don’t Be Afraid, the battle theme from said title accompanied with a battle montage on the screen. Props for the clever transition, though the arrangement itself is the same tried and true one from the orchestral arranged album that I know so well.
One of the most effective video accompaniments of the evening was for the next piece, Aerith’s Theme. Also a familiar arrangement, but the choice of scenes that accompanied it were a very strong accent to the music, concluding with the Holy materia slowly dropping down the stairs and into the water. Following that, a classic medley of tunes from Final Fantasies I through III. Sadly, the on-screen representation was of their PSone remakes and not the original NES titles. However, the gorgeous CG cutscenes from the DS remake of III greatly made up for it in the latter parts.
At this point, I realized that the first half was only half-way done! Like most orchestra performances, the pre-intermission had been greatly front-loaded. A guest classical guitarist (not credited in the program) arrived for the next two pieces: a sweeping arrangement of Dear Friends from FFV and an incredibly epic Vamo ‘alla Flamenco from FFIX. It was quite possibly the best version of it I’ve heard arranged, even though the guitar parts were somewhat drowned out by the orchestra during its climactic moments. Post-concert of course I realized that both arrangements were from the 20020220 concert, though of course I’d never heard them live until now.
The final three pieces of the first half were my favorites up until that point: Beginning with Love Grows, the orchestral version of FFVIII’s Eyes on Me, the arrangement fairly standard from the orchestral album again. However, the entire second half of the piece was accompanied with the scene from VIII’s ending with Laguna and Raine; very fitting considering the song’s significance within the game itself.
The orchestra then launched right into the wonderful Ronfaure arrangement from Tour de Japon. Ronfaure is one of my favorite pieces composed by Uematsu, despite its simplicity in being just the background music for a starter area in an MMORPG. Perhaps it’s because I heard it endlessly while fighting myriad rabbits and giant worms. Concluding the first half was the Final Fantasy Prologue accompanied by a montage of footage from Final Fantasies I through XII (amusing, considering Uematsu’s minimal involvement in 12).
After the intermission, another classic opening theme provided the second half with an appropriate beginning. That opening being, of course,FFVII’s Opening - Bombing Mission. Afterward, an expanded choral arrangement of Fisherman’s Horizon from FFVIII was played. This one caught me by surprise, as it definitely wasn’t the standard arrangement that I’d heard often. It was an improvement however, featuring the choir in a far greater fashion than just the opening and ending of the piece.
For the next piece, the titular Distant Worlds, mezzo-soprano Angela Niederloh took the stage. The combination of Memoro de la Stono, FFXI’s opening theme, with the gorgeous vocals in Distant Worlds really shows how far Uematsu has come as a composer. To me, it still stands as some of his best work. Niederloh did an exceedingly powerful job at vocalizing the latter half of the piece as well, her deep mezzo tone a perfect match for the piece;more so than the pop renditions other vocalists have given it. Also powerful were the visual accompaniments taken from the ending of Chains of Promathia. It surprised me that they’d pay homage to one of the lesser-known stories of the FF series.
Unfortunately, the following two pieces were overshadowed by the previous performance; standard arrangements of FFVIII’s Man With the Machine Gun and the classic Swing de Chocobo. Great arrangements in their own rights, but they were a bit of a lull in the mood going from one operatic song to the next. Machine Gun also had some unfortunate issues with the drum kit parts, the drummer not quite getting the feel enough to stay with the orchestra 100%. It was all remedied, however…
I’ve always wanted to see the opera scene from FFVI performed live, and thankfully Angela Niederloh took the stage again along with Stephen Rumph and Michael Delos to join the orchestra in an epic performance of the operetta Maria and Draco. They even went so far as to conclude the opera itself, a section that in the game was interrupted by the fight with Ultros the octopus. The singers did admirable performances, and as a whole the sequence was my favorite of the evening.
Closing out the program proper was, again overshadowed by the epic operatic nature of the previous piece, a great performance of Terra’s Theme from FFVI. It was, unfortunately, covered up in the latter half with credits for the concert which everyone applauded to rather than letting the piece be performed.
Of course, there was one notable piece lacking from the program notes. Everyone knew it was coming, since it’s a staple encore of nearly every single orchestral game concert. I would have rolled my eyes at its inevitable inclusion, but…Uematsu took the stage before the encore, where conductor Arnie Roth egged him on to sing something. He took a breath, as if to start, but being the goofball that he is, feigned embarrassment and leaned on Roth’s shoulder “No! I can’t do it!” Upon which, Roth suggested that he go sing in the choir… which he did! Scampering back to the right of the Soprano section, Uematsu joined the choir for their performance of FFVII’s epic One-Winged Angel, belting out the chants right along with the rest.
Overall, the performance was an extremely enjoyable experience. The Seattle Symphony was on the top of their game (so to speak), and the soloists all treated the material with the same degree of professionalism as any other classical performance. The Seattle Choral Company, while lost in the background for the first half, laid out a powerful performance in the pieces that they were featured in; specifically the opening strains of Memoro de la Stono.
You may ask, hey, you linked to basically all of these pieces being played on YouTube. Couldn’t I just watch these and be done with it? Well yes, but there’s something that’s simply special about a live orchestral performance that can’t be topped by any recording or video. If you have the chance, I would absolutely recommend paying for good tickets to see this concert live if it comes your way. I could go into a long drawn-out ramble about the decline of interest in orchestra attendence, but sitting in the audience of a sold-out concert hall with as diverse a crowd as you could come by… I felt encouraged that the medium isn’t lost just yet.
Little Robot in the Big City
indie games watch
Adventure games were once a staple of the PC gaming scene. For me, actually, it was the solid basis of all things PC game. Whether it was getting absolutely boggled by the puzzles in Myst, or getting freaked out by the ambiance in 7th Guest or The 11th Hour, or laughing my ass off to the Secret of Monkey Island, or being blown away by what simple imagery and brilliant storytelling could do with The Longest Journey. It’s a shame that the art form of the adventure game has fallen by the wayside in recent years.
Thankfully, there are some independent developers out there such as Amanita Design that are putting their all into crafting new inventive point and click experiences. Machinarium is one such game that looks absolutely breathtaking. Set in a grungy futuristic robot world, it apparently is the story of a little guy thrown in the trash heap, adventuring back into the big city to find his robo-girlfriend. Along the way, he can squish or stretch his mid-section to various heights to aid him in solving all kinds of puzzles to proceed on his way.
So far the game is looking great, and in motion absolutely backs up its painted look; one fear I had since seeing the screenshots. Also of note, especially in the preview video, is the music. With all luck, the game will be releasing this October, and I’ll be sure to play it through and report back on how it holds up!
A Tale of Caves and Mimigas
indie games watch late to the party
About four and a half years ago, one guy (Daisuke Amaya) nicknamed Pixel put together an entirely self-made retro action-adventure game called Cave Story. Through the great efforts at Aeon Genesis, an English translation patch was made with the blessings of its original creator. About a month ago, I finally realized its existence.
One thing particularly striking about the game is how it melds its personality through the combination of its various elements: gameplay, story, visuals and sound; all created by the same person. In the same way that Everyday Shooter was a personal reflection on Jonathan Mak, its creator, Cave Story is certainly a reflection of Pixel. Though the characters are small and cute, its music up-beat and catchy, there’s a smart story being played out between the various creatures that populate the game’s scenario. It’s not just a series of progressively more difficult levels with bosses at the end, but rather an evolution of Metroid’s game design fused with a memorable cast you might find in an RPG.
When considering independent games, it’s easy to get caught up in the notion that it’s all amateur acts until someone gets noticed and consequently published. Certainly a lot of the crowd populating Xbox Indie Games (formerly Community Games) doesn’t help kill this notion; most of the popular titles I see rising to the top consist of programmer graphics and sound in need of a better ear. Yet, this is the image of indie games that is becoming popularized due to the ubiquity of console gaming. However, there are gems like Cave Story that suddenly appear and become classics among gamers in the know.
If Cave Story had been released either on the NES or SNES in their eras, I believe that we’d be seeing a huge following today with a multi-faceted franchise backing it up. It’s one of those games that you could have sworn you’ve played years ago. The music is instantly recognizable and hummable the moment you come back to the game after a few days away. It’s everything that makes me appreciate games, and for some miraculous reason it’s also legitimately free. If only there were more people of such high standards of creativity and generosity. Absolutely support Pixel and give his game a shot!
Bear Likes to Fly
games music
A common ramble of mine is to go off on some tangent about how big-budget games are drifting more and more away from what made them great, and how game composers in the west are more and more being drafted from TV composers, film composers, and existing recording artists.
Well, please allow me to retract that statement just a little bit and make a sole exception.
Ever since I started watching Battlestar Galactica, I looked at the credits and thought “hee, the composer’s name is Bear”. But then as the seasons went on, I realized just how awesome the music was. There are certain key episodes where the soundtrack just wowed me beyond anything I’d heard for a TV show before.
That said, when it was announced that Bear McCreary was writing the music for an upcoming game I’m looking forward to called Dark Void, I was torn. In the same way I was for my other favorite TV composer Greg Edmonson being called on to write Uncharted. However, seeing Bear’s announcement blog post about it all totally shed any of that away. The guy knows games, and their history.
Not only is he not totally alien to the concept of games, he’s a huge Megaman nut, even naming and labeleing all his hard drives as characters from the series! And then, to seal the deal, he goes and creates an 8bit Megaman-style version of the Dark Void main theme. You’ve sold me, Mr. Bear. Write for as many games as you please!
Also of note are three samples from the actual game… one of which features an Ondes Martenot! Doubly sold.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
chiptunes music
Backseat Driver ©2009 Leif Chappelle
Another week, another chiptune! Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m officially one week off due to a bombastic weekend that involved much less time holed in my studio and more spent outside in the gorgeous weather. Not complaining, though! Anyways… With this ‘tune’s creation in mind, I do have another 8-bit ramble in me.
When writing chiptunes today, we often forget exactly what those hardware limitations were back when the games were actually being created. Yes, we have a whopping four tracks available to write in… But, there’s also those pesky things called sound effects to worry about. Not only does the music need to fit in there, so does everything else audible!
You’ve probably noticed at times, playing an NES game, and certain parts of the music cut out. There’s precisely the reason. Wonder why racing games never had in-race music? Likely both Square channels were being used for engine sounds: yourself, and others passing by. Most commonly used for sound effects was the Noise channel, since it creates assortments of white noise that can be shaped by filters into something vaguely recognizable: sword slashes, things hitting the ground, etc. Because of this, though, compositions had to be even more limited. Or, at the very least, compensate for the potential interruption.
The Noise channel also produces one of the most potent sources of percussion for a track. The problem being, if sound effects are getting mapped to it, what you end up with is a very spotty beat that keeps getting interrupted by player actions. As a result, not many tracks used percussion very often. It was saved for special moments that perhaps didn’t require very many noise-generated effects. Games like the Mega Man series however, used the tonal channels for pretty much all of their sound effects, allowing for full percussion and much more rhythmic tracks.
Thankfully, for those just interested in the pure creation of music using those limitations, all four tracks can be used to the furthest extent of their possibilities. In the track above, I used a variety of techniques—most just found by tinkering around—to create what could be construed as as drum kit, breathing, and wonky electrical chaos. The other trick, of course, is creating all of this with a single line of notes without any overlapping bits. Counter-rhythms and the like need to be built around the concept of taking turns playing, which leads to an interesting puzzle of creating the illusion of multiple percussion elements playing together.
It’s a puzzle I’m still working out, but I’m decently amused by what came out of this track. Enjoy!
Greetings!
introductory words
Well hello there! If you’ve somehow found your way over here, you must be in the know. For that, you automatically get five kudos points valid at any Woodland Alien outpost within the local star cluster. That said, this website is the only one that exists, so you’ve certainly lucked out!
In any case, I am extremely proud to finally launch the official website for Woodland Alien Music. On the various pages you will be able to find all sorts of blog posts, a music gallery — all of which are subscribable through RSS — information and achivements earned so far, as well as a very handy contact form for all your communicative needs.
The site — and coincidentally rebranding of the former leifchappelle.com website — has been in the works for months, so hopefully all the hard work has paid off! Feel free to subscribe, read articles, listen to music, post comments, or drop me a line and tell me what you think.
Enjoy!
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
chiptunes music
Celluloid ©2009 Leif Chappelle
After posting last week’s article on my exploration of chiptunes, commenter Kurt posted an excellent reply about something I had yet to cover in the first installment. He mentioned the compartmentalized nature of chiptunes and how they are less about the actual physical notes written and more about how they’re implemented. This is absolutely true. With this week’s installment in what I’m hoping will become a weekly or bi-weekly look at the world of lo-fi music creation, we’ll be looking at exactly how the modular nature of chiptunes and trackers can hinder or aid the writing process.
As with any tracker, chiptunes are created in a format that is optimized to be the most efficient way possible to create music using as little memory as possible. Since size was a huge constraint, this format of music storage and playback was indispensable while games were still hosted in a cartridge-based medium.
For example: While the mp3 attached to this article is 3MB in size, the entire song when saved as a .nsf (nintendo sound file) is all of 8KB.
The way this is achieved is because of how the music is generated and stored. For each sound file that is played back through the NES, there are three major categories by which the song is stored:
- Instrument data
- Pattern data
- Frame Order data
Within the instrument data, each modified wave form is given a set of parameters and assigned a hexadecimal identity. For example, the piece I wrote contains several major instruments: Vibrato Lead and Vibrato Echo, my two main melody/harmony instruments; Plain Triangle, my bare-bones bass synth; and a variety of drum settings. By applying filters such as volume curves, arpeggio, pitch bending, and duty cycle, with just a few parameters one can create an arsenal of different variations on the four channels available.
Within the pattern data, each of the four tracks are assigned cellular ‘patterns’, essentially one or more measures of music, that can be played back in any order. Based on how many rows per pattern are designated in the settings, each beat is given either a note value, a null value or left blank. Each beat can also be assigned an instrument, volume, and up to three effects. As a musical example, a whole measure of 4/4 time would be given 16 rows if you want the least possible value be 16th notes, or 32 rows for 32nd notes.
Finally, in the frame order data, each pattern is assigned to a frame (all four tracks playing a specific pattern). The order becomes a matrix of how everything will play back chronologically. For example, here is a snippet from the piece above during the 1st verse:
0A | 04 05 00 02
0B | 05 04 01 03
0C | 08 08 00 02
0D | 05 04 01 03
Now, to understand better, know that the numbers for each column relate only to the channel that is playing. The far-left numbers correspond to the frame number. In regular notation, this might be the measure number. The easiest channels to comprehend are the Bass (channel 3) and Drums (channel 4): The bass has a two measure pattern it is repeating: 00, then 01. So do the drums: 02, 03, etc. The melody, however (channel 1) has a slightly different pattern. Its first and third measures are different, but it returns to an identical phrase in between, making its melodic line an ABCB pattern. By acknowledging these repeating elements in the music, the composer can save on space and call back phrases without the need to create them anew.
I hope everyone is still awake! With all that said, go ahead and take a listen to the attached mp3 and see if you can’t identify how the compartmentalized nature of the format is being used and in what way. I’ll be back next weekend or the following one for another bit of passed-along explorations!
As an addendum, big props (which I’ve already given via email and twitter, but more doesn’t hurt!) to Jeremy Parish over at 1up for the plug on last week’s article!
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
chiptunes music
Maelstrom ©2009 Leif Chappelle
You may be tempted to hit play, but hear me out first:
I’ve long been praising chiptunes on this blog — for good reason, mind — without actually taking the dive myself. There’s one thing that can be said about music, non-tangible as it is: It’s hard to really understand at its core until you get your hands dirty and do it yourself. You can appreciate it, you can jump up and down in excitement at a rockin’ chorus, but understanding comes from doing.
Does that sound too pretentious? I hope not!
Granted, the doing can be applied to performance just as much as it is creation. Singing your favorite song or melody can act as a form of performance that enhances understanding. Thing is, with stuff of a digital medium it’s a bit difficult to perform unless you’re a professional synthesizer operator. (Props to those folks.)
That said, this week I decided to take that dive and try my hands at tracking out some old-school chiptunes. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but lacked the knowledge or experience to wrap my head around it. Thankfully, I found a lovely little program called BoyScout that enabled me gain just that: a toolbelt filled with sound emulation from the late GameBoy.
Not really a looker, is it?
The above are two screenshots from a portion of the BoyScout interface, the left-most being a single cell of music data from one of the instruments, the right-most being the overall sequencer for all four tracks.
Knowing my game music history helped a bit with this one: The original GameBoy was an 8-bit game machine, meaning that it had the capacity for four channels of audio playing at once. Two channels were dedicated to square waves, one channel had a customizable waveform, and the fourth provided white noise. The channels were used universally between both music and sound effects, meaning that composers had to keep in mind that at any moment one of their precious channels could be taken over by a sword slash or jump.
That entire concept however brings with it an inspiration for polyrhythmic writing. Since the channels can change their settings on the fly, so long as the two lines don’t overlap, one can create multiple “voices” in a single channel to create the illusion of far more than four things happening at once.
And so the idea for an almost overwhelmingly polyrhythmic piece came to be. There are multiple repeating ideas that could be grasped onto as the concept of a down-beat, none of which entirely wrong, but none of which totally stable either.
There will certainly be more to come!
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
music plug
Iron Depths - Remix
Theoretical Dungeon BGM
I had originally written this piece back a few years ago as a bit of an urge to create a moody theme along the same lines as something written by Motoi Sakuraba: master of the ridiculously epic guitar, organ and synth-driven dungeon music. However, I wanted to pull things back a bit and let there be some moments of ambiance.
In retrospect, the piece came out decently but with probably the most annoying rumbly ambient sounds and screechy distorted percussion. I revisisted it earlier this weekend to try and revive it from the perminent disassociation treatment. Layer by layer I stripped away the annoying elements until just the hammond organ remained. Then, more parts were carefully placed on top again in the spirit of the original concept.
If you’re curious as to how it sounded before, shield your ears and take an aural gander at this mp3.
Gaming’s Pinocchio
retro games chiptunes
…Becomes a Real Boy Girl
The Great Giana Sisters have a legacy in gaming. Scheduled to come out in 1987, a year after the US release of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros refined the platforming genre, the game was in stores for a brief moment… but it wouldn’t last long. Just as soon as it was released, legal pressure forced them to remove it from the market. The reason should become clear once you see the original Commodore 64 title.
The game was an absolute rip-off of Super Mario Bros. The first level, the way the text at the top displayed, the fireball powerup. The facsimile was swallowed up by Nintendo the whale and their lawyers, barely given a chance to live. For good reason, mind. Supposedly the levels following world 3 began to introduce unique elements that distinguished it away from SMB, but… come on guys, you don’t tackle the giant not expecting to get squished.
The franchise however seems to have been given a chance to redeem itself, a good 22 years later. It has re-surfaced as Giana Sisters DS, still very much in the same vein as Mario. There are still enemies to stomp from above. There are still blocks to punch from below. There is still a fireball powerup… Yet, it looks and moves so good. While Mario may have made a permanent leap into the 3rd dimension on the DS with New Super Mario Bros, Giana ironically brings with her a 2D soul that Mario’s DS adventure sorely lacked.
As an addendum, the original C64 release contained one stand-out originality to it in the way of an awesome soundtrack by Chris Huelsbeck. A bit of a legend when it comes to his chiptunes, the theme for The Great Giana Sisters was no exception.
What interesting times we live in, when former rivals are releasing games on the same system. In fact, nearly all former rivals are finding a home on it. Even a game torn down by massive copyright infringement and legal tape is getting a vastly belated sequel that looks to exceed a sequel to the game it originally ripped off… on the same platform.
Bizarre, yet wonderful.
