Game Music Concerts Spread Gamer Culture

The Escapist, this week, is all about game music. A featured article by Kyle Orland touches on the phenomenon of game music concerts. That they're popular with gamers is unsurprising, but the piece also discusses the ways in which these events can make non-gamers aware of gaming's unique culture. From the article: "The most e-mails we get, oddly enough, after a show, will be from the mom who brought the neighborhood kids or the grandmother who brought the grandson or the girlfriend who got dragged there by the boyfriend. Those are the letters we get that go 'Wow, I never knew that videogame music was this powerful. I never knew that the graphics were this amazing. Thank you for turning me on to this thing. I get it now.'"

Riight.

[Short Circuit]

I believe the comment about video game music. I was interested in game music as a child, without really being interested in playing games through.

However, I don't buy the comment "I never knew the graphics were this amazing!" Non-gamers I know don't really care about graphics. Music has a universal appeal. Polygonal rendering does not.

Spreading the love...

[vG_NeSS_Vg]

Anyone who wants to spread video game music to others should check out OcRemix. They have good mixes, and have created full albums of certain games, like Metroid and Chrono Trigger, and Doom. http://www.ocremix.org/ [ocremix.org]

Classic video/arcade games!

[antdude]

After watching this YouTube video [youtube.com], I have more urge to go to one.

Re:C64 music!

[necronom426]

I went to a "Back in Time" C64 concert in London a few years ago. It was really good, and seeing someone play "Monty on the Run" on a violin was an experience!

I'll atest to that

[7Prime]

I got into video games through music. I was studying composition at Oberlin Music Conservatory, and I had been delving into a lot of Progressive Rock on the side... listening to a lot of Emerson Lake & Palmer, Yes, and Genesis. A friend of mine, with similar tastes in music told me I had to check out this stuff by this guy Nobuo Uematsu, who was largely influenced by ELP and Yes. He played me some selections from FF8 and FF6, and I was blown away. I immediately downloaded an emulator (didn't have a console at the time), and played through FF6 and FF8 immediately, and from then on, I was hooked. Then, I started transcribing many of various themes and pieces for piano. I finished out my stay at Oberlin with a piano recital of arranged game music, and packed a small auditorium with gamers, musicians, and all interested folks, alike... one of the best shows I've ever had the privilage of performing in.

Since then, I've been studying film scoring, in hopes to one day go into film or game composition. And I still play my daily dose of video games.

I got involved with the site "VGMix", and had a lot of my work up there, unfortunately, the site went down about a year ago, and hasn't come back up since. I put a few things on OCRemix, but I don't tend to follow the site very much. I have an album of piano recordings I did in the studio, but the cost of licensing prohibits me from releasing the recordings publicly.