I guess there was never a time when I didn't know music. From even before I was born, I am told, that I was hearing my mom sing opera. My family, aside from my dad, are all very musical people. Most of, if not all of, the relatives on my mom's side are musicians. I grew up in a world full of music and sounds. I began my own journey in the children choir directed by my mom in Hong Kong. After moving to America, I had many more opportunities to know music. Like every Asian child, I had to learn how to play piano. I started in the 2nd grade which is considered to be very old to start. In LA, kids in 4th grade are required to attend music class and learn either a stringed instrument learn vocals. But the high school band director came and gave us the option of learning a wind instrument. That's when I started playing trumpet. When choosing instruments, I didn't even know what a trumpet was. I simply chose something out of a list of instruments. I don't remember how bad I sounded but now that I go and sit in beginners trumpet classes at the middle schools...it must have sounded horrendous... One of the first things the director told us was the philosophy behind learning an instrument. No one is good at anything at the beginning so we would have to put a lot of effort into learning how to use this piece of metal to express what we wanted to express. He said that it's like a stair case. There are times when you're going straight up and you're improving greatly, then there are the time when you're going horizontal and it seems like you'll never get better at all. But, he warns us, a room full of elementary school kids, if you decide to stop and give up at this horizontal point you will plummet straight down. It's not about talent, although that does help, it's about hard work. He is the greatest director I have ever had in my many years of trumpet playing.
Since I was surrounded with music from the start, it's a little different for me to figure out what, exactly, music is to me. This didn't occur to me until I was in high school. I had moved to Texas. It was a bad move and I was really hating it here. I had always been in the band so when high school came around I didn't see the difference. However, marching band was something completely different. It was the toughest thing I had ever encountered in the music world. My new director called said, "You guys are the hardest working people in the entire school because not everyone can do what you are doing". How right he was. Not only was it hard to tough out the weather outside for the countless hours but the world of marching band music and high school band was brutal. If anything was wrong everyone would stab you for it. It was for the good of the band, of course, since everyone got the same treatment. In this institution, I have formulated many of the principles that I apply to life today. Hard work, responsibility, time management, a good work ethic, fix your own problems..NOW!, and that drive to be perfect and be excellent because anything else was unacceptable. Most of all I learned what music meant to me. When you were in a place like that, you didn't stay there unless you had very good reason to do so.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
rant on modern day popular music
There is a song that 3 guys from the band "Axis of Awesome" have created called "4 Chords 36 Songs".
This song shows just how sad the music world has become in recent days. Of all the chords in all of the music world, why is it that people are not creative enough to use anything but these 4 and in this exact arrangement as well. If you look down Music History Lane, music was so sophisticated back in the day. Composers actually took classes for a large part of their life before writing anything noteworthy because they knew all the other stuff wasn't good enough. They studied under the great masters of that time and devoted their life to creating great music not to becoming famous on something done halfway.
Of course, the goal nowadays is different from back then but it shouldn't change the quality of the music to be something this ridiculous. I once heard that a certain modern day pop composer started the process of composing his new songs by playing a "a" major chord and went from there. How repetitive the songs must sound if they all start with "a". In this day and age, everyone thinks they can compose and everyone thinks they can sing either with very little or no training at all. Sure, people say that the simpler it is the more the layman is able to understand it but why can't the layman become more educated. How does it make anyone feel accomplished if they understand something so simple and trivial and the other side of the world would be laughing at you?
Another thing is the text (words for a melody). For some reason, no one can write text for anything other than love. Love lost, love found, love is stupid, the guy is stupid, they girl is stupid, I'm so awesome she's not, I'm so awesome he's not...etc..etc...it's so boring. Music is the language of the soul. Why is it that people's souls nowadays are seemingly so retarded...they have nothing sincere to express. All that is left in the connection of the head to the heart is these repetitive chord arrangements and crappy texts. As the songs says, "that's all it takes to be a star". How pitiful.
This song shows just how sad the music world has become in recent days. Of all the chords in all of the music world, why is it that people are not creative enough to use anything but these 4 and in this exact arrangement as well. If you look down Music History Lane, music was so sophisticated back in the day. Composers actually took classes for a large part of their life before writing anything noteworthy because they knew all the other stuff wasn't good enough. They studied under the great masters of that time and devoted their life to creating great music not to becoming famous on something done halfway.
Of course, the goal nowadays is different from back then but it shouldn't change the quality of the music to be something this ridiculous. I once heard that a certain modern day pop composer started the process of composing his new songs by playing a "a" major chord and went from there. How repetitive the songs must sound if they all start with "a". In this day and age, everyone thinks they can compose and everyone thinks they can sing either with very little or no training at all. Sure, people say that the simpler it is the more the layman is able to understand it but why can't the layman become more educated. How does it make anyone feel accomplished if they understand something so simple and trivial and the other side of the world would be laughing at you?
Another thing is the text (words for a melody). For some reason, no one can write text for anything other than love. Love lost, love found, love is stupid, the guy is stupid, they girl is stupid, I'm so awesome she's not, I'm so awesome he's not...etc..etc...it's so boring. Music is the language of the soul. Why is it that people's souls nowadays are seemingly so retarded...they have nothing sincere to express. All that is left in the connection of the head to the heart is these repetitive chord arrangements and crappy texts. As the songs says, "that's all it takes to be a star". How pitiful.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
passive or active listening...?
Ever since I could remember, I have been involved in video games. One of the things about a video game that most people don't notice very much is the soundtrack. But for a particular game, it is very important to the players of this game that the music is good. For the Final Fantasy series, music has always been an integral part of game play.
Perhaps it is the fact that some parts of this game plays out like a movie, with amazing computer generated graphics, and the recent (within the last 10 years) addition of voice acting, music is just as important here as it is in a full movie. Starting with the first game of the series, Final Fantasy I, the soundtrack of this game began to put a signature on the game. Every fan of the series starting at any point in the series's history, whether you started at Final Fantasy I or the Final Fantasy XII, will know it is this series whenever you hear the theme of victory played after every successful battle.
Naturally, there has been more than one composer for the games' soundtracks, but one particular composer to note is Uematsu Nobuo (Nobuo Uematsu in the western name order). He started composing for the series from game 1. His works are the ones most people look forward to hearing. He uses very grand chords and almost always manages to compose a melody that is memorable so you will know exactly which game that song or piece came from. Those games whose soundtracks were not composed by Uematsu or that he didn't have any involvement in sold noticeably less copies. There is a general consensus that he is The composer for Final Fantasy.
Other composers for this line of games may not be bad composers, just as there are movie composers who compose pieces that are very repetitive does not mean they are bad composers. The important thing is to understand whether the audience that you are composing for will be actively or passively listening to the piece that you are currently composing. I believe that Uematsu is every Final Fantasy fan's music composer of choice because he was able to find that balance between music for active and music for passive listening. When you are in-game, you do not want a soundtrack that is annoying because it is so present nor do you want something that is so without presence that it is not memorable and you have unable to remember it even after hearing constantly for the 15 or more hours that you might spend in one location. Uematsu was able to find that balance. In contrast, the composer for the soundtrack for Final Fantasy XII (the previously latest installment), Sakimoto Hitoshi, who composed most of the soundtrack, created what the players would call, the annoyingly present soundtrack. Because of the nature of the game play in Final Fantasy XII, the music did not change unless the player entered a different map area which meant that you were hearing the same thing more often and for longer periods of time. However, the soundtrack had so much movement and demanded so much of your attention that it became a chore to listen to it. During certain points, the music was the reason you really wanted to stop playing the game.
That being said, the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack should be good for active listening then. Well, it fails in this category as well in that it does not demand THAT much attention. It hovers between the fully active and semi active, semi passive listening states which is annoying because then it's not good for anything.
The thing about Uematsu's music is that it is wonderful for fully passive and semi-passive, semi-active listening AND for fully active listening, for a short amount of time. You can't have everything but Uematsu comes close. He understands exactly which tracks you'll be listening to actively and writes those with amazing chord arrangement to make it so grand and amazing that, along with the eye-popping computer graphics, creates a scene of shear awesomeness that makes the hairs on your neck stand on end.
Yes, there are many aspects to a game worthy of the roman numeral and a place in the Final Fantasy line, but the aspect of music is surely half the game.
Perhaps it is the fact that some parts of this game plays out like a movie, with amazing computer generated graphics, and the recent (within the last 10 years) addition of voice acting, music is just as important here as it is in a full movie. Starting with the first game of the series, Final Fantasy I, the soundtrack of this game began to put a signature on the game. Every fan of the series starting at any point in the series's history, whether you started at Final Fantasy I or the Final Fantasy XII, will know it is this series whenever you hear the theme of victory played after every successful battle.
Naturally, there has been more than one composer for the games' soundtracks, but one particular composer to note is Uematsu Nobuo (Nobuo Uematsu in the western name order). He started composing for the series from game 1. His works are the ones most people look forward to hearing. He uses very grand chords and almost always manages to compose a melody that is memorable so you will know exactly which game that song or piece came from. Those games whose soundtracks were not composed by Uematsu or that he didn't have any involvement in sold noticeably less copies. There is a general consensus that he is The composer for Final Fantasy.
Other composers for this line of games may not be bad composers, just as there are movie composers who compose pieces that are very repetitive does not mean they are bad composers. The important thing is to understand whether the audience that you are composing for will be actively or passively listening to the piece that you are currently composing. I believe that Uematsu is every Final Fantasy fan's music composer of choice because he was able to find that balance between music for active and music for passive listening. When you are in-game, you do not want a soundtrack that is annoying because it is so present nor do you want something that is so without presence that it is not memorable and you have unable to remember it even after hearing constantly for the 15 or more hours that you might spend in one location. Uematsu was able to find that balance. In contrast, the composer for the soundtrack for Final Fantasy XII (the previously latest installment), Sakimoto Hitoshi, who composed most of the soundtrack, created what the players would call, the annoyingly present soundtrack. Because of the nature of the game play in Final Fantasy XII, the music did not change unless the player entered a different map area which meant that you were hearing the same thing more often and for longer periods of time. However, the soundtrack had so much movement and demanded so much of your attention that it became a chore to listen to it. During certain points, the music was the reason you really wanted to stop playing the game.
That being said, the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack should be good for active listening then. Well, it fails in this category as well in that it does not demand THAT much attention. It hovers between the fully active and semi active, semi passive listening states which is annoying because then it's not good for anything.
The thing about Uematsu's music is that it is wonderful for fully passive and semi-passive, semi-active listening AND for fully active listening, for a short amount of time. You can't have everything but Uematsu comes close. He understands exactly which tracks you'll be listening to actively and writes those with amazing chord arrangement to make it so grand and amazing that, along with the eye-popping computer graphics, creates a scene of shear awesomeness that makes the hairs on your neck stand on end.
Yes, there are many aspects to a game worthy of the roman numeral and a place in the Final Fantasy line, but the aspect of music is surely half the game.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)