Gamers that their brain is capable of more if they accepted more difficult challange and found themselves teachers, and pianists that video game music might not be following the rules but it doesn't make it inherently bad and performing it might their best chance to earn anything from their playing. Yeah, harsh words I know. But that's my character and I've been on both ends.
Competition and sportsmanship. I always has been a kind of a tryhard in every game i played, for that reason i enjoy online multiplayer games. To be good enough at the game to defeat tournament level players takes a lot of practice and mindwork. As well as to be among greatest musicians. You have to be able to maintain stable psyche after the greatest falls. You have to have a routine of practice - but do not let all the fun leak out, or there are no point or great results in both fields. I find competitive videogames and music similar in many ways. Although nothing lets me express myself more, then music
Gamers - at least gamers who stream - turn their mishaps into entertainment. It doesn't ultimately matter if you make a mistake. So-called "god gamers" make bare to the world how fallible they are, and how so much of their success is attributable to perseverence, not genius. Whereas musicians still often cultivate the aura of genius, despite platitudes of "Well, you know, practice practice practice". In the future we'll have more of a window into musicians' mistakes and their own reactions to it, and they'll be humanized a little more in the eyes of the public.
@@hello-rq8kfyou don't need sources for simple logical statements. Everybody who has written at least one piece of music and was alive has written his best piece of music when he was alive.
Yall so annoying dude, Ben Laude left to make something of his own, dont hate on this guy for taking Laudes place, i personally found the video really interesting and loved it
@JanneOksanenMusic I agree with you, I think he is brilliant and I would love to hear more of his work in piano recitals. Thanks for your dedication to his work on your own channel (and the great videos of Cloud playing piano!)
I was a folk fiddler and guitarist who was never really interested in classical music until I heard Austin Wintory’s scores for the indie games Journey and Abzu. His RUclips channel introduced me to other great game music, like Gareth Coker’s work on the Ori games or Takeshi Furukawa’s score for Planet of Lana. Before I knew it, I was digging into their influences (John Williams, Jerry Golsmith etc) and then exploring THEIR influences (Stravinsky, Holst, Mahler, Ravel) and within a few years I was a certified classical fanatic. Now I study a bit of piano to help with my new composing hobby.
Videogame music (Final Fantasy and Xenogears series) got me into playing piano some 20 years ago. My interest in classical music developed from there, but I still have a soft spot for videogame and anime stuff.
That's pretty awesome. I do enjoy some pieces from video games. Whoever wrote the pieces for super mario world those pieces just stick with you. Very catchy.
Recently noticed how much my sight reading had improved after playing lots of Beat Saber. The way the game pushes you along has made my reading less “over-thought” and has helped me keep moving with SR where I’ve always tended to get stuck repeating/correcting mistakes as I go. Piano and video games are my 2 favourite things. Been playing both since forever (I’m 52).
That's a very interesting observation. I was thinking about various ways to improve certain aspects of my piano away from the piano, and obviously the most fun way is games. Might give that one a try
I just remembered the famous piano puzzle in Silent Hill 1. That was disturbing. Love classical music, love video games. They both saved me from depression. There is something about that what one person in the video said - being in the zone while playing games and listening to music. We are transported to different realms, for a moment we forget about our troubled lives and all the evil happening in the world and experience something truly special.
Can confirm, I am classical pianist but I also play lots of video games, and even have my own channel on gaming PCs. It's the best with both worlds! Mozart would have loved video games too, haha.
i also see a strong connection to learning passages in pieces on the piano and mastering a difficult videogame. At the moment im learning the beethoven pathetique on piano, but also i struggle with Elden Ring, a difficult soulslike game. many times i find myself going back to places i once struggled with, but with experience and learning/leveling up i get stronger and can finally beat a boss. In the pathetique 1st movement its kind of the same thing, its a boss fight and sometimes its better to move on to the 2nd movement and come back to the 1st after a while..
Nice to see a video on this topic! Being a pianist and a gamer, I definitely see a lot of connections between the two. I also play smash ultimate competitively at tournaments, and there are a lot of similarities between learning smash and learning piano like you said, especially in terms of muscle memory, timing, and understanding. There's an argument to be made that some of the best "classical" music being made right now is within the realm of video games. It's great that soundtracks from games have and will inspire so many future musicians to come!
Video Game music is at its best when it ditches the need to limit itself to a minute or 2. This is why credits/staff roll themes are often easily the best track in the game. The Final Fantasy 7 Main Theme is easily one of my favourite video game tracks ever. Not because of its beautiful melody but because of its development. Because they allowed the theme to tell an entire story instead of just creating an atmosphere. My main problem with lots of beautiful video game motives is that nothing gets done with them after they are stated. Music without development, no matter how beautiful, just cannot hold my attention. But when video game music actually develops its themes, I dare say it rivals classical music
Fair points, but on the other hand, it's those same limitations that have compelled videogame composers to create such satisfying melodies and harmonies. While I don't disgree with you about credits/staff roll, I'd argue that those pieces are able to make the impact they do because of the dozens of hours that came before them, and the gameplay/story motivations leading up to their creation. In many ways, the development happens throughout the game. Or in the case of long-running titles like Zelda and Kingdom Hearts, throughout the entire series. The time scales are stretched.
This reminds me that recently I heard a colleague of mine, who is researching the film music of Bernard Hermann, describing how film composers often felt the freest when writing for the opening and closing credits. They felt they could be the most free with their musical ideas there. Of course, the limitations of the programmatic sections can also be quite compelling!
Something I haven’t seen much talked about is the correlations between competitive video games and piano. For piano competitions, you have to learn and master a set of pieces. You have to have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of music like technique, shaping,harmonic tension release etc. you should pick pieces that aren’t too hard so that you can demonstrate understanding of these fundamentals before a jury. In league legends for example, in order to improve, you have to pick a select few easier characters and use them to master not only their mechanics but the mechanics of the game too. When you play competitively, you should master and bring in only a select few characters so that you can focus on fundamentals of the game. I stopped playing league a long time ago due to time constraints but as an aspiring pianist now entering competitions and such, I see so many parallels.
as a newcomer to piano, and a long time competitive smash player, thank you so much for highlighting the links across practice and performance between the two disciplines. I'd already noticed that the wide variety of hobbies I've dabbled in have allowed me to skip over certain pain points of learning piano _(long parenthetical moved for convenience [1]),_ but you underlining the transferrables so clearly was really reassuring. [1]: e.g. dexterity of all fingers - I own 80+ twisty puzzles and used to be able to solve a 3x3x3 cube in around 20s. could've been faster but my favourite part of the hobby was optimising algorithms to use dynamic and satisfying finger tricks, so I spent a lot longer on alternative algs than I did on learning at least one for each case. lateral thumb strength - I play smash competitively, my thumbs are good. rythm and tone - not really a result of any hobby, but I can't retain lyrics no matter how much I try. as a result, I have become naturally attuned to the melody and flow of music. e.g I feel the melody of any lyrics, but have to focus to actually hear what's said. sheet music - still a pain point, but after barely a week's worth of afternoon practice I've already noticed myself occasionally playing the right notes automatically while reading a new measure, and I'm starting to think it might be related to how rapidly I learned to sight read expert+ maps in beat saber.
It's by no means a stretch to link the kinesthetic joy of video games with piano playing. One of the best video eassayists in the gaming sphere, Jacob Geller, even made a video on how the action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice inspried him to pick up the piano. I myself was inspried by rhythm games to pick up the piano again as an adult (I took lessons for a few years as a kid). Incidentally, my favourite video game that prominently features classical music is a brilliant survival horror game called SIGNALIS: not only did it make me finally learn Chopin's Op. 28 No. 15, it even gave me the final push to start learning game development myself. Funny that you mention Scriabin, because the game I'm currently working on (heavily inspired by SIGNALIS) prominently features an etude by Scriabin. It all comes full circle... PS: Of course, the first thing I played when I found that piano mini-game in FFVII were the opening bars of Chopin's Ballade No. 1. I haven't tried the coda yet; I might need a few extra controllers (and hands) for that one ;)
Wow. This video essay really broke some ground. @adamneely must have almost made this video about 50 times but never quite. You did the subject a great honor I feel. Opening a few new insights for me - as a non-gaming musician - along the way. One thing I'm more and more happy about is that I did encourage kids to game well, creatively and authentically. Like I did music, indeed.
It is the next genre of program music and to reject it is to seal off a segment of people who would listen to Romantic music at the drop of hat if they were guided to it. Programs to Movies to Video games. Gesamstkunstwerk to be had, again, if academics will come off their high horses.
Being a piano teacher and gamer, I do think that videogames music IS the renaissance of classical music, for example Genshin Impact and Skyrim, where they put so much effort to create an amazing soundscape for the game visuals. I mean who still uses orchestra music these days beside film and game industry.
The music I've heard in video game music was the primary reason to why I've bought a paino course! The music from FF7, Ace Combat, Genshin Impact, and even Terraria Calamity had an impact so strong in myself....
As someone who's been playing piano for 13ish years now, I share your experience! The first 5.5 years I was just playing it because of my brother, but when I heard an OST from To The Moon and learned it, that's what sparked my love for piano and music. Right now, Genshin's music is just such a gift to me
Kismet that you would publish this video now. I'm a novice, self-taught pianist, and I'm currently working up a recital program dedicated to video game music (generally, I prefer classical and contemporary classical music). I hope to accompany the music with a little lecture on how the music, on a broader aesthetic and structural level, serves to inform meta-textual narratives in the different games. At the beginning of this process, part of me had felt that video game music was somewhat trifling, necessarily being less adventurous than classical (less commercial) musics, but I have a renewed appreciation for the genre after studying it this past month. Nice video.
Hey Robert! Are any of your Final Fantasy performances available online? They sounded fantastic in the background of this video and I'd love to hear them unimpeded. I hope Tonebase will explore the works of Uematsu and other Final Fantasy composers. They have a super rich history of producing music for solo piano (like their "Piano Collections").
Thanks so much, I appreciate that! I'm thinking about uploading a few of the recordings to my personal RUclips channel so you can keep an eye out for them. And you can always write Tonebase an email letting us know what kind of content you'd like to see more of on the premium platform!
The first melody I ever learned to play on the piano when I was 7 years old was the classic Super Mario Bros theme. I played it using both hands, learned it myself through trial and error until I finally got it right. Everyone has their own path into music but I can almost certainly say I wouldn't have become a musician without the amazing melodies from video game composers.
I enjoyed watching this video! It brings me joy to incorporate video game music into my classical music repertoire. I played some Super Mario music on the piano the other day after revisiting Debussy’s “Reverie.”❤😊🎹
I think Koichi Sugiyama's Dragon Quest series soundtrack is a good starting place for classical lovers to get into video game music, especially the orchestral arrangements.
True story. Many years ago in the early 2000s when I was in college, I played “FF10: To Zanarkand” on the piano at a local music store. The sales rep, an older gentleman with glasses, came up and asked, “Oh, that’s a beautiful piece. What is it?” I said, “It’s from a video game called Final Fantasy.” He then smirked and walked away. I guess Uematsu is no Chopin or Tchaikovsky. 😂
This relation is too far fetched. Maybe a closer relation could be made with actual sports, not with a game about a sport like grand turismo. There are a lot of links between sports and piano performance, you can talk about mechanics, competition and stress, recovery, individual effort, guidance often being a single mentor etc. Theres even athletes who at the same time are professional muisicians like Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka who is a weightlifter and professional pianist. She often talk about how weightlifting helped her to jnderstand how toncreate power at the piano. Thats just one example of many. Gamers can be considered athletes in my opinion, of course, but i think the relationship between athletes in general with muisicians is much more interesting. It seems as if this video was an excuse for you to ramble about videogames
My boyfriend and i founded an orchestra to play video game music: The Video Game Symphony. He got into music through teaching himself how to play music from Chrono Trigger, Zelda, and Final Fantasy on the piano.
Halo soundtrack played a key role in introducing me to classical music. Even after discovering classical music, his use of first species counterpoint in pieces like "Ghosts of Reach" still bring me to tears from the melodic beauty. It's sad, but mystical. A glimpse into heaven. Emotionally moving melodies are so hard to find nowadays.
Could someone point me to the recording of Battle from FFVII used at the beginning of the video. It says it is recorded by the host Robert Fleitz, but I can't seem to find it...
Hey there, thanks for your interest! I made that recording especially for this video so it's not available publicly - but I'll be thinking about uploading it to my personal channel sometime!
I always appreciated how in videogame soundtracks, especially in Japanese RPGs, you could get a variety of different song forms. Piano ballads, vocal rock songs, an organ fugue, a choral piece, a violin sonata, a renaissance dance, a ragtime dixieland piece, a jazz fusion progressive rock battle theme, or combinations of them all, with any instrument. You can't find the same breadth of forms and styles anywhere else, definitely not pop, and even not much in classical. The willingness to experiment with both contemporary pop and classical forms was always incredibly interesting to me as a young musician with no formal training or access to much "real" classical music. The debate around VGM as "legitimate" because they're meant to be 'set to a level' etc was always confusing to me. Wasn't the Program vs Pure music debate resolved ages ago? Do we view Operas for pre-written libretto as less musically legitimate than a piano concerto or whatever? Certainly not. Funnily enough, even listening to the old Pokemon soundtracks served as an easy 'gateway' to Mozart. Maybe the main barrier is the synthesized instruments? But Switched-On Bach is like 50 years old already too...I don't really get it. Anyways, a video on Uematsu and maybe Yoshimatsu or something would be pretty cool...nice video anyways!
There is a genre of games which for me feels very similar to playing the piano. Japanese shooting games called danmaku are games that are around half an hour long, which you have to perform in a single sitting. You play practice mode, learning all the details by playing small sections of the game over and over, to build up for your great performance. Titles like Mushihimesama, or the Dodonpachi series are the most "famous" examples. You're faced with the same kind of problematics as in piano playing : efficient practice, muscle memory, performance anxiety (just played 20 minutes of perfection and the super hard part is coming...)... I discovered those games quite recently and I was very happy to find a discipline in which I can use both my piano playing and video games skills at the same time.
For me...videogames leave me unable to concentrate. I can't practice effectively after an hour of videogames. While videogames distract me from life, music forces me to engage more deeply with it.
I think Wagner’s idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total art is fully realized in video games. I’m an orchestra teacher, and o routinely make the argument that video games are the highest form of art. Things like design, music, narration, puzzles can stand on their own in the own medium. But what happens when you combine all those things and you the consumer have to completely immerse yourself in the world.
What you bring from piano to gaming is the importance of: 1) maintaining good posture, 2) keeping steady breathing, 3) having your hands and arms always relaxed
So I actually sight-read Synthesia videos. It sounds unusual, but I do. I’m currently studying piano at the University of North Dakota, and my professors are always amazed watching me play with it. I've been playing for 4 years now, and I've played a lot of music. I've played through(not necessarily memorized) all the Chopin Nocturnes, a good portion of his preludes, and at least 20-25 mazurkas, but this is just Chopin. a lot of Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Henselt, Liszt (I've played way too much Liszt), Bortkiewicz, Hummel, and many more works by various composers. I bring up this topic because it’s a video game, but you can learn music from it. Although it’s not possible to play super difficult pieces at full speed with accuracy, I can play anything at a grade 6-7 level with 90% accuracy. Anything above that I usually manage well, but like seriously difficult etudes and concertos are challenging to play at full speed. So I play just one hand at a time, and it's back to 90% accuracy. This allows me to get ahead even though my parents didn’t understand or care about my passion for music as a kid even though I've asked for lessons. Synthesia lets me see much in a different way, not just pianistically but also from a composition standpoint. I’ve learned to study music in such a way that no matter how difficult the piece is, I can still play and see the harmony. I'm able to overcome the hurdle of sheet-to-sheet sight-reading, which I've started working on this year. I can play the first 2-3 Czerny exercises with ease. But without Synthesia to show me true music, I would not have the passion for music that I have to this day."
There were a couple reasons I started playing piano. I always wanted to be able to play Chopin Nocturne OP 27 no 1, and Moonlight Sonata 1, but the absolute #1 reason was because I wanted to learn how to play Tifa's song from Final Fantasy 7. That song hits me right in the gut. Whether it's just rose colored nostalgia glasses or not from my youth I don't care, Nobuo Uematsu is a timeless composer and the people that gatekeep and bash games and gamers are just elitist wannabe snobs and I can do without them.
I used to be a gamer when I was teen and I love FFVII with a passion, including its music (had to quit playing though, otherwise I would have never graduated xD). A bit over a year ago I finally got myself a piano and started taking lessons 🥰. I can now play Aerith’s theme easy piano version from the Hal Leonard publication. I also love classical music thanks to anime and this is the style I am learning the most and where my lessons are focused :). Happy young musician and geek here!
Such a great video! Like you, both piano and video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Video game music is what got me into classical music. Wonderful presentation.
I hate most video game music as I find it at best to be at the level of lite classical music of the late 19th century or early 20th (think LeHar0. If it tries to be experimental it is very unsatisfying as it relies primarily on the repetition of a few dissonant hooks. It is interesting when it does direct quote of music from the pop and classical canon which then introduces gamers to some good music.
Such unskillful manner of praising video games without actually having said anything worthy. You better stick to technical aspects cuz' that's where you sparkle.
@@duwns-x3n Of course, but I am joyful and know the value of life... Why does it appear to me that some young people are dead alive, and some old people are almost dead but alive?
@@RolandHuettmann because you’re old that’s why it appears to you like that. Video games are as much a waste of your life as reading a book or watching a film… if you were actually joyful you would listen and even in disagreement try to see the purpose of one’s argument. Which is what I’m trying to do with a non-joyful argument as bare as “it’s a waste of your life”
eh gonna have to agree that video games are time wasters. you're sinking moments of your precious life into something that literally does not physically exist, and that doesn't come close to the emotional impact of listening to or performing music. didn't know Lang Lang was in gran turismo but it makes perfect sense, both are entirely style with no emotional substance
My friend, video games are a ridiculously diverse medium and there's overwhelming evidence of its capacity for profound emotional impact. The video title mentions an illustrative example, FFVII, which has made a generation of gamers mourn the loss of a beloved character for nearly 30 years now (despite the severe technical limitations of the original release from 1997). If games are time wasters, so is music and art in general. I don't believe that for a second.
@@Hendrix183 spare me the melodrama bud. gamers that think their plots somehow are moving or hold literary merit are just revealing how poorly read you are. it's like claiming fast food should be in michelin star restaurants because one time you had a really good big mac
@@twinblades-thewilltokeeplo6084 rather be a boomer than a manchild. and funnily enough it's usually millennials you see soyfacing over how "bideo games are art!!1!", not zoomers
@@hello-rq8kfAh yes, I should avoid the banal and quotidian, the Big Mac if you will, and stick to only the unique and transcendent, in other words, the Chipotle Burrito. Anyway, I know that chauvinistic perspectives cannot be changed through reason and evidence and will only ever yield petty insults at best. I just hope someone out there with a less bitter perspective loves you enough to reach you one day. Long live music, long live literature, long live video games and art in all its beautiful manifestations!
What do you think gamers and pianists have to learn from each other?
Gamers that their brain is capable of more if they accepted more difficult challange and found themselves teachers, and pianists that video game music might not be following the rules but it doesn't make it inherently bad and performing it might their best chance to earn anything from their playing.
Yeah, harsh words I know. But that's my character and I've been on both ends.
Competition and sportsmanship.
I always has been a kind of a tryhard in every game i played, for that reason i enjoy online multiplayer games. To be good enough at the game to defeat tournament level players takes a lot of practice and mindwork. As well as to be among greatest musicians. You have to be able to maintain stable psyche after the greatest falls. You have to have a routine of practice - but do not let all the fun leak out, or there are no point or great results in both fields.
I find competitive videogames and music similar in many ways. Although nothing lets me express myself more, then music
Gamers - at least gamers who stream - turn their mishaps into entertainment. It doesn't ultimately matter if you make a mistake. So-called "god gamers" make bare to the world how fallible they are, and how so much of their success is attributable to perseverence, not genius. Whereas musicians still often cultivate the aura of genius, despite platitudes of "Well, you know, practice practice practice".
In the future we'll have more of a window into musicians' mistakes and their own reactions to it, and they'll be humanized a little more in the eyes of the public.
That Brazilian piano music can be used in games as well :)
ruclips.net/video/m4hIhwGLezo/видео.html
Great subject, by the way!
"Chopin wrote some of his best music when he was alive."
Have to agree
WHAT?! You all clearly haven't listened to the sonata he _decomposed_ !!!
Ok, sorry, it wasn't funny.
um do you have a peer reviewed source for that?
@@hello-rq8kfyou don't need sources for simple logical statements. Everybody who has written at least one piece of music and was alive has written his best piece of music when he was alive.
@@arnaldosantoro6812 google "humor"
Yall so annoying dude, Ben Laude left to make something of his own, dont hate on this guy for taking Laudes place, i personally found the video really interesting and loved it
Just came here to say that Nobuo Uematsu is one of the greatest composers of our time.
This but Koji Kondo
@JanneOksanenMusic I agree with you, I think he is brilliant and I would love to hear more of his work in piano recitals. Thanks for your dedication to his work on your own channel (and the great videos of Cloud playing piano!)
He's rightly called Beethoven of game music.
I was a folk fiddler and guitarist who was never really interested in classical music until I heard Austin Wintory’s scores for the indie games Journey and Abzu. His RUclips channel introduced me to other great game music, like Gareth Coker’s work on the Ori games or Takeshi Furukawa’s score for Planet of Lana. Before I knew it, I was digging into their influences (John Williams, Jerry Golsmith etc) and then exploring THEIR influences (Stravinsky, Holst, Mahler, Ravel) and within a few years I was a certified classical fanatic. Now I study a bit of piano to help with my new composing hobby.
Wow! Awesome, thanks so much for sharing that! Good luck on your piano journey, and hopefully our channel can help you on your way!
Videogame music (Final Fantasy and Xenogears series) got me into playing piano some 20 years ago. My interest in classical music developed from there, but I still have a soft spot for videogame and anime stuff.
That's pretty awesome. I do enjoy some pieces from video games. Whoever wrote the pieces for super mario world those pieces just stick with you. Very catchy.
Recently noticed how much my sight reading had improved after playing lots of Beat Saber. The way the game pushes you along has made my reading less “over-thought” and has helped me keep moving with SR where I’ve always tended to get stuck repeating/correcting mistakes as I go. Piano and video games are my 2 favourite things. Been playing both since forever (I’m 52).
That's a very interesting observation. I was thinking about various ways to improve certain aspects of my piano away from the piano, and obviously the most fun way is games. Might give that one a try
I just remembered the famous piano puzzle in Silent Hill 1. That was disturbing.
Love classical music, love video games. They both saved me from depression. There is something about that what one person in the video said - being in the zone while playing games and listening to music. We are transported to different realms, for a moment we forget about our troubled lives and all the evil happening in the world and experience something truly special.
I almost included the Silent Hill puzzle in this video but thought it might be a bit too creepy.
Can confirm, I am classical pianist but I also play lots of video games, and even have my own channel on gaming PCs. It's the best with both worlds! Mozart would have loved video games too, haha.
I think he definitely would have. 😀
Oh yeah. He loved to play Billiards
i also see a strong connection to learning passages in pieces on the piano and mastering a difficult videogame. At the moment im learning the beethoven pathetique on piano, but also i struggle with Elden Ring, a difficult soulslike game. many times i find myself going back to places i once struggled with, but with experience and learning/leveling up i get stronger and can finally beat a boss. In the pathetique 1st movement its kind of the same thing, its a boss fight and sometimes its better to move on to the 2nd movement and come back to the 1st after a while..
I love the style of impressionism breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom uses
Nice to see a video on this topic! Being a pianist and a gamer, I definitely see a lot of connections between the two. I also play smash ultimate competitively at tournaments, and there are a lot of similarities between learning smash and learning piano like you said, especially in terms of muscle memory, timing, and understanding.
There's an argument to be made that some of the best "classical" music being made right now is within the realm of video games. It's great that soundtracks from games have and will inspire so many future musicians to come!
Awesome, I love to hear from another pianist who's into Smash! Thanks for your comment!
This was super fascinating!! My favorite Tonebase video so far.
Video Game music is at its best when it ditches the need to limit itself to a minute or 2. This is why credits/staff roll themes are often easily the best track in the game. The Final Fantasy 7 Main Theme is easily one of my favourite video game tracks ever. Not because of its beautiful melody but because of its development. Because they allowed the theme to tell an entire story instead of just creating an atmosphere.
My main problem with lots of beautiful video game motives is that nothing gets done with them after they are stated. Music without development, no matter how beautiful, just cannot hold my attention. But when video game music actually develops its themes, I dare say it rivals classical music
Fair points, but on the other hand, it's those same limitations that have compelled videogame composers to create such satisfying melodies and harmonies. While I don't disgree with you about credits/staff roll, I'd argue that those pieces are able to make the impact they do because of the dozens of hours that came before them, and the gameplay/story motivations leading up to their creation. In many ways, the development happens throughout the game. Or in the case of long-running titles like Zelda and Kingdom Hearts, throughout the entire series. The time scales are stretched.
This reminds me that recently I heard a colleague of mine, who is researching the film music of Bernard Hermann, describing how film composers often felt the freest when writing for the opening and closing credits. They felt they could be the most free with their musical ideas there. Of course, the limitations of the programmatic sections can also be quite compelling!
Something I haven’t seen much talked about is the correlations between competitive video games and piano. For piano competitions, you have to learn and master a set of pieces. You have to have a firm grasp on the fundamentals of music like technique, shaping,harmonic tension release etc. you should pick pieces that aren’t too hard so that you can demonstrate understanding of these fundamentals before a jury. In league legends for example, in order to improve, you have to pick a select few easier characters and use them to master not only their mechanics but the mechanics of the game too. When you play competitively, you should master and bring in only a select few characters so that you can focus on fundamentals of the game. I stopped playing league a long time ago due to time constraints but as an aspiring pianist now entering competitions and such, I see so many parallels.
This is a really interesting connection that could definitely be explored more.
as a newcomer to piano, and a long time competitive smash player, thank you so much for highlighting the links across practice and performance between the two disciplines.
I'd already noticed that the wide variety of hobbies I've dabbled in have allowed me to skip over certain pain points of learning piano _(long parenthetical moved for convenience [1]),_ but you underlining the transferrables so clearly was really reassuring.
[1]:
e.g. dexterity of all fingers - I own 80+ twisty puzzles and used to be able to solve a 3x3x3 cube in around 20s. could've been faster but my favourite part of the hobby was optimising algorithms to use dynamic and satisfying finger tricks, so I spent a lot longer on alternative algs than I did on learning at least one for each case.
lateral thumb strength - I play smash competitively, my thumbs are good.
rythm and tone - not really a result of any hobby, but I can't retain lyrics no matter how much I try. as a result, I have become naturally attuned to the melody and flow of music. e.g I feel the melody of any lyrics, but have to focus to actually hear what's said.
sheet music - still a pain point, but after barely a week's worth of afternoon practice I've already noticed myself occasionally playing the right notes automatically while reading a new measure, and I'm starting to think it might be related to how rapidly I learned to sight read expert+ maps in beat saber.
It's by no means a stretch to link the kinesthetic joy of video games with piano playing. One of the best video eassayists in the gaming sphere, Jacob Geller, even made a video on how the action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice inspried him to pick up the piano. I myself was inspried by rhythm games to pick up the piano again as an adult (I took lessons for a few years as a kid).
Incidentally, my favourite video game that prominently features classical music is a brilliant survival horror game called SIGNALIS: not only did it make me finally learn Chopin's Op. 28 No. 15, it even gave me the final push to start learning game development myself. Funny that you mention Scriabin, because the game I'm currently working on (heavily inspired by SIGNALIS) prominently features an etude by Scriabin. It all comes full circle...
PS: Of course, the first thing I played when I found that piano mini-game in FFVII were the opening bars of Chopin's Ballade No. 1. I haven't tried the coda yet; I might need a few extra controllers (and hands) for that one ;)
I actually got obsessed with the piano and classical music in general by playing piano tiles.
Wow. This video essay really broke some ground. @adamneely must have almost made this video about 50 times but never quite. You did the subject a great honor I feel. Opening a few new insights for me - as a non-gaming musician - along the way. One thing I'm more and more happy about is that I did encourage kids to game well, creatively and authentically. Like I did music, indeed.
Music? Video Games? Why not both at the same time?
I.e. Rhythm Games
It is the next genre of program music and to reject it is to seal off a segment of people who would listen to Romantic music at the drop of hat if they were guided to it.
Programs to Movies to Video games. Gesamstkunstwerk to be had, again, if academics will come off their high horses.
Being a piano teacher and gamer, I do think that videogames music IS the renaissance of classical music, for example Genshin Impact and Skyrim, where they put so much effort to create an amazing soundscape for the game visuals. I mean who still uses orchestra music these days beside film and game industry.
The music I've heard in video game music was the primary reason to why I've bought a paino course!
The music from FF7, Ace Combat, Genshin Impact, and even Terraria Calamity had an impact so strong in myself....
As someone who's been playing piano for 13ish years now, I share your experience! The first 5.5 years I was just playing it because of my brother, but when I heard an OST from To The Moon and learned it, that's what sparked my love for piano and music. Right now, Genshin's music is just such a gift to me
Kismet that you would publish this video now. I'm a novice, self-taught pianist, and I'm currently working up a recital program dedicated to video game music (generally, I prefer classical and contemporary classical music). I hope to accompany the music with a little lecture on how the music, on a broader aesthetic and structural level, serves to inform meta-textual narratives in the different games. At the beginning of this process, part of me had felt that video game music was somewhat trifling, necessarily being less adventurous than classical (less commercial) musics, but I have a renewed appreciation for the genre after studying it this past month. Nice video.
Wonderful! Good luck on your recital!
Hey Robert! Are any of your Final Fantasy performances available online? They sounded fantastic in the background of this video and I'd love to hear them unimpeded.
I hope Tonebase will explore the works of Uematsu and other Final Fantasy composers. They have a super rich history of producing music for solo piano (like their "Piano Collections").
Thanks so much, I appreciate that! I'm thinking about uploading a few of the recordings to my personal RUclips channel so you can keep an eye out for them.
And you can always write Tonebase an email letting us know what kind of content you'd like to see more of on the premium platform!
The first melody I ever learned to play on the piano when I was 7 years old was the classic Super Mario Bros theme. I played it using both hands, learned it myself through trial and error until I finally got it right. Everyone has their own path into music but I can almost certainly say I wouldn't have become a musician without the amazing melodies from video game composers.
Slay
Eternal Sonata had a fun minigame where you could collect melodies and play 2 at the same time to see how they worked together
Kinda what Godowski did with the etudes.
I enjoyed watching this video! It brings me joy to incorporate video game music into my classical music repertoire. I played some Super Mario music on the piano the other day after revisiting Debussy’s “Reverie.”❤😊🎹
I love the idea of Mario and Debussy existing in the same practice session!
I heard Martha Argerich plays Worms Armageddon on N64 before every concert. Is this true?
I think Koichi Sugiyama's Dragon Quest series soundtrack is a good starting place for classical lovers to get into video game music, especially the orchestral arrangements.
Brilliant Robert!💜👏🏼🎉🫂
The ff7 main theme on piano at the last section of the video hit me like a ton of bricks.
awesome video ! very inspiring video. Please make another video about: 'Super-Virtuoso Breaks Down 9 Impossible Piano Pieces'
Kapustin was the greatest bridge over the gap between classical and type of music you hear in Nintendo games.
True story. Many years ago in the early 2000s when I was in college, I played “FF10: To Zanarkand” on the piano at a local music store. The sales rep, an older gentleman with glasses, came up and asked, “Oh, that’s a beautiful piece. What is it?” I said, “It’s from a video game called Final Fantasy.” He then smirked and walked away. I guess Uematsu is no Chopin or Tchaikovsky. 😂
This relation is too far fetched. Maybe a closer relation could be made with actual sports, not with a game about a sport like grand turismo. There are a lot of links between sports and piano performance, you can talk about mechanics, competition and stress, recovery, individual effort, guidance often being a single mentor etc. Theres even athletes who at the same time are professional muisicians like Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka who is a weightlifter and professional pianist. She often talk about how weightlifting helped her to jnderstand how toncreate power at the piano. Thats just one example of many. Gamers can be considered athletes in my opinion, of course, but i think the relationship between athletes in general with muisicians is much more interesting. It seems as if this video was an excuse for you to ramble about videogames
My boyfriend and i founded an orchestra to play video game music: The Video Game Symphony. He got into music through teaching himself how to play music from Chrono Trigger, Zelda, and Final Fantasy on the piano.
Dancing mad from ff6 is up in the ranks of Rach 3 in my favorite pieces
The NieR Replicant soundtrack >>>
Halo soundtrack played a key role in introducing me to classical music.
Even after discovering classical music, his use of first species counterpoint in pieces like "Ghosts of Reach" still bring me to tears from the melodic beauty. It's sad, but mystical. A glimpse into heaven. Emotionally moving melodies are so hard to find nowadays.
Could someone point me to the recording of Battle from FFVII used at the beginning of the video. It says it is recorded by the host Robert Fleitz, but I can't seem to find it...
Hey there, thanks for your interest! I made that recording especially for this video so it's not available publicly - but I'll be thinking about uploading it to my personal channel sometime!
I always appreciated how in videogame soundtracks, especially in Japanese RPGs, you could get a variety of different song forms. Piano ballads, vocal rock songs, an organ fugue, a choral piece, a violin sonata, a renaissance dance, a ragtime dixieland piece, a jazz fusion progressive rock battle theme, or combinations of them all, with any instrument. You can't find the same breadth of forms and styles anywhere else, definitely not pop, and even not much in classical. The willingness to experiment with both contemporary pop and classical forms was always incredibly interesting to me as a young musician with no formal training or access to much "real" classical music.
The debate around VGM as "legitimate" because they're meant to be 'set to a level' etc was always confusing to me. Wasn't the Program vs Pure music debate resolved ages ago? Do we view Operas for pre-written libretto as less musically legitimate than a piano concerto or whatever? Certainly not. Funnily enough, even listening to the old Pokemon soundtracks served as an easy 'gateway' to Mozart. Maybe the main barrier is the synthesized instruments? But Switched-On Bach is like 50 years old already too...I don't really get it.
Anyways, a video on Uematsu and maybe Yoshimatsu or something would be pretty cool...nice video anyways!
For me personally the debate is certainly over, but I think in many circles it's still a very fiery one!
What a great video!
There is a genre of games which for me feels very similar to playing the piano. Japanese shooting games called danmaku are games that are around half an hour long, which you have to perform in a single sitting. You play practice mode, learning all the details by playing small sections of the game over and over, to build up for your great performance. Titles like Mushihimesama, or the Dodonpachi series are the most "famous" examples. You're faced with the same kind of problematics as in piano playing : efficient practice, muscle memory, performance anxiety (just played 20 minutes of perfection and the super hard part is coming...)... I discovered those games quite recently and I was very happy to find a discipline in which I can use both my piano playing and video games skills at the same time.
Thanks!
Now I’m curious: who’s your Smash main?
Banjo-Kazooie 🐻🐦
Eternal Sonata !!!! I scream about it every time
🙏
There is a competition pianist who is now sim racer and a real life racing driver. He use some aspect of it’s piano training to teach sim racing.
Interesting! Do you know the name of this person?
@@tonebasePiano he is @suellioalmeida
@@tonebasePiano youtube.com/@SuellioAlmeida?si=3HzpJ3qeoK-_PsgN
@@tonebasePiano suellio almeida He has a RUclips channel but you have blocked the posting of link in the comments
For me...videogames leave me unable to concentrate. I can't practice effectively after an hour of videogames. While videogames distract me from life, music forces me to engage more deeply with it.
I think Wagner’s idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk or total art is fully realized in video games. I’m an orchestra teacher, and o routinely make the argument that video games are the highest form of art. Things like design, music, narration, puzzles can stand on their own in the own medium. But what happens when you combine all those things and you the consumer have to completely immerse yourself in the world.
Yes, I like both. Piano is a the deeper hobby but gaming is a lot of fun.
I see no difference between playing piano and playing a video game.
cool
a gamer pianist?!??!?!
What you bring from piano to gaming is the importance of: 1) maintaining good posture, 2) keeping steady breathing, 3) having your hands and arms always relaxed
So I actually sight-read Synthesia videos. It sounds unusual, but I do. I’m currently studying piano at the University of North Dakota, and my professors are always amazed watching me play with it. I've been playing for 4 years now, and I've played a lot of music. I've played through(not necessarily memorized) all the Chopin Nocturnes, a good portion of his preludes, and at least 20-25 mazurkas, but this is just Chopin. a lot of Rachmaninoff, Medtner, Henselt, Liszt (I've played way too much Liszt), Bortkiewicz, Hummel, and many more works by various composers. I bring up this topic because it’s a video game, but you can learn music from it. Although it’s not possible to play super difficult pieces at full speed with accuracy, I can play anything at a grade 6-7 level with 90% accuracy. Anything above that I usually manage well, but like seriously difficult etudes and concertos are challenging to play at full speed. So I play just one hand at a time, and it's back to 90% accuracy. This allows me to get ahead even though my parents didn’t understand or care about my passion for music as a kid even though I've asked for lessons. Synthesia lets me see much in a different way, not just pianistically but also from a composition standpoint. I’ve learned to study music in such a way that no matter how difficult the piece is, I can still play and see the harmony. I'm able to overcome the hurdle of sheet-to-sheet sight-reading, which I've started working on this year. I can play the first 2-3 Czerny exercises with ease. But without Synthesia to show me true music, I would not have the passion for music that I have to this day."
There were a couple reasons I started playing piano. I always wanted to be able to play Chopin Nocturne OP 27 no 1, and Moonlight Sonata 1, but the absolute #1 reason was because I wanted to learn how to play Tifa's song from Final Fantasy 7. That song hits me right in the gut. Whether it's just rose colored nostalgia glasses or not from my youth I don't care, Nobuo Uematsu is a timeless composer and the people that gatekeep and bash games and gamers are just elitist wannabe snobs and I can do without them.
I used to be a gamer when I was teen and I love FFVII with a passion, including its music (had to quit playing though, otherwise I would have never graduated xD). A bit over a year ago I finally got myself a piano and started taking lessons 🥰. I can now play Aerith’s theme easy piano version from the Hal Leonard publication. I also love classical music thanks to anime and this is the style I am learning the most and where my lessons are focused :). Happy young musician and geek here!
Such a great video! Like you, both piano and video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Video game music is what got me into classical music. Wonderful presentation.
If classical music isn't dead, it should be. No culture that insists to live in the past survives, and that's how it should be.
Such a brain dead take
@@duartevader2709 You've made it pretty clear who's brain dead here.
@@bazingacurta2567 i know right, by pointing out i made it clear that it is you
Classical music is dead. Strong agree. Especially when you're trying to include keywords that are not classical music related. Just proves the point.
❤
High quality videos are forever remembered, thank you Tonebase for making classical music culture flourish
Thanks for the kind words!
I hate most video game music as I find it at best to be at the level of lite classical music of the late 19th century or early 20th (think LeHar0. If it tries to be experimental it is very unsatisfying as it relies primarily on the repetition of a few dissonant hooks. It is interesting when it does direct quote of music from the pop and classical canon which then introduces gamers to some good music.
Such unskillful manner of praising video games without actually having said anything worthy.
You better stick to technical aspects cuz' that's where you sparkle.
tooooo much talking... little music :[
Video games are a huge waste of your life...
So is watching RUclips, get a life
@@dennisdeez123nice self roast
@@hello-rq8kf win/lose💀
@@duwns-x3n Of course, but I am joyful and know the value of life... Why does it appear to me that some young people are dead alive, and some old people are almost dead but alive?
@@RolandHuettmann because you’re old that’s why it appears to you like that. Video games are as much a waste of your life as reading a book or watching a film… if you were actually joyful you would listen and even in disagreement try to see the purpose of one’s argument. Which is what I’m trying to do with a non-joyful argument as bare as “it’s a waste of your life”
Not agree, sorry
eh gonna have to agree that video games are time wasters. you're sinking moments of your precious life into something that literally does not physically exist, and that doesn't come close to the emotional impact of listening to or performing music.
didn't know Lang Lang was in gran turismo but it makes perfect sense, both are entirely style with no emotional substance
My friend, video games are a ridiculously diverse medium and there's overwhelming evidence of its capacity for profound emotional impact. The video title mentions an illustrative example, FFVII, which has made a generation of gamers mourn the loss of a beloved character for nearly 30 years now (despite the severe technical limitations of the original release from 1997). If games are time wasters, so is music and art in general. I don't believe that for a second.
Ok boomer
@@Hendrix183 spare me the melodrama bud. gamers that think their plots somehow are moving or hold literary merit are just revealing how poorly read you are. it's like claiming fast food should be in michelin star restaurants because one time you had a really good big mac
@@twinblades-thewilltokeeplo6084 rather be a boomer than a manchild. and funnily enough it's usually millennials you see soyfacing over how "bideo games are art!!1!", not zoomers
@@hello-rq8kfAh yes, I should avoid the banal and quotidian, the Big Mac if you will, and stick to only the unique and transcendent, in other words, the Chipotle Burrito. Anyway, I know that chauvinistic perspectives cannot be changed through reason and evidence and will only ever yield petty insults at best. I just hope someone out there with a less bitter perspective loves you enough to reach you one day. Long live music, long live literature, long live video games and art in all its beautiful manifestations!
Get Ben Laude back…this sucks.