Video Game Music Comes of Age
The musical soundtracks to video games have turned into a very popular musical genre.
Video game music has come a long way from the old 8 bit bleeps of Pong and Donkey Kong. The Los Angeles Symphony is even in on the act!
Video Game Music is a very "young" genre of music that continues to draw in more and more fans. As home based video games become as ubiquitous as the televisions they are connected to,the musical soundtracks that accompany the animated digital images have stirred up a legion of fans that are as impressed with the auditory aspect of the games as they are with the visual.
Composers of video game music such as Rod Abernethy, Jason Graves, and Jesper Kyd (winner of the IGN Best Original Score Award for 2006) are taking their place as a new breed of musical elite. Their music and orchestrations for popular video games have taken on such a massive interest among young video game players that major symphony orchestras such as the Los Angeles Symphony have held sold out performances of their music. This cultish video game fan base has in turn spawned a nationwide tour with other professional groups from coast to coast. Their past and future performances around our country are cataloged at the VideoGamesLive tour web site.
The history of video game music strangely parallels the growth of other established genres. Once a particular piece of history falls into the category of nostalgia, interest and desire to acquire and relive the mementos of that piece of history become more valuable. As the original Nintendo and Sega games of twenty years ago have come to give the middle aged people of today a bit of nostalgia, so to has grown a resurgence in their popularity. Garage bands in various areas of the world such as The Kode and The Mario and Zelda Big Band started the interest in video game music and that interest has grown just as the quality of video game music being produced today has also grown.
In the 1980's when video games were in their infancy the technology was focused almost wholly on providing as much visual information as was possible. This limited drastically the amount of sound or music that could be squeezed onto the same game cartridge. As computer technology advanced, the ability to provide a more immersive auditory experience also grew. The tinny, polyphonic sounds reminiscent of the last generation of cell phones have given way to full, symphonic orchestrations with incredible depth, emotion, and complexity. The popularity of this new genre has also been noticed by the music educators of our time as well. Recently, Alfred Publishing Company released an arrangement for beginning concert bands of the soundtrack to the video game Bounty Hunter. Other companies have followed suit as well, and the trend seems likely to continue.
