Koji Kondo: behind the Beethoven of game music |
Ó
Paired with Shigeru Miyamoto (a.k.a. the Einstein of game design), Koji Kondo forms the winning team for Nintendo's game development camp. Kondo, who discussed his game music composition secrets at the Game Developers Conference last week, also can be remembered for his piano solo performance at the Video Games Live concert.But Koji never started out wanting to be a game music composer. In fact, he started out as a pianist, after pursuing that direction in his life at the age of five. Tapping into his love for keyboards, he was drawn into the popularity of synthesizer boards and MIDI-capable computers. Soon, he was able to code BASIC programs for creating music on his own PC.
Suddenly hooked into the idea of music from computers, he jumped at every opportunity to play local arcade games like Miyamoto's classic (but newly released back then) Donkey Kong. Kondo said, "I was really interested in them, because they were the only place where you could find the kind of sound creation I was looking for."
He joined Nintendo in 1984, where he was instantly put at work to create music for the bout-classic Punch-Out. Soon after, he found himself tasked with coming up with six cohesive, but whole pieces for Super Mario Bros., which was under development then.
If you can guess which song he found the most trouble creating, you'd probably have picked the main theme. As he had discussed in his game music composition lecture, he had to tie the rhythm down in order to match Mario's energetic running and jumping. But after pulling it off, Super Mario Bros. as a whole became a title to remember: in gameplay, story, and song.
If you've got the time, hop over to the Billboard ringtone charts. Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. theme still jingles there for 126 weeks (topped the charts once) and still running.
43 Jumps PSP homebrew - PSP live TV v0.3
27 Jumps PSP homebrew - PSP Live TV v0.4
17 Jumps Buy two, get one free at Best Buy
13 Jumps PSP homebrew - QMixer v1.0
11 Jumps Atlus now mass-recruiting debuggers
Contact Us:
The QJ.net Network |
 |
| Site | Feed |
| QJ.NET | RSS |
| Nintendo DS | RSS |
| PlayStation 3 | RSS |
| PSP Updates | RSS |
| Wii | RSS |
| Xbox 360 | RSS |
| MMORPG | RSS |
| Personal Computer Games | RSS |
| iPhone - iPod Touch | RSS |
| QJ.NET Forums | RSS |
Add QJ.NET
User Favorites - December
User Favorites - December
Categories
Archives
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
Comments [refresh]
Beethoven of game music? This is the guy that said Zelda TP didn't need an orchestrated soundtrack. At least Beethoven could work with an orchestra. This guy is a hack. And yet, the Wiitards will swallow all the ***** Nintendo feeds them, no matter how substandard. I wonder why?