How Videogames Are Saving the Symphony Orchestra
wsj.com
wsj.com
Is it just me, or is this guy the epitome of snob/hipster? He goes weekly, probably because he's far above the entertainment choices of the Philistines around him, name-drops an expensive wine so he can denigrate a beverage he deems not classy enough. If too many people start showing up to these performances, he might have to find a more niche form of entertainment so he doesn't have to rub shoulders with the plebs.
To be less snarky, I guess he's just saying he doesn't like it, so that's fine. Ultimately these groups are working to make some money and send whatever artistic message they choose (and they seem happy on both counts), not to satisfy one certain person in the audience.
Some people act like "classic" things are inherently purer or even different than modern ones, but for example Shakespeare has vulgar jokes and was performed to earn money, just as modern entertainment has "baser" content and motivations. It doesn't mean both can't also teach us about timeless themes, the human condition, etc.
Compare, for example, to the popularity of musicals. They operate under the same basic "spend a lot of money to sit your butt in a seat for two hours and listen to musicians perform" principle, but many musicals have intentionally aimed themselves at all kinds of audiences, like politically-conscious artists (Rent), middle-class white girls (Wicked), families with children (Lion King), twentysomethings worried about their futures (Avenue Q), people who are into furries (Cats), etc.
6. What should I wear to a San Francisco Symphony concert?
Contrary to what many people think, formal attire—such as tuxedos and evening gowns—is not required at Symphony concerts. In fact, most people only wear formal clothing to our Opening Gala. At our other concerts, most concertgoers wear business or cocktail attire.
It is really the other way around at other places. The orchestra in my town (my old employer before tinnitus ended my carreer) has a big image of the solo clarinettist in a quite out-doorsy clothing saying something about how you should come as you are and ignore the fact that the whole orchestra looks like penguins.
Meanwhile the Southwest flight people won't go to the symphony either, because they don't care. Unless, of course, it's video game music.
I'm ambivalent about the video game music thing, simply because what works in one setting doesn't necessarily work in another. A game score's primary virtue is to withstand repetition and respond to non-deterministic events (which may be a more interesting way to approach a VGM concert than just a tour of Final Fantasy's 'greatest hits' or whatever; certainly there are precedents in the post-war avant garde for that kind of thing). A symphony proper is designed ground-up for the sort of setting in which you are likely to hear it - an acoustically-tuned concert hall, with a highly-trained band of musicians extracting every bit of dynamic range and expressive potential out of their instruments. There's nothing quite like it when it works (there is also nothing quite like, since I've mentioned it, death metal, or techno, or ...)
The problem with 'high-culture' institutions going for populism is that it can be done in a really shallow, instrumentalist way: the VGM concert as the loss leader for Schoenberg frankly isn't going to do any favours to the VGM. It has to be treated seriously, or it won't even be fun - not used as a gateway drug for what the orchestra/concert hall really wants you to listen to.
Then again, with Andrew Lloyd Webber never say never..
There is nothing wrong with being entertained by orchestral video game music, but to an initiate in the world of classical art music it is disappointing if listeners don't want to engage with orchestral music more beyond reliving their gaming experiences. There are so many more thoughts and feelings an orchestra can inspire in a listener if they invest in absorbing that tradition.
There is good music and bad music, genres are just sets of constraints, none is inherently better than other, what matters is how composer use them. Good chiptune can be a better art than mediocre classical piece. And I would argue more "non-classicaly-trained" people know classical music (even by accident), than the other way around. Everybody have heard Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach, and Strauss at some point in life. Most people never heard Flimbo Quest or Zelda soundtrack.
In 100 years there will be people with PhDs arguing over the merits of classical SID chiptunes vs the Amiga era mods.
PS if you're interested in trying something different I reccomend this presentation about chiptunes - it's interestnig and gives you some idea about the genre constraints and stylistic choices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEjcK5JFEFE
Could you recommend something? I'm sceptical about "dancing about architecture", but I'd like to give it a try. So far I like some classical music (the famous guys mostly, also some stuff from Chopin), but I never was hardcore about that.
> Are you saying that video game music has more to offer besides reliving gaming memories?
Would Chopin's polonaises be less worthy had he wrote them for a video game? There's any genre you can name in videogame music. Even statisticaly there has to be something good there. From non-chiptunes I particulary like OSTs for the first Witcher and Bastion.
And then there are genres that evolved with and for video games (and demoscene), like chiptunes or mods, and there's a lot of good music there, too. In fact chiptunes share a lot of constraints with symphonic music, and the amount of creativity there is great (imagine every classical composer had a private orchestra available for experimenting 24h/7 since he was a kid). For nice compilation of recent chiptunes see https://www.reddit.com/r/chiptunes/comments/pq72m/what_chipt...
Unfortunately I don't know specific books to learn this appreciation (although I know there are excellent ones out there) -- I was raised in this tradition and absorbed it through violin lessons, practice on my instrument, theory class, history class, and listening to a lot of classical music.
I went to both the Final Fantasy and Zelda concerts at Wolf Trap in Fairfax, and I was stunned at just how packed the show was. (It's an outdoor amphitheater.) And the ages. And here is the NSO getting ready to perform, and most of these people are in their teens to 20s. How fantastic is that, to draw in that many young people to see what a real orchestra can do? And not only that, but to witness what goes into making the music they enjoy when they're playing scenes from the game above the stage. Suddenly you're able to place musicians with the sounds you're hearing and the notes being played.
I dare say, many of them, if not most of them, appreciate and enjoy classical orchestra music. It's always been with them. Just they haven't always realized it. =)
Case in point: I was lingering around with a friend well after the "Music of Zelda" performance, when a group came out towards the parking lot. Struck up a conversation with them, and found they were all part of the NSO's flute section. One had built a harmonica into a Zelda NES cartridge, and brought that to the show with her, along with the Zelda t-shirt she was wearing under her suit. She grew up playing the same games.
Eh, I doubt that even this snob needs to be told that - opera (which was instrumental in the development of the forms that define the classical repertoire) is replete with sex, violence and bawdy humor and the giants of the repertoire are very colorful characters.
My hunch is that his anxiety has more to do with the constant fear of "the new" in orchestra halls, where anything less than 100 years old is looked at suspiciously.
As a nerd for all kinds of musical genres, including "classical", this kind of anxiety is evident just about everywhere in some shape or form - indie rock, metal, rap, country, etc, etc. Every genre is constantly changing and crossbreeding, and everywhere there are purists trying to hold on to their image of the genre and performance scene when they fell in love with it.
A lot of video game music was created by people trained in classical music. The Nintendo themes, a lot of Square / Enix games, etc. etc.
There are plenty of videogamers who take music damn seriously. The OC Remix guys are absolutely superb at what they do for example.
For less of a "Classical" feel, there is MAGFest (Music and Gaming).
In any case, you will find plenty of "serious" musicians trying to celebrate video games and music. I think that symphony orchestras have begun to realize how much video gamers enjoy music and are learning to merge the two fields. But Video Gamers have known this fact for many years already!
Ultimately, I welcome our classical music brethren to the party.
[1] Nov 29th in Tokyo http://melodiesofcrystal.blog.fc2.com/
While here, the ticket price has now be announced: 1500 yens, and they will be sold starting October 24th.
http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/super_mario_g...
I personally know at least one person performing in orchestras professionally who grew up with video games and would be excited to play music from her favorite games.
At 20 years old, I am not your typical orchestra attendee. I don't get to go often either, but when I do, I always thoroughly enjoy it. I enjoy the music (though alas, I still understand much too little of it) just as much as the atmosphere: fancy clothes, a beautiful building, the hushed silence during the performance.
I do not deny that a casual clothes performance of video game music can be fun, entertaining, good listening. I do not even say that it is necessarily worse than a classical piece (though I also agree with cicero's and mazelife's previous comments - and yes, I like more contemporary music too). What I do say is that you can't really compare the two. OK, both are music, and both can be played by an orchestra. But for one, their style is very different - one meant to be listened to with full concentration, the other as a background track to something more important. Quite aside from that, how you experience a piece of music very much depends on the atmosphere; it is precisely the fancy clothes and old buildings that build up the whole "feel" of a classical concert, just as the dancing, clapping crowd and light shows determine the atmosphere of a rock concert.
Interestingly, I find that just about everybody who talks about "all those snobbish classical concert-goers" and talks about how we should stop imposing dress codes for these visits tends not to have been to such concerts him/herself. Maybe if they did they would discover that there is a lot more to classical music than a bunch of old people putting on airs.
I'm all for expanding the universe of good tunes that orchestras can play, especially if that keeps orchestra members able to make money and continue their art. There's a small part of me that can see the perspective of the purist, but it reminds me too much of "formal musical study" of the guitar, which is, essentially, playing a lot of classical stuff that most people aren't interested in hearing! The jazz guys and gals maybe have a bit more approachability, but again, the peak of the genre is very complex and out of the usual scope of "listening for pleasure."
I haven't been to one of these (yet) but I'd surely like the chance to experience it. Also, somewhat relevant, the last time I checked, the "Trans Siberian Orchestra" holiday performances were hanging in and probably making some good money! I know they got my cash one year.
Times change, tastes change.
I'll refer to it as symphonic music as now on. (though this leaves out chamber pieces :( )
(Though we do refer to even late-romantic period pieces well into the 20th century as "classical" unfortunately)
It's not because music is played in an orchestra that it's the same genre as the popular orchestra music that was played x00 years ago. Unfortunately most people don't make (knowingly or unknowingly) the distinction.
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Sigh... :/
People in the comments rightly jumped all over the guy in the article who said these concerts were “akin to Mouton Rothschild using its wine to make and sell sangria.” But there is a point buried under all the snobbishness: video game music (and film music) are not supposed to be concert music. In fact a good film composer would probably tell you that if their score for a film is so compelling and interesting that it can be extracted out and plunked down in the concert hall as a fully-fledged work, they're doing it wrong. Film/videogame scores are (by definition) supposed to be subservient to the whole of which they are a part. Thus it's the narrative of the game or movie that drives the formal aspects of the music. This isn't to say that there can't be greatness and even genius in scores, but that it's not being used in service of producing a stand-alone concert work. Which is why even very good scores usually have long passages of music that successfully create an atmosphere for a particular scene, but taken out of that context would sounds rather boring and aimless in a concert hall. Similarly the kind of drama evoked in a concert piece where you have musical themes that are presented and then developed and transformed at length just doesn't work for film scores, where you are working in much shorter time increments (like the length of a scene). This is why even the greatest film scores (Maurice Jarre's score for Lawrence of Arabia and John Williams' score for Star Wars, for example) are known for having a few really memorable, resonant melodies and/or for the way in which they contribute to a memorable scene.
I've gone to film music concerts and enjoyed them, but I'm under no illusion that it's necessarily the most challenging or profound stuff. I'm also aware that it's partly the memories and associations I have with the movies themselves that I am enjoying when I listen to the music. In any case, it's not at all the same experience as a classical music concert. I hope that some of the people who have dipped their toes in the water listening to an orchestra perform "The Legend of Zelda" might be curious enough to go back and hear what other, far more interesting kinds of things an orchestra can do. Because if not, these concerts will be a nice windfall that can help pad an orchestra's bottom line (and god knows they could use the money). But they won't do what orchestras need most, which is to develop a real, life-long appreciation for classical music in younger audiences. Unfortunately this article presents zero statistics one way or the other on that point.