Aha!: Oceanborn

I think the first time I heard Oceanborn was sometime in 2001 or 2002, but it wasn’t until just last year that it finally clicked. Now, I love every Nightwish album, each in its own distinct way, but I love them all. However, Oceanborn always got the fewest plays, by far, and I guess it just never hooked me quite like the others. With a couple of their albums, too, I had specific moments in my life that I connected them to, and I guess Oceanborn missed out on that as well.

The following statement may seem too obvious, especially in hindsight, but I guess I just never thought about it: Oceanborn needs to be listened to at sea. Obvious as at it may be, I never had that opportunity until last year when I took the ferry to Newfoundland. On a whim, I decided to listen to it, and it was like a switch being turned on. Suddenly it all made sense to me. I knew what the CD was really about, and everything fit into place perfectly. I was on the ferry again a few days ago, and I decided to once again test my theory, and the result was the same. Those two times that I’ve listened to Oceanborn have been the most enjoyable by far.

But the great thing about unlocking a secret like that is now I know the meaning, and I can tap into that knowledge and those feelings anytime I listen to Oceanborn now.

Play it for me one more time

I grew up playing video games. We already owned an NES before I was born, and the SNES quickly became a close companion. I started gaming at a younger age than my older brother, Scott, and Alan at a younger age than I. We started off with the classics like Mario and Zelda, of course, but Scott and I quickly developed an affinity towards Role Playing Games. Since then, I’d say 90% of the games I’ve played have been story- or character-driven. More than, that, however, I’ve always been drawn in by games with great soundtracks. Video games really are a multimedia experience, and when one aspect is lacking, it takes away from the whole.

RPGs have typically had soundtracks that go above and beyond the norm. There are some games where music seems to be an extra element, but the great ones have music that is tightly interwoven with the rest of the game. Even back in the days of the SNES when game music had huge limitations, it was the conceptualisation behind the scores that made the music so great. They were conceived on much greater scales than their presentation. The MIDI files would do their darndest to get the message across, and then your imagination could take over and fill in what you knew to be hidden. Theme songs became just as important as the characters themselves because they were inseparable. And at a time when text was either lacking or poorly translated and graphics could not always convey specific emotions or actions, the music gave the extra push to help you feel uplifted, sad, angry or excited.

There is often the notion that video game music is a lesser art form, which is usually accompanied by poor or no reasoning. There is a lot of bad video game music, no doubt, just as there is a lot of bad music elsewhere. That is no reason to dismiss an entire genre. Early generations of video games had extreme disadvantages in terms of delivery of music, as I mentioned earlier. But I think the good composers persevered and did the best with what they had. In many cases those early games have been remade on newer, more powerful systems and the sound has been updated, or reinterpretations of the soundtracks have been made in orchestral or piano form. With these tools it has been shown that the pieces are more than 8-bit sounds. Early recording devices weren’t so hot either—it’s not like an aluminum cylinder can really capture the whole of a Beethoven symphony. So one can hardly blame video game composers for having to use the only technology they had available at the time.

One ubiquitous characteristic of video game music is looping, ranging from barely noticeable, to frequent, to repetitive, to excessive. Generally a piece can do well if it lasts a good 40 seconds before completing the loop, but I’ve heard background tracks that will loop after a mere six or seven seconds. I remember as a kid being asked by my parents why I didn’t get annoyed by the incessant looping. And it’s a funny thing, I really never was bothered by it if it was a good enough track. For a piece to hold my interest (generally) it has to fit the following criteria: be fitting to the character/mood/environment; have a loop time that is not too short; and be an overall good piece of music (obviously).

The length of the loop is (or should be) dependent on other factors. For instance, if players are going to be spending a lot of time in an area, the loop should be much longer. Long dungeons, long in-game cut scenes where skipping dialogue is not an option, and boss battles are three good examples. You don’t want to have to trudge 45 minutes through a dungeon with an annoying 10-second loop—this is especially important in games where sound effects play a vital role and the music must be left on. Nor do you want your concentration to be broken during a challenging battle or puzzle because the music is getting on your nerves.

For RPGs—at least, traditional games—the overworld is probably the place where it’s most important to have interesting and appropriate music, as players will spend a lot of time there. The same goes for alternate travel themes, such as airship, boat, etc. Another consideration that needs to be made is whether or not the overworld music will reset after, say, a random encounter. This one bugs me a lot. Since these themes tend to be fairly lengthy, and random encounters are frequent enough, resetting the music means you might never (or rarely) get to hear the piece in its entirety. Not only that, but the first few seconds of the theme will get on your nerves more quickly. The more you’re likely to hear something, the better it should be. Final Fantasy VI and Breath of Fire each had three overworld themes to reflect changing worlds, and prevented one theme from being overused. Secret of Mana did the same thing with its flight music.

So, if you’re going to give all cities the same theme, it better be good. For instance, Chrono Cross has the worst battle music that I’ve heard (a shame because most of the soundtrack is quite good, even if a lot of it is based on remixed Chrono Trigger themes). This is not good for an RPG. If battles are integral, composing good battle music is vital.

Sometimes when I’m playing video games I will listen to other music (but only music that is either appropriate to my mood at the time, or somehow fitting with the game). But there are some games that I will only play with the game sound on. Besides most of the RPGs that I play, the Metroid series is at the top of the list. Since the very beginning of the series, Metroid has achieved an integration like very few others. The original composer for Metroid, Tanaka Hirokazu said that he tried “to create the sound without any distinctions between music and sound effects.” Though numerous other composers have taken over his work in all subsequent games in the series, it is apparent that they have held true to his vision, whether or not they knew this was his original intention. I think it works so well in the Metroid series partly because of the space/sci-fi setting, but also because of the humble beginnings of the music on the NES. At that time, with the limited sounds that could be created, it was easier to create seamlessness between music and sound effect. However, since then the amorphous sound has become a trademark of the series and is a strong contribution to the overall experience. If I play without the music/sound effects on, I feel like I’m missing out on a part of the experience. By the same reasoning, the music should never take away from the experience. I don’t want to be pulled out of a moment because the music is not fitting.

Musicke Silentium pt. 1

I think the idea that music and silence are distinct and opposing entities is faulty. Rather they are two facets of a continuum that are inseparable, but lacking a unifying name. Much the same way that death is a part of life, light exists with dark and so on. And I don’t mean this in an avant-garde-blow-your-mind way. Silence could be the opposite of music (from a certain viewpoint), but that does not make it an opposing force. Unfortunately, people talk about an “absence of music,” or about “filling in the void,” which makes it sound like music is and silence is not. Those who compose with this frame of mind will achieve different results from those who use silence much the same way they use “music.” If music is the composer’s creation and silence is an emptiness, then silence will be his enemy. He will see it as the abyssal plane that surrounds music. Eternal nothingness on either side of a piece. You should not fight silence and attempt to force music in between it. There is no beginning or end to either music or silence. There may be an end to a song, but the music is far from over. Silence does not simply cease to exist when the first chord is played. If silence is nothing, then how does one create music? How can something be created from nothing? One must work together with silence and music to shape the continuum around us. Silence cannot be nothingness, for it too can be used like music—“notice the use of double basses to reinforce this passage” compared to “his use of silence before the return of the second theme.” When instruments “drop out” of a section, they are not suddenly an “anti-music.” Their silence does not oppose, does not obscure the music of the other players. No one says “I can’t stand the lack of violins in this passage. It grates on me.” One might say “this section feels empty with the brass gone” but she is mistaking the use of silence as an enemy to the music. A good composer will know when to use silence just as well as when to use other techniques. Knowing when to play and when not to play are equally important.

"All music emerges from silence, to which sooner or later it must return. At its simplest we may conceive of music as the relationship between sounds and the silence that surrounds them. Yet silence is an imaginary state in which all sounds are absent, akin perhaps to the infinity of time and space that surrounds us. We cannot ever hear utter silence, nor can we fully imagine such concepts as infinity and eternity. When we create music, we express life. But the source of music is silence, which is the ground of our musical being, the fundamental note of life. How we live depends on our relationship with death, how we make music depends on our relationship with silence" ~Arvo Pärt

Aha!: Rap

I love those "aha!" moments. The point when something that never quite made sense to you suddenly snaps into clarity. That's one of the best parts about figuring things out by yourself. You get the satisfaction of knowing the answer to something as well as knowing that you arrived at the conclusion yourself.

The past three years have been particularly full of those "aha!" moments. After being thrust into the music world in the spring of 2006 I was inundated with information, and had to slowly wade through it all and make sense of it on my own. Then, gradually as I learned more and more, things I had learned earlier on made so much more sense. And things that I might have passed by before were suddenly relevant and the pieces fit together to make a satisfying picture.

Rap never made sense to me. And that which we do not know is often that which we avoid. I did not understand the point of rhyming over a beat or repetitive loops. The problem was, I was trying to analyse it from the wrong perspective. I was applying my knowledge of and experiences with other kinds of music, which didn't jive.

I don't remember exactly when it was that I understood, but I was struck by the simplicity of the answer and I gained a new appreciation for the genre.

Rapping isn't about the music per se. There is no harmony or melody to speak of because that's not even the point. The endless looping leaves no room for development or change because there isn't supposed to be any. This repetitiveness stems from freestyling, and rappers would have a hard time anticipating their rapping scheme if the beat, tempo or loop kept changing. Imagine trying to improvise over a constantly changing chord progression. If you didn't know what chords were coming up or how long they would last, picking the right notes, arpeggios, chords and rhythms would be very difficult.

Establishing a regular pattern turns it into a group experience, too. Now the audience can anticipate along with the rappers. Part of the enjoyment, then comes from knowing the pattern of the beat, feeling out how the rapper moves along, anticipating the upcoming rhymes/rhythms and then feeling good when you guessed correctly, or being surprised when the outcome is different.

Understanding all this gave me the chance to take a new look at the art and form new opinions. Now that I was comfortable listening to it, I was able to weed through the things I liked and didn't like about it, and I realised that I actually like it a lot. I think rapping, and particularly freestyling is a really impressive skill. I came to realise that it is particular styles that I didn't like. It wasn't the rapping though--it was the content. I didn't like the attitude, the lyrics or all the hype around it that seemed to overshadow the music itself. However, I've come to appreciate what it has to offer now that I know what I'm looking for.