A Decade of VGM - Part 1
With the arrival of the new decade, now is the perfect time to reflect on the video game music community and how much it has changed over the past 10 years. I reached out on Twitter, looking for VGM artists that have been active for at least the last decade, and I was overwhelmed by the responses. I had originally intended to create one article, but given the number of responses, I’ve decided to split this into five articles, one for each question that I asked VGM artists. For this article, I asked several musicians one very important question:
Why did you start creating VGM?
Mauricio Plasma
I started back in 2008, using Cool Edit 2.0 and Fruity Loops 2. One of my best friends from school made his own rap beats, and he taught me how to make my own metal demos. I’ve played video games since 1989, so I started recording "Kirby Gourmet Race" for my first album Noentiendo. Some weeks after, thanks to the internet and Myspace, I discovered bands like Powerglove, Year 200X, Armcannon, and The Adventures of Duane & Brando (my first international collab). I’ve always recorded VGM for fun and to practice music recording and stuff like that. I also made some tracks for a videogame called Action Adventure World: The Game on PC.
Erik Peabody aka Viking Guitar
I grew up playing NES and SNES games and later got into playing guitar at the age of 14. I learned how to play a couple of video game tunes on guitar for fun over the next few years, but never really pursued it. I started a "legitimate" music project and recorded an album, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and the process was so horrible that I stopped playing guitar and recording for several years.
When I finally started making music again in 2008, I was very out of practice and needed to develop a better process for recording. I started doing covers of VGM tunes as a way to shake the rust off and learn a better process. In the course of doing that, I started getting some recognition for my VGM covers, and that has now eclipsed the response to my original "legitimate" project. Now, I'm fairly well-known for video game music, and I do professional audio production and composing as my source of income.
James Landino
Truthfully, I hated music growing up. I lived in a small town, and the only way to discover new music was through the car radio. That being said, I can remember even as a young child that I actually loved video game music. I would put in cartridges to my gameboy and hold its internal speaker against my ear like a conch shell, just to listen to the music.
In middle school, I felt alienated by a lot of classmates because I didn't resonate with any of the music they were listening to. It seems so stupid saying you hate all music, right? So I decided I would write my own, almost to prove a point to myself that I could enjoy it. During that same time, I started investing in music games. Titles such as Stepmania were open-source so the player could put their own music into the video game. It was the perfect collision that would become my eventual drive to become a game composer.
Mark Carroll aka TurquoiseStar17
I've been a musical person for most of my life, starting when I made my own songs on a tape cassette recorder with a keyboard, guitar, and some homemade instruments. I also grew up nearly deaf in one ear until that was corrected at about age 13.
During my second year of high school, my musical ambitions really came to fruition. I discovered Game Maker through the website of an indie game developer called TaurusMedia (Sandor). As I started playing around with it, I noticed most games made by Game Maker had soundtracks consisting primarily of arranged music taken from vgmusic.com.
Shortly thereafter, I downloaded Noteworthy Composer and hammered out my first composition in about an hour. It sucked--it was mostly the same eight notes over and over, but every creator has to start somewhere. A few MIDIs later, I decided to try an arrangement for vgmusic.com. My first non-original submission was "Tail Cave", the Level 1 dungeon from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
What I’ve learned is the only way to get good is through practice. It took about three years and composing for two Game Maker games and many more vgmusic submissions before I felt I'd finally found my "sound" with Mega Man Final 3. Now, with a few hundred arrangements and original compositions, I am forever grateful for the experiences I’ve gained.
Hashel
I started making VGM thanks to two things: OCRemix and Gametabs.net. Looking for Final Fantasy OSTs on the internet, I stumbled across the Voices of the Lifestream FFVII album by OCR, and I absolutely loved it. As a beginner guitarist, I wanted to play game music, so I searched the internet and found Gametabs.net, which has a lot of beginner-friendly tabs. When I started to learn some tracks, I noticed other folks were uploading their tracks to YouTube, so I wanted to do the same. I learned to use Audacity and started to make covers for YouTube!
Chad Schwartz of Triforce Quartet
When I was younger, my two biggest passions were VGM and playing in string quartets. I always wanted to play VGM, but there wasn't any sheet music out there at that time. One day, I stumbled upon a Hyrule Symphony recording of a mini-Zelda medley and realized I could just arrange VGM myself. Since then, I've arranged hours of VGM, and the reaction to our albums and shows motivate me to continue making more arrangements. As an added bonus, we are able to bridge the gap between VGM and the classical world. It's great to have a passion for this type of music, and to share the results with a passionate community!
Sirenstar Music
I create VGM because when I was little and started playing video games, I felt like I had found a space where I belonged. Ultimately, I want to help people create their own space when they listen to my music.
Jamming In My Jammies
I've always been a huge fan of video games. Around late 2007, I was told about this album called Metal Kombat for the Mortal Man by a band named Powerglove. I checked them out, and my thoughts were something along the lines of, "They're playing video game music on guitar?" and "How are they not getting sued?" Afterwards, I called up one of my best friends, and we attempted to make a couple tracks by ignorantly running a distortion pedal through my computer and recording with Audacity.
TeraCMusic
Videogame music has always been a huge part of my life. I remember listening to music from games like Battle Arena Toshinden and N2O: Nitrous Oxide way back when I was young. There was something different about VGM that I couldn't quite understand. The more games I played, the more I intently listened to the music in-game. I'm not sure why it captivated me so...maybe because I am empathetic in nature, and the melodies and musical phrases in many tracks spoke to me on an emotional level.
When I decided to make a YouTube channel, I immediately started making video game music covers. I suppose I wanted to keep my inner nerd alive, and I knew that I would be able to talk to others who appreciated the music as much as I do. Fast forward 10 years, and I am still making video game music covers!
I have met so many incredible musicians who have the same passion as me, and I am so thankful to be in this amazing community. We truly try to build each other up, which is rare in this day and age. I hope that I can be a video game composer one day so I can give back to the community that has supported me for so long.
Roman Vaude of Grissini Project
We create video game music because of the emotions we experience while listening to it. The aim is to raise the quality of interpretation of video game music in order to make it suitable for our audiences who are accustomed to high standards!
If you create VGM yourself, feel free to share your own response on social media or in the comments below. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t already, check out Parts 2 through 5 here!