A Decade of VGM - Part 2
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. The first article asked “Why Did You Start Creating VGM?” For this article, I asked several musicians one very important question:
What was your first experience with the VGM community?
Rebecca E Tripp
My first encounter with the VGM community was OCRemix. Back then, I used to compose only original music, but when I discovered OCR, I was enchanted by some of the arrangements of Final Fantasy and Chrono tracks on that site. I realized that arrangements of video game songs could deepen my appreciation and expand my perceptions of the source material. I also realized that I had a lot to say about these soundtracks!
I didn't belong to any VGM communities, however, until GameLark came around. They were the first group to take an interest in my own arrangements, and it was at that point that I realized that there even was such as thing as the "VGM Community". That's when I started to get to know and learn about actual people within it.
Sean Schafianski
When I first started remastering VGM way back in 2008, I considered it a hobby, a creative outlet for me to enjoy the music I grew up with. As I uploaded tracks to YouTube, the community was very supportive in their feedback! I kept at it and started making connections with said community, eventually leading to professional relationships and lasting friendships! My most significant experience came from joining Materia Collective in 2015. I had never seen such comradery within a community--everyone was happy to collaborate and see each other succeed. The VGM community has inspired me to continue to hone my musical skills and pay them back with quality content!
Eric Buchholz
My first experience getting involved with the VGM community was in 2008 when I joined an online group called Zelda Reorchestrated. We were an online group of Zelda fans that were fascinated by virtual instruments and sample libraries, so naturally we combined those interests and started releasing covers and arrangements of Zelda music on a weekly basis. I was 15 years old back then, and it just seemed like a cool hobby at the time. Before I knew it, I was spending almost all of my free time arranging video game music. To this day, I still enjoy arranging themes from my favorite video games when I'm not busy on other projects.
Purpleschala
My first experience with the VGM community goes back to 2005, pre-YouTube. A friend of mine and I had arranged and recorded a bunch of Final Fantasy music for piano, cello, and violin. We were super proud and excited to share the arrangements so we looked for communities online with like-minded individuals. We uploaded to vgdb.com, squaresound.com, and the gamingforce forums (if they’re still around, they can be found under the username Schwanendreher, sheets made using a trial version of Noteworthy Composer 1.0 lol.)
I first started engaging with the community when I saw enthusiasm brewing for a Chrono Cross Piano Collections project on gamingforce. Many composers were eagerly submitting arrangements, but there was no one to play them, so I volunteered as I love the game and the OST. The arrangements were, for the most part, rough around the edges, but on the whole very well-conceived and thoughtfully written. I recorded all of the arrangements that were submitted using an upright piano and a tiny AIWA condenser mic and received a lot of positive feedback despite the terrible recording quality. Unfortunately, the project fizzled and was abandoned, but I kept the sheets of the arrangements I liked the best and recorded them four years ago on my Mitsuda piano album (“Scars of Time”, “Dimension Breach”, and “Another Guldove”.) I had to take a break from the scene in 2007 when I got married and had my kids, but I resurfaced on YouTube very quietly under the name purpleschala around 2012.
From time to time, a few people from gamingforce have recognized me on YouTube because of those Chrono Cross recordings (which was surprising because everyone assumed I was male on the forums). I still have a few unrecorded Chrono Cross arrangements from that project that I’d love to clean up and record properly. I want to put them out there in the hopes of reconnecting with those arrangers, or at the very least, be like, “Hey, this was a really great shared dream we all had for an OST we all loved, and it’s a shame it never came to fruition the way we wanted it to, but here’s a recording of that arrangement of “Home Arni” that you never got to hear played, and even if you’ve moved on and don’t care anymore, you wrote a really great arrangement that meant enough to one person to carefully save over a period of 15 years.”
I’ve always viewed myself as more of a historian than a VGM cover artist. There’s so much good stuff that happened in those early days of VGM covers that fell by the wayside, lost to time as those sites that hosted our mp3s like gamingforce, vgdb and squaresound were rendered obsolete by YouTube. I wish I had been better back then about archiving, but for the forgotten names I do have, I’m trying to bring some visibility so that their work won’t be lost in the growing archive of quality VGM arrangements.
Chris Porter
My first experience with the VGM community was contributing an arrangement of "Let's Play 'Geno'" to a Super Mario RPG tribute album called Heavy Troopa is Ready to Launch, released by Game Music 4 All. I was contacted by Anthony 'genoboost' Ruybalid asking me to contribute, but I honestly can't remember how or why he knew who I was, considering this was my first arrangement, and I hadn't done anything of note prior. I wish I had saved that first email from him.
While I remember having a lot of fun doing this very short arrangement, I had only been creating music for a few years at that time and had never tried arranging anyone else's work. It's obviously a very amateur effort, but I'm happy I did it because it led me little by little to improving my arranging skills with each album I contributed to. I've since had the pleasure of arranging tracks for ten different tribute albums, one of which I produced with Materia Collective!
Photograph by Vikka Leoni
Walmaster
Around 2002, my band Select Start had been doing our best as a niche act in Gainesville bars and Florida anime conventions. Everyone loved hearing Mario and Zelda, and most would enjoy the sets even if they didn't recognize the deeper cuts from ActRaiser and Final Fantasy IV. At that time, we didn't really know that a VGM community existed.
My first discovery of a VGM community was definitely online, probably a year later. A few online forums had discussions that kinda shocked me when I had first found them--"The Shizz", the Minibosses messageboard, and the NESkimos message bards were the big ones. They discussed extremely obscure tracks fromunknown games and shared info on all the "hidden gem" covers they could find on the internet. VGM was serious business for all these people, and I couldn't believe there were people out there that studied, appreciated, and practiced this stuff as much as (or more than) I did. Through these forums, I discovered the OneUps, Eric's Little Shack, House the Grate, The Advantage, Metroid Metal, and Dwelling of Duels. I couldn't get enough.
The first time I can remember interacting with the VGM community IRL is through the NESkimos. The NESkimos were a big VGM band at the time, second only to the Minibosses, I believe, and someone from my band reached out to the. They were incredibly nice, even graciously promoting us online! I was ecstatic to be accepted by this community since I felt a strong connection to them through our mutual love of VGM. We eventually set up a show in Gainesville to play a full night of VGM bands. This was uncommon at the time (in 2005), and for me, the whole thing was magical. The show was a success (so many nerds!) and the whole venue sang along to the melodies from VGM songs we knew and loved. It felt rare and special.
Fredrik Hathen
My very first experience with the VGM community was way back at the tender age of 15 or so, when I got involved with a fan-made Final Fantasy VI spin-off game (that eventually came to nothing, sadly). I was recruited because I had placed third in a competition on VGmusic.com to create its official theme song, and I had also been an active contributor on the site for a while at that point. The project may not have panned out in the end, but I got tons of experience by recreating Uematsu's classic tunes in my own style!
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 3 through 5 here!