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I have recently become very enamored with two pieces by Ennio Morricone from Cinema Psradiso and also by Final Fantasy 7: Advent Fighting. The last, for those of you who don't know(like me...I had to google Final Fantasy), is music from a video game. Here are the piano versions of these pieces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqH7TQePyI&NR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FzVWlOKeLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkfAoKJpnAI

Maybe I'm being ignorant, but to me the video music piece would make a good "classical" work... whatever that means...obviously not as great as the greatest classical piece but good none the less.

What do you see as the difference(s),if any, between classical music and and great movie music and video game music(I won't say it's great only because it's the only video music I've ever heard!!)?

Thanks!

The Final Fantasy 7 might be a good piece to end a recital with; it's upbeat, "modern" and requires some panache and some technique to carry it off. The other two strike me as being a little too formulaic, a little too predictable and, while charming, seem not to have much "content" - for lack of a better word.

Too bad the pianist in the Final Fantasy 7 - or the piano - had damper pedal problems; the thumping of the dampers made me turn off the video before it finished.

Regards,

My hearing must be bad because I can't hear the dampers, but I think the pianist apologized in another video for this very problem you mention.

It's not your hearing, I assure!

You need a good set of speakers with subwoofer to actually hear the thumping.


I think Nobuo Uematsu, in general, likes to borrow ideas from jazz (and perhaps its derivatives and cousins and whatever) and classical. I want to point to the Final Fantasy 6 piano collection. There's a lot of stuff in there in a style "similar" to Prokofiev and Joplin. I'll also mention a piece called "The Castle" from Final Fantasy 8. The introduction of the piece is in the style of Bach.

My point is that, in particular, FF4-FF9 already has a lot of influence from classical, so there may not necessarily be a clear distinction.

On the other hand, we can look at FF10-FF11. Uematsu was minimally involved with those soundtracks, and there is a noticable style shift: most of the pieces have a new age style (especially FF11).

So the best answer, I suppose, is that the differences between classical and video game music depend on the composer!


By the way, since we're looking at Morricone, I just have to post this classic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmSjbnbR_pQ&feature=related

Cool! I played this game a lot about 10 years ago and I definately remember some of the tunes.
It's a very nice piano arrangement of the battle music (here is the original version on a PC with the standard MIDI sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9LrE6dRHn8).

There's some great and creative video game music out there and the Final Fantasy series especially are well known for its music and memorable themes.

My personal favorite game music comes from the old 'Castlevania' series, best heard in 'Super Castlevania 4' (1991) on the Super Nintendo. (What I also like very much about the older console days, is that they had to be very creative to make game soundtracks with very, very limited means)

Here's a theme from Castlevania called 'Chandeliers' that I think also has a classical feel to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsSTQSAlSHg&fmt=18
and someone doing a good job on it on the piano:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHe7IcwDVhI

Thanks for the link to the original scores. Actually, I find the orchestral version of Fighting far less interesting or "classical" sounding. I can't really explain why.

I'm really interested in others opinions if the piano version of "Fighting" could be considered a "classical" piece(of course, this depends on your definition of "classical")and why?

In older games the music just sounds limited because of the low quality sounds/samples and limited channels they had available.
But the actual melodies can be that good, that if someone uses them as a basis for a piano or orchestral arrangement, it could indeed sound like a (modern) classical piece.

Here is an orchestral version of the main theme of the same Final Fantasy game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_m_8Fexxyw&fmt=18
Modern classical music, soundtrack music, video game music? If you like it, does it matter?

Today's game soundtracks are often like mediocre movie soundtracks, they have much better sound quality of course, but it's more like atmospheric background music instead of nice and memorable themes. Shame.

It definitely doesn't matter in the sense you can enjoy them equally. But for me, at least, there is still the interesting and important question of exactly what, if anything, distinguishes these three kinds of music.

Thanks for the 'Final Fantasy' clip, which I thought was rather charming. Prior to this, my attitude to 'game music' was mainly influenced by my neighbor's woofer (all that gets through the wall, and then some).

I got hooked on Morricone's score to 'The Mission' without knowing it was film music. I recall asking the friend whose CD was playing (who also did not know) where I could get hold of 'the complete work'. I was very disappointed when I found out eventually that what I had so admired was 'it'. There ain't no more. I suppose I was looking for something akin to 'Carmina Burana'.

So there's the first part of my contribution to your question. Film music is fragmental. There is no 'complete work', except for the film. The music is composed in order to enhance a primarily visual experience. Similarly, I would assume, 'game music' is composed in order to enhance a 'gaming experience' (whatever that is -- pardon my ignorance).

My stab at a definition of 'classical music' would be 'music that exists only of itself'. The music is 'it'. Morricone began his career as a classical composer but either grew disillusioned with this, or with being poor -- maybe both.

Nevertheless, the 'Mission' music I so admired would qualify under my definition and I suppose the same can be said for any film or game music that is arranged as a purely musical composition, akin to the Overture of an Opera.

If one now asks what is 'great classical music' I think there can be only one answer. This is the test of time. I do not believe that 100 years from now, pianists will be playing the Final Fantasy, nor will choirs and orchestras be performing a transcription of the music from 'The Mission'.

I do believe that pianists will still be struggling with Op106, and orchestras will still be trying to figure out how to get the Passacaglia of Brahms 4th Symphony 'just right' (Pace!)

What disturbs me personally is that I have no answer to the question 'Of all the composers writing currently, who's music will still be played in 100 years?'. (I suppose one could make a thread out of this, though possibly more appropriately in the composers forum.)

I used to feel much worse about this than I do now, as though it was a unique failing of mine. However, when one considers that even van Gogh's brother could not sell for a sou a single one of the paintings for which, now, the cognoscenti pay $100M, one gains a different perspective.

Who of the folk of those Wien salons frequented by Franz Schubert would have believed that what they were hearing would, two hundred years from thence, fill concert halls the world over?

Not to mention J. S. Bach, the most influential composer of his age, whose prowess went virtually unrecognized in his lifetime.

It's not a pleasant thought, that one might not recognize great classical music when one hears it, but history suggests this is as much the rule as the exception.