Interview:Gamespot December 5th 2014: Difference between revisions

{{Interview/A|Koji Kondo|I think a few things have changed quite dramatically. With the advance in computer technology and hardware evolution, we're seeing a shift from what we maybe consider very computer-esqe music back in the day to being able to use actual instrumentation and create music that's performed by whole orchestras.<br><br>That used to be a solo gig where I'd compose the music and create all the sound effects that we were going to use. And now we're actually hiring professional musicians, bands, or orchestras to come in and perform the music. Record and implementing that into the game, those are the biggest changes that I've seen.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|No, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that those songs would become what they are today. My focus at that point was really just to make music that would enhance the gameplay. I was just trying to do my best to make music that would make the games more fun. And that really was all I was doing.<br><br>To think that it was 30 years ago that we did the Super Mario Bros. theme and now it's known worldwide, and people seem to appreciate it across the globe. You can go onto YouTube and see all kinds of people using all kinds of instruments and different orchestrations of these songs. It was not expected, but it makes me very happy.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|I don't think that I could point out any specific artist or genre. I just try to listen to lots of different kinds of music. Everything from classical to jazz to lounge and techno, just a wide spectrum of music.<br><br>I don't have anything that's on heavy rotation on my iTunes, and I'm not listening to my own CDs all that often. I really just have Internet radio stations, and I flip the channels so that I hear a wide variety.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|The timeframe it takes is really different for each piece of music that I create. Sometimes I'll see the art assets or see something in the game and, "Bam!" the music comes right to me. Other times it takes months, and I'm still not coming up with anything. Then I'll be working on something else, and the melody will just pop into my head while I'm doing that.<br><br>For example, with Zelda, if there's any sort of cinematic that I'm able to view, anything that shows an emotional point in the game, those scenes are the ones that allow me to come with ideas more easily.<br><br>I think the thing that really takes the longest time is coming up with the main theme for a game. Part of it is that it's something you're going to be hearing a lot, and also it has to capture the core element of what's enjoyable or interesting about that game. So the main theme is usually the portion that takes the longest for me to compose.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|I think sometimes those main themes just sort of pop out of the blue. Like something that's been delivered to me out of the sky. A bolt of lightning or what have you. But other times maybe I'm in the bathtub, and I'll hear the melody line in my brain.<br><br>Really, for me personally, a lot of times, when I'm trying to create the main theme for a game, I'll hear what eventually becomes that theme when I'm not consciously trying to come up with it. There have been cases where I'm walking down the hallway in my house and I hear some music in my head, and I feel like, "Yes, that's it." Then the next day I play it back and I say, "What was that? That's not what I needed at all." But I think as far as any special technique, it's more about not actively thinking about it when a lot of that music comes to me.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|Actually, with Majora, we thought it was really important to protect the feeling of the game because the music was tied so well to the original gameplay. We've done some clean up on the audio quality, but the music itself we haven't changed.<br><br>We did some rebalancing, of course, to make it sound good on the [[Nintendo 3DS]]. Before you were hearing it out of you TV speakers, and we just needed to do some rebalancing for that now that it's on a handheld.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|That's always a tough one.<br><br>But when I saw the very first mask you see in Majora, I saw that and it really brought to mind for me, for whatever reason, a type of Chinese opera. The kind where the performers wear masks and the music is all percussive [makes the sound of a cymbal being struck rhythmically], and there's a lot of cymbals and bells and what not. Those two linked up when I first saw Majora's artwork, and I thought a Chinese-influenced theme would be the way to go.<br><br>Something else I remember is in the scene where the [[Mayor Dotour|mayor]] is sitting and you have the two sides having a discussion over the top of him. He's sitting in the middle of [[Mayor's Residence|his office]], and you have the people on the left talking about something, and then the people on the right, and there's this discussion back and forth. I had a lot of fun making the music feel like that argument so that you'd have music pouring in from the left speaker and then music coming in from the right speaker. That back and forth was a lot of fun to create.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|Yes, sometimes there are disagreements on what music is correct or appropriate. With Majora, the director didn't sit and say, "This is the kind of music I want." He wasn't super hands-on, so I was able to create the kind of music I thought was appropriate for the game that I was seeing. And I figured that if no one was complaining, because I was creating quite a bit of music, then it must have been OK.<br><br>So I just kept going in that direction. However there was one area where a fox was dancing, or something with a fox, where the director came up and said, "I'd actually like this to feel more Japanese." The feeling that the director was getting from what he was seeing on screen was just different from the impression that I got. But I did go back and look at the scene, and I understood more what he wanted after that. So I redid that music.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|I do like being in a role of giving direction; it is a lot of fun. Because I have a staff that really reaches out and creates music that I personally wouldn't have imagined or stuff I wouldn't have created, it's really interesting to hear what they come up with.<br><br>I have to say that while creating music is fun, and I do like doing that, it's also tough work. There are times when it's really difficult and not all that pleasant. As someone who gets to listen to what others have created, I get to escape from having to endure some of that hardship myself.}}

{{Interview/A|Kondo|We look at whether the music has achieved its goal. Whether the music's designed to emphasize a certain action on screen or if it's designed to entice vocal songs or something like that. We just have to look at what the music is designed to do within the game.<br><br>Sometimes the creator has a tough time doing that. Because they're so close, they're so deep into the music themselves, they're unable to look at it from the player's point of view. So as someone who's supervising the direction of the music, I try to put myself into the player's shoes and I ask myself, "Does this music fit with what's happening? Does it do what the game wants it to do?" But the composer is still concerned with the music itself. So I try to look at it and give advice from that viewpoint. Whether or not it's achieving the goal, and whether or not that's clear from the player's viewpoint.}}