Koji Kondo: finding inspiration in music

In an interview with Koji Kondo, Kikizo was able to delve into the mind of Nintendo’s Beethoven of game music and extract a few things that inspires the legendary music composer and director to create scores for games he works on. For a musician, he looks only to more music to inspire him for more varieties of musical scores.

 

But most musicians, especially some independent game developers, have a limited musical influence – a core influence, to put it bluntly. This influence keeps our game music selection very limited. Hard rock or techno may not strike pretty well with, for example, slow-paced puzzle games.

But essentially, like game conceptualization, a creator has to broaden his mind and his choice of options. Kondo may have started out with Punch Out up to the phenomenal Super Mario theme, but he also looks to other forms of music as well. He stated in one part of the interview:

I guess it’s just different with each piece that I create, and what piece for what game, but there are lots – nothing really specific. Basically, I am always looking for inspiration in different places, in all the music that I listen to – I try to find things that inspire me.

…To name names, someone that I find very inspiring and someone I admire a lot is Mr. Henry Mancini, who is a movie music composer. I really like the different genres that he’s able to do, to incorporate into his music, and I really finds his melody line to be very inspirational. I would love to be able to create music on that level.

Kondo creates his music in parallel with development, often gaining ideas for musical scores based on finalized concepts, such as the game’s characters. And just as he had mentioned many times before, he creates a musical score as a whole, adopting it to a single theme. All individual pieces are then weighed for coherence, balance and flow, to create a memorable music experience.

Koji Kondo is currently at work on Wii Music, soon to come out for avid musical composers on the Wii.

Via Kikizo

In an interview with Koji Kondo, Kikizo was able to delve into the mind of Nintendo’s Beethoven of game music and extract a few things that inspires the legendary music composer and director to create scores for games he works on. For a musician, he looks only to more music to inspire him for more varieties of musical scores.

 

But most musicians, especially some independent game developers, have a limited musical influence – a core influence, to put it bluntly. This influence keeps our game music selection very limited. Hard rock or techno may not strike pretty well with, for example, slow-paced puzzle games.

But essentially, like game conceptualization, a creator has to broaden his mind and his choice of options. Kondo may have started out with Punch Out up to the phenomenal Super Mario theme, but he also looks to other forms of music as well. He stated in one part of the interview:

I guess it’s just different with each piece that I create, and what piece for what game, but there are lots – nothing really specific. Basically, I am always looking for inspiration in different places, in all the music that I listen to – I try to find things that inspire me.

…To name names, someone that I find very inspiring and someone I admire a lot is Mr. Henry Mancini, who is a movie music composer. I really like the different genres that he’s able to do, to incorporate into his music, and I really finds his melody line to be very inspirational. I would love to be able to create music on that level.

Kondo creates his music in parallel with development, often gaining ideas for musical scores based on finalized concepts, such as the game’s characters. And just as he had mentioned many times before, he creates a musical score as a whole, adopting it to a single theme. All individual pieces are then weighed for coherence, balance and flow, to create a memorable music experience.

Koji Kondo is currently at work on Wii Music, soon to come out for avid musical composers on the Wii.

Via Kikizo