Andrew Schartmann (USA New England Conservatory)

Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. (1985) score redefined video game music. With under three minutes of music, Kondo put to rest an era of bleeps and bloops-the sterile products of a lab environment-replacing it with one in which game sounds constituted a legitimate form of artistic expression. Andrew Schartmann takes us through the various external factors (e.g., the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo's marketing tactics) that coalesced into a ripe environment in which Kondo's musical experiments could thrive. He then delves into the music itself, searching for reasons why our hearts still dance to the "primitive" 8-bit tunes of a bygone era.What musical features are responsible for Kondo's distinct "Mario sound"? How do the different themes underscore the vastness of Princess Peach's Mushroom Kingdom? And in what ways do the game's sound effects resonate with our physical experience of the world? These and other questions are explored within, through the lens of Kondo's compositional philosophy-one that would influence an entire generation of video game composers. As Kondo himself stated, "we [at Nintendo] were trying to do something that had never been done before." In this book, Schartmann shows his readers how Kondo and his team not just succeeded, but heralded in a new era of video games.

Produktdetails

• 33 1/3
• Verlag: Bloomsbury Academic
• Artikelnr. des Verlages: 271984
• Seitenzahl: 168
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. Juli 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 165mm x 118mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 161g
• ISBN-13: 9781628928532
• ISBN-10: 1628928530
• Artikelnr.: 42397130

Autorenporträt

Andrew Schartmann

Inhaltsangabe

Forward Preface Acknowledgements INTRODUCTION CONTEXTS 1-1 An Unlikely Hero is Born 1-2 Mario Grows Up 1-3 Kondo's Compositional Philosophy 1-4 Kondo's Instruments MUSIC 2-1 Overworlds and Underworlds 2-2 The "Underwater" Waltz 2-3 Bowser's "Castle" Theme & Other Endings 2-4 Sound Effects CONCLUSION Bibliography Index

Rezensionen

Schartmann is convincing on Kondo's genius ... It's hard not to appreciate his high aim. If anyone still doubts a video game can be art, perhaps their definition of art is at fault. The Wire 20150819