Why Does Minecraft’s Music Stay With Us?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 มิ.ย. 2024
- Minecraft is a beautiful, lonely, and sometimes strange game, with a wonderful soundtrack to match it, written by C418. But what is it that makes Minecraft's music so good, and why do we seem to connect so easily to it? How does nostalgia work in tandem with music? I hope to try and break that down here, talking about why I think the Minecraft soundtrack plays on nostalgia so effectively, and how that nostalgia creates powerful ties back to our past.
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References
- How Daniel Rosenfield Wrote Minecraft's Music, by Keith Stuart - The Guardian, 2014 (www.theguardian.com/technolog...)
- The Minecraft Wiki - article on Music (minecraft.wiki/w/Music)
Video Sources
- Dwarf Fortress Steam Edition - Launch Trailer ( • Dwarf Fortress Steam E... )
Songs used:
- Minecraft - Sweden
- Minecraft - Wet Hands
- Minecraft - Moog City
- Minecraft - Mice on Venus
- Minecraft - Subwoofer Lullaby
- Dwarf Fortress Classic - Menu Theme
- Over the Garden Wall - Prelude
- My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade
Chapters
Intro 00:00
Part 1 - How Minecraft's Music Ticks 01:25
Dwarf Fortress 02:17
Genre and Instrument Choice 03:11
Random game, random songs 03:54
Part 2 - How Minecraft's Music Connects Us 05:50
Minecraft's music is... 07:53
Nostalgia over time 08:37
Outro 10:58 - บันเทิง
The mention of "a loved one popping in to check on you while you're working on a hobby" made me tear up a little bit cos our cat charlie used to come in and demand attention while I was working on stuff on minecraft... We lost him on new years eve :/
Charlie sounds like a sweet cat who loved you a lot, and I’m glad you have these memories of him to carry with you! I’m so sorry for your loss
Wake up brother it's 2013 let's see Pat and jen And at 1:00 am let's see Phineas and Ferb now it's 00:00 AM At 2:00 AM we play Minecraft at 3:00 AM we play Roblox
were you even alive in 2013
I honestly never appreciated Minecraft's music when I was younger, but now that I'm older it just hits me with that nostalgic feeling of memories of long ago. Also, great video dude keep it up!
I always loved the contrasts between the different tracks, especially the insane difference between the synthesizers of volume beta to the more instrumental sounds of alpha (Biome Fest vs. Sweden for example) but C418 did it all in a way that felt like Minecraft
Absolutely! as a synthesizer fan, Volume Beta doesn’t get enough love from the community I feel like
I will never forget when I first discovered Minecraft. It was the 24th of December of 2013, and my friends and their parents were around my house for some sort of christmas meet-up, and my friends older brother, my friend, and I all watched three videos made by stampy, there could have been more, those videos were episode 99 of his lovely world, the final episode of his and stampys quest to kill the ender dragon, and one of his episodes playing a minigame, once my friends went home and id gone to bed, I stayed up almost all night just watching more and more episodes, some being those hunger game videos, others being stampys lovey world, and I even found myself on one of DanTDMs mod reviews, i think it was of some plants vs zombies mod, that year was also one of the last times that christmas felt truly magical, some time in 2014, I finally asked my dad to buy me the game on his xbox 360, he looked at it and we left to buy a copy, i think from a second hand shop, shortly after that, i got the game for my ps3, as well. This started my entire love for minecraft, I spent hours playing it and still do, just not as much anymore
Sounds like wonderful memories! Haven’t heard some of those names in a long long time. Thank you for sharing :)
I think my fondest memory of playing Minecraft was when 12 year old me had a sleepover at a buddy’s house and we just played until 6:30am. We started a survival world at the beginning of the night and by 6:30 we had killed the dragon and gotten full diamond gear.
i think another part of what makes minecraft so appealing is that making it on your own in a strange environment is a bit of a power fantasy. being able to do almost anything, build almost anything, fight almost anything, all from almost nothing... it makes us feel stronger, more resilient. it makes us feel like we can take on anything we set our minds to.
I recently just started a challenge called "it starts with one" where you make a buffet world (single biome) and set it to "the void". not the end or something, but specifically the void. the only things in the world are dirt, water, stone, and some caves, as well as a few other things. no grass or trees generate in the world, no passive, neutral, or hostile mobs spawn, with the exception of phantoms and pillager patrols. this world is, by definition, unsurvivable. what kicks off the challenge is using cheats to give yourself a single oak sapling and seeing how far that little tree takes you.
I've already found my way to the nether in this challenge, and it feels so strange seeing mobs other than phantoms, and a landscape more hostile and simultaneously more fruitful than the one I found myself in before. the dangers of this overworld were succumbing to impatience and a lack of creativity, while the nether's are recklessness and lack of caution. the best tools you have up until this point are stone after all, so caution is of the utmost importance. I've only died once so far, and it was falling into lava trying to escape a ghast. a mistake i'll be sure to do my best not to repeat.
im not sure where to go with this challenge, but given the changes to the nether to make it more hospitable, it will definitely make things more interesting. i don't even have a bed since sheep and spiders don't spawn, so a respawn anchor will be a welcomed addition once i can get my hands on one. if i can get string from striders, I may make a bed as a backup for the anchor, but we'll get to that point when I've progressed enough. I don't plan on getting netherite, tho i may try for iron armour and tools. idk lol, we'll see.
if you try to do this challenge, I wish you the best of luck. oh and don't sprint! you'll need to conserve as much hunger as you can until you can find a suitable food source. then again, there's not much to explore anyway, except underground with caves. I won't spoil what all you can do, other than the fact you're able to go to the nether, but if you want more info you can probably find it by looking up the name of the challenge.
For sure, that’s a great way of looking at it! That challenge sounds super interesting, i might have to try it out! Reminds me slightly of Skyblock, but a good deal more intense from what it sounds lkke
I love when Minecraft music is the best thing i ever hear because it feel is like peace and relax
It really is so nice for that, it’s very relaxing :)
Yeah, you get it. The nostalgia and memories attached to the music is what makes it work. I have tons of nostalgia for 3Ds games, as it was my first console, and stuff like Mario Kart7, steel diver, Pop Island, Fantasy Life, All the Mii and Mii adjacent games, the music almost brings me to tears at times, and I think all of it is what's directly responsible for my love of music and my pursuit of making my own meaningful music today.
🤙
Nostalgia’s a heck of a thing. It’s crazy how much what we enjoy and take in influences us as we get older, especially as creatives, and i think nostalgia plays an interesting role in that. It’s like you’re not just influenced by the thing itself but also how you think that thing made you feel 20 years ago
We play tomorrow :ast connection 7 years ago
why you gotta do me dirty like that bro?!
**12*
Minecraft is like life our Perspective
-Daniel
This was a pleasant viewing experience
Thank you!
i love this video, never new that was why i felt that nostalgia
Thank you so much! Nostalgia is a powerful thing for sure
when listening to different music from minecraft, I relate it to a certain image or memory of my game. For example, when I hear Blind Spots, I think of my first superflat world with a taiga biome and a bunch of spruce trees scattered everywhere.
That sounds beautiful. I can relate for sure, i also very strongly associate music with images!
Why’d you have to hit me with the Over the Garden Wall song 😭
4:00
Hehe it felt right 😬 I love playing it on piano
I remember years ago playing my very first world, I've always had a terrible sense of direction, and just like you and your brother, I was lost in a cave, and couldn't find my way out. It took me hours, and I vividly remember the dulcet tones of Living Mice echoing through the room through my crappy laptop's speakers. It was night time. The first night. I just barely had stone tools, and had spent all day looking for iron, as I had seen many others do in videos on Minecraft I'd seen. Back in mid-2010 when I started, Minecraft had no popups telling you what to do, nor did it have a recipe book. It lacked many of the blocks and items we have today, and was very primitive, and dark. My computer at the time wasn't very good, so I had to play with my render distance on short (thank god it wasn't tiny), and because it was night time, and I hadn't seen any monsters, I thought I could just build a house without an issue. So I did, I built a house. I had no idea you could craft doors or anything since I didn't know the wiki existed. I finished the house, which was just a simple box, but ran out of wood halfway through, so I went to get more. I KNEW monsters existed but I hadn't seen any so I assumed they were rare. Anyway, as I got wood, I saw a zombie, so I ran back with half the wood I was wanting to get but continued building, shortly after which I got shot by a skeleton, fell off, then got blown up by a creeper. I gave up and deleted the world, but decided to actually look stuff up about the game afterwords
Ahh that sounds like quite a memory! Almost paints Minecraft as like a survival horror game (maybe it kind of is sometimes…?)
I still love Minecraft now, but there’s something to be said for the simplicity of the Alpha and Beta days
Also, 8:30 I didn't grow up as an emo kid, but I remember the song (which I won't spoil for those who don't recognise it lol) suddenly becoming super popular at some point, to the point where it essentially became its own meme xD
I know I’m so late but this video and your channel are so underrated. Your saying that Minecraft is “making an uncaring world into a familiar one” hits home… I’ve never been such an avid Minecraft fan but it does hold a special place in my heart.
Thank you for the love! Glad this connected with you, I think these feelings kinda go beyond just Minecraft
Been playing this game since... since I can remember honestly. It's helped me get away during some tough times in my life. This vid brought back some really fond memories, I didn't come from the Nintendo video but I'm heading there next and I'm definitely sticking around for the next ones. Keep it up man (so long as you want to), this was wonderful.
Oh also yea, get a yoga ball lol.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for sticking around :)
Minecraft forever
6:37 wait, I thought Moog city 1 was never in Minecraft and Moog City 2 never played while in a world, am I missing something? Also good video, it was easy to follow (besides the 2 mentions of Moog city from nowhere) which for some reason is hard to do in videos about Minecraft's music, but you sure did do it!
Ya know you’re actually right now that I’m looking! I could’ve sworn Moog City 2 played in-world, but it IS just a menu song; I must’ve mixed it up with an another song… and now it’s gonna bug me as to which song was ACTUALLY playing!
watched this while playing the old legacy minecraft on ps4
Bro can I just say that your like the most genuine youtube I've ever watched, your really interesting to listen to :)
I appreciate that a lot, thank you so much! :)
Great video! You can find so many videos out there talking about video game music from a music theory perspective, but I think it's just as important to think about how the music makes you feel emotionally; why does this song make you feel the way you do? You can just feel the passion and emotion put into the Minecraft soundtrack, and I appreciate you for sharing your thoughts on it.
For sure! I love talking about how music makes us feel; music theory is definitely part of how composers know how to pull certain strings, but there are so many other factors at play too! Glad I could fill that gap in a little bit, of talking about music in a more abstract and emotional sense
Thanks for video! I'm from Crimea and I'm a new subscriber!
Hello there! Thanks for sticking around :)
Within 23 hours!
I think only the old music by Dabiel will be considered nostalgic and NOT because I personally grew up with it. It goes beyond that. The modern music (aside from the discs you can find and play in the jukebox) just feel invasive and even annoying at times, especially in the Nether.
That’s totally fair! I don’t know what Lena Raine’s approach is to Minecraft in particular but her music is definitely more “up front” than C418’s. Personally I like the songs on their own, but we’ll see how they fare for sure
@@matthewdotwav I've just realized I wrote "Dabiel", how embarrassing, but yes, the tunes are great on their own. Since the game does nothing to contextualize the music, I find the simpler tunes can fit in with whatever is going on more than any complex piece.
broooo this is too good :’) great job, so well edited and thought out. my favorite is wet hands
Ahh thank you so much! i love wet hands too, subwoofer lullaby is great too :)
your content is top tier, subscribed
Thanks so much!!
you pronouncing moog correctly caught me so off guard
I think I mispronounce something in every video essay, so I just HAD to nail “moog” or else I’d have to hand in my electronic musician card
Love this entertaining type of informative content.
If you know anyone looking for a third perspective on the people that click on videos like this, why they click off, where the title and thumbnail play in (can even make one)... all in a plan you can follow of to do's and goals. Let me know...
I love you!!!!
Edge.
Edge.
Have you ever been on an Edging Streak? Edge.
Edge.
Do they keep you in a state of Edging? Edge.
Edge.
When youre not performing your Edging, Do they make you Goon? Edge.
Edge.
Rizz.
Rizz.
Whats it like to hold a Gyatt of someone you love? Rizz.
Rizz.
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Rizz.
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Rizz.
Do you dream about being Rizzed?
Rizz.
Baby Gronk Rizzed up Livvy Dunne, Rizz.
Rizz.
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Rizz.
Skibidi Edge Rizz.
Skibidi Edge Rizz.
Why dont you say that 3 times? Skibidi Edge Rizz.
Skibidi Edge Rizz.
Skibidi Edge Rizz.
Skibidi Edge Rizz.
i think i’m good thanks
What does any of this mean?
I love and hate nostalgia at the same time 😭😭
Although it is the same soundtrack on loop throughout the entire game, I will always turn my music volume up a bit if Wet Hands starts playing.
Me too, that’s a favorite for surep
this is a great video!! my favorite song is definitely wet hands (:
Thanks! i love that one too!
God video
1:30 I *NEED* that as an animated background, can I get that anywhere?
I don’t know how to make an animated background, but I could send you the raw footage!
@@matthewdotwav I don't know either, but I'll find out
🦢🐤
What is the piano at 4:13?
It’s the main theme of Over the Garden Wall!
And somehow current mojang didn't know what to do with the game.
not nostalgia and good music
relax music
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