How Pokemon 8-bit music was inspired by classical music
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- My chiptune track played in the outro of this video is available to download at davidbennettpiano.bandcamp.co... or stream on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0wKKJ... 🎼
Junichi Masuda's soundtrack for the original Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow games is iconic. Despite the limited hardware offered by the Gameboy, Masuda managed to create some highly effective music, and he did so with a little inspiration from his favourite classical composers.
SOURCES:
8-bit guy, How Oldschool Sound/Music worked: • How Oldschool Sound/Mu...
8-bit guy, Use your Gameboy as a MIDI instrument: • Use your Gameboy as a ...
Interview with Junichi Masuda (2014): www.pocketmonsters.net/conten...
Gameinformer (2014), Pokemon music master: www.gameinformer.com/b/featur...
Dylan Tallchief, How Pokemon's CREEPIEST song was made
: • Lavender Town: How Pok...
Interview with Junichi Masuda: • Interview with Game Fr...
Korex, How the Pokemon music was made: • HOW the Music of POKEM...
Tuning the Koto: • Tuning the Koto - The ...
Nintendo Life, Interview with Junichi Masuda: www.nintendolife.com/news/201...
How Music Was Made On Super Nintendo: • How Music Was Made On ...
Gameboy sound hardware: gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Ga...
Retro Game Mechanics Explained, Generation I Pokémon Cries Explained: • Generation I Pokémon C...
Masuda on musical influences: www.gamefreak.co.jp/blog/dir_...
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano 🎹
0:00 Introduction
0:21 Gameboy's limited soundchip
2:02 Counterpoint vs. Homophony
3:29 Celadon City
4:12 Pallet Town
5:45 J.S. Bach
7:45 Lavender Town
9:17 Viridian Forest
10:00 Stravinsky & Shostakovich
10:55 Mt. Moon
11:54 Pokémon Tower
12:20 Junichi Masuda
13:40 I wrote a chiptune piece
My chiptune track played in the outro of this video is available to download at davidbennettpiano.bandcamp.com/track/study-in-gameboy or stream on Spotify: sptfy.com/davidbennett 🎼
@@David_Bennett_Pianoscam
@@Moiaija When is TH-cam going to do something about this shit
David you should make a video on non harmonic tones and explain why they work!
@@jaredf6205 dont know
I just love it when the first video of a newly discovered channel I click on is sponsored by this crap. Moving on.
The fact that there were only four sounds and three of them were capable of producing pitches and that these intricate-sounding compositions were possible is impressive!
The pulse waves have their own harmonics that helps add a bit of complexity, and what's described as the custom waveform could be made to have additional harmonics. All kinds of fun techniques to create more depth and complexity to these tunes.
The NES had the same limitation, too, with the small exception that it was also capable of playing very short samples (at a cost to ROM size that could be significant--they didn't have a lot of space to go around in those days), and it couldn't play custom waveforms (its third channel was fixed to be a triangle wave). And the Commodore 64, famous for its music, nevertheless was also severely limited; it had only three voices total, though any of them could be switched between a couple different waveforms. It's impressive how composers managed to make great music with such highly limited hardware!
Limitation breeds creativity
@@AB-sw4kb
This
@Zero
Release him, Lord Vader
Hope this video does well and we get more video game music analysis! There is a treasure trove of music theory goodness there. Legendary thumbnail
great comment!
I hope you're already subscribed to 8-bit music theory
@@Bladavia yep. Would love to hear David's perspective too and I'm sure he would cover some different aspects from 8-bit
Goofy troop for snes and bombliss 2 + also have great music, a review please
Jeremy Soule has done some amazing work in videogames.
I never thought my appreciation for Pokémon music and Masuda's compositions could grow even more, but here we are. Thank you. I really loved your original piece as well.
#BustANutInsideMasudAss
@@RandalfElVikingo
Oy vey goy you can't say that against the chosen piplups!
love seeing channels from my different interests cross over, nice to see ya here Ron!
@@graydeotto2820 technically it’s the same interest since it’s about Pokémon and tru green has talked about Pokémon music before on his channel
@@madnessarcade7447 i mean, my interest in music theory youtube and Pokemon youtube, yes Ron talks a lot about music in vids and the podcast but its still a bit of a genre crossover
This whole video just reinforces my opinion that musicians are absolute wizard and their ability to write music is black magic.
We can create and control waves to manipulate your emotions. Black magic indeed.
They can manipulate sound waves and directly influence your emotions without ever physically coming into contact with you. Black magic indeed.
I've always loved chiptune music because its just pure melody, nowhere to hide in sound design!
This Pokemon Mansion Theme has elements of pure sound design. Especially the start.
Listen to orchestra music
@@friedemannmagerl7901 agreed!
@@Pyroific chiptune is fun to listen to tho so no offense ofc
@@friedemannmagerl7901 none taken :) orchestral stuff is great cause its so dynamic, you can go from super subtle into huge booming walls of sound
It's so fascinating how Masuda can make these almost sort of robotic, pattern-oriented yet genuinely elegant compositions based off his apparent love of counterpoint, Phrygian dominant mode, isorhythms supporting arpeggios and starting off with one or two initial musical ideas, and then gradually building off of them like a painter would with their canvas. A very Baroque-era musical philosophy based on rhythmic simplicity and focus on melody, indeed!
A whole lot of personality in his compositions
If you think Masuda is fascinanting wait till you hear the king of counterpoint. Johann Sebastian Fugues.
I never even thought about how the GameBoy's music engine worked. I gotta say, the way Masuda wrote those pieces is absolutely genius though.
Masuda's music method
Using 8-bit Pokemon music to explain classical music concepts like counterpoint and arpeggiation is ingenious! Before watching this, I never would have thought I could comprehend these seemingly arcane concepts, but explaining the limitations under which 8-bit Pokemon music was made and showing how the music illustrates the concepts made them easier to understand. And I do enjoy chiptune music, so that was a big draw. Thanks!
Couldn't agree more!
Arpeggiation really isn't an arcane concept at all 😭
@@vascosanchez It is for me! :)
I would also recommend 8-bit music as jazz - by The Consouls. They draw out the jazz construction of many vgm tunes brilliantly.
Oh c'mon arpeggiation is as basic as it gets. Literally 'rolling' the chord.
The part where he mentioned adjusting the Viridian Forest song so that the parts looped at different times blew my mind, I always had a feeling there was something I was missing about that song but never would've figured that out
Lol sure you did
@@thomers2451 it's not a secret that these songs have unsettling aspects
A lot of songs in R/B/Y have desynchronized loops. Viridian Forest is not one of them. Lavender Town is, though (the loops take two minutes and 43 seconds to synchronize - four loops of channels 1 and 2 - for channel 3 to cycle through once).
@@729MendicantTide The composer is directly quoted saying that he did this for Viridian Forest at 9:30 in the video
@@mitchellboyce9853 Okay, _technically_ Viridian Forest has an offset loop, but only because both the pulse wave channels have their line copy-pasted for a second time through every loop on the song since the DPCM channel track for that song is exactly double their length in measures. For all intents and purposes, it might as well be counted as one loop. I believe the same thing applies to Rocket Hideout.
It still is not as blatant as Lavender Town where the DPCM channel has a sixteen measure loop versus the twenty measure loop the pulse channels do
(edit: it's 16 vs 20, not four vs five. I have a bad habit of counting measures in groups of four)
You can disable and isolate audio channels in GB/GBA emulators.
I used to do it while playing Pokemon G/S/C and R/S/E and got to really appreciate the intricacy of these amazing soundtracks.
PS: Prof. Oak lab theme is the Chinese Dance by Tchaikovsky!
My god, after reading your comment I searched for it on YT and thought for half a second "This is the Oak Lab theme!". This is the kind of trivia that I definitely love.
Omg, thats why I loved it so much back in the day. As a child, the clip with the mushrooms dancing to this melody in Disney's Fantasia was one of my favourite things!
Whelp. Never gonna unhear that
yep. what i did was put pokemon midis into guitar tab software to learn the battle theme basslines
The Pokemon soundtracks features some my favourite music ever, so it's really thrilling you decided to cover some of it. Go Ichinose, who joined the sound team during Gold and Silver is a real idol of mine, absurdly talented and creative composer/arranger
True, the music for Gold/Silver is wonderful.
I always joke that Go Ichinose's "Approaching Cynthia Prelude" is my fabourite Rachmaninoff prelude. Pokémon games have always had the blessing of incredibly talented and creative composers.
Maybe a second video covering second gen and go ichinose :))?
The music of gold and silver in its original Chiptuner sound gives me goosebumps and makes me ✨feel things✨ to this day ❤️
I’m actually about to change the battery on my gold/silver/ crystal cartridges partly because I wanna experience the original music I loved as a kid (I have my original game boy color too), that said, I still think gen 4 has the best Pokémon center music, especially bdsp
Not gonna lie, I didn't expect dedicated videos looking at game music from you, but this was brilliant - cheers 😄
Thanks 😊
The Pokémon OST is indeed a masterpiece.
Pokemon Emerald and Platinum have the best music
As a modern trained musician this really demystifies how chiptune is written, so thank you! I could never wrap my head around how they made it sound good, because just using 8bit instruments doesn't make great chiptune. Most of the work is the arrangement.
I realised that vgm had really good bones when I discovered The Consouls 8 years ago. Their vgm jazz covers are absolutely brilliant!
That's a great summary of the process
I think there is no music I know so well by heart as the original Pokémon music. If I'm ever in an elderly home I hope they play those songs to stimulate my memory.
Ahhh that idea is so touching 🥹…
I love how you mentioned that Masuda allowed limitations to breed creativity... art works best when limited.. because it's within limits that we rise above...
>Oreimo pfp
Opinion discarded
Word
I got chills from your original piece at the end!! It's absolutely fantastic!!
I just heard it once and already have a earworm, a wonderful meldody!
Sounds medieval
That chiptune piece is fantastic! Please release the full version!
Ngl i didn't personally like it, just something about pokemonsusic sounded way better to me than the original composed piece made by this youtuber.
Viridian Forest, Mt. Moon, and Pokémon Tower are such fantastic compositions - twenty years on and still some of my favourite music.
Wait till you listen to Gen 3 and 4
I'll never get tired of these different perspectives on early video game music. Truly incredible stuff
You can really tell the composers knew their stuff not only when.thr music is analysed like this but also when bands like The Consouls turn it into incredible jazz.
I love how old video game music like this takes inspiration from classical music. It’s like double the nostalgia 🥰
Great video as always! Especially love the thumbnail
How about adding a third layer of jazz as The Consouls do? It's brilliant stuff!
I really adore your chiptune piece at the end! It seems like it would be right at home in a pivotal plot moment in a game.
FINALLY the video I've been all my life waiting for. I've always been fascinated by how this soundtrack combines baroque counterpoint with 20th century harmonies, like if Prokófiev composed a fugue in three voices for harpsichord. The GB limitations ended up giving rise to a unique compositional style.
14:00 Now that caught me off guard. I've played Pokemon Red on my GameBoy in 1998, but I didn't have earphones, so I always played with the sound comming from the speaker. After all these years, this is the first time I pick up the vibrato effect on those background notes on the Lavender Tower theme. Truely admirable work from Junichi Masuda.
I've got a different interpretation of the Mt. Moon theme! To me, the beginning sounds more like a B augmented going to an E augmented and then back to B+. Then Masuda uses scale degree 2 of B+ (C#) that he emphasizes in the melody to cleanly move to the F augmented section, as it's scale degree 5 in that chord. F+ drops down a half step to E+, then we're back to B+. However, that last B+ doesn't have its root until right before the piece repeats. Instead C#, scale degree 2, gets emphasized repeatedly until it finally resolves down to the B.
We want augmented triads to resolve. Every note in one could easily resolve up or down to make a stable chord. Masuda, by only using augmented chords, creates a feeling of anxiousness in the listener. This is compounded in the middle section by chromatic runs in the bass and a slowing down and speeding up of tempo and also by the measures of 5/4, 6/8, and 7/8 he throws in in the second half of the piece. That's my read of it at least!
I forgot just how incredible Pokémon music is. To me music/sound design is what makes a video game or a film, without great sounds it will only be average or good at best, the sound takes you back and you fall in love with it all over again
Very true!!
I never realised that vgm was actually that goid until I heard The Consouls' brilliant jazz covers. The original tunes are really well constructed - and, of course many are outright bangers!
Yeah it definitely does, soundtracks to video games, tv shows and movies make the experience more memorable to me.
This is so cool--I swear when I was a kid and first getting into classical music the opening to the second movement of Stravinsky’s “Symphony In Three Movements” made me think very weirdly of Pallet Town, and I could never tell why. Still can’t, but thought of it when I first saw your thumbnail. Excellent as always!
I always thought the Lavender Town theme had some influence from Rite of Spring's "Ritual Preparations of the Ancestors."
After all these years I come to appreciate these games more and more with videos like these. It's beautiful that these catchy tunes we listened to as kids were so heavily inspired by highly respected composers of old. Thank you for the video.
Amazing analysis. I've been in love with pokemon music since I was very little, and I enjoyed the deep dive into its composition a lot. There is beauty in the music that emerged from the technologic limitations of old consoles that I am happy is still being explored today.
You should hear it as arranged as jazz - The Consouls are brilliant!
Well done this was an absolute joy to watch! Masuda does not get enough credit for breathing life into the series through the music of the game. Hope this vid does really well!
this is amazing, easily one of my favorite videos of 2022. great work!!
Thanks!!
I never knew this music was inspired by classical composers, but it makes so much sense now. You can really hear the similarity playing them back to back.
All music is inspired by another composer
Junichi Masuda and Yoko Shimamura are god tier composers
But actually how come there aren't more comments on how freakin fire your bit cover is! It's so good! And the fact you made it have to be for four channels (3 i guess without drums) is amazing!
This is honestly one of the best TH-cam videos I've ever casually stumbled across
This was super interesting and made me relive my time in school learning music. Absolutely amazing how this works and loved the piece you wrote! ❤
I love that in gold silver and crystal, when you revisit Lavender town in the postgame, the town’s theme is the same but different. The tune begins the same with the creeping intro, but changes with the drop after the first few bars. It is revised to be more jovial and the melody takes a dramatic upswing. It’s like a reminder of the past but I’m a new light.
Can you be nostalgic for nostalgia? Because that’s the feeling of the gen II lavender town theme.
Since i played my brother's old GBA i was wondering this, with less tools the melody and creativeness are pushed to shine in a work of total inspiration and gave us memorable tunes that will be with us for ever
Can I recommend The Consouls vgm jazz arrangement of Zelda Main Theme and others - very nostalgic and brings out the brilliance of the original composition
Thank you for this analysis, it's so precise and accurate! but I must add that this inspiration to classical music doesn't stop in the 8-bit era! Cynthia's piano prelude (greatly inspired by Rachmaninoff) or N's Castle (both versions) are great exemples!
This feels like an 8 bit music theory crossover.
Limitations often produce great work. Which is true in numerous disciplines. Having complete freedom to do anything just leads to feeling overwhelmed by the options. For example, a chef with limited ingredients is forced to improvise, often producing great meals that he would never otherwise have considered. With endless options, he might tend to just stick to what he knows.
The last chiptune sounds up straight like a Pokémon bike theme or a surf theme , it might very well be used in one of those - beautiful !
Always loved Junichi's work - he's so crazily talented doing coding, composing AND design throughout his tenure at Gamefreak; certainly a pioneer of VG music. Love the breakdown!
Embracing the simplicity inherent in some genres really does yield great results as you've shown talking about the game's music and then composing a peice of your own in similar fashion.
I have noticed that there is a simplicity present in Hip-Hop Instrumentals born out of the limited tech available when they first made them in the 70s. And I have liked what I've created with Hip-Hop Instrumentals more over the years when I have simplified it.
This is a fantastic explanation of the great work Masuda did on these pieces. I would love to see your explorations of some of the works of other early video game composers, especially Tim Follin. His work on Pictionary (NES), Treasure Master (NES), Plok! (SNES), and Agent X (ZX Spectrum) are particular standouts to me. He did a lot of work with making the sound chip in the NES in particular sing just as beautifully as Masuda did the Game Boy.
It would be interesting to see a comparison between a composer like Masuda and a composer like Tim Follin. Composers from Europe like Follin often used rapid arpeggios to simulate chords in a single channel, a technique not often used by Japanese composers. Thus I believe European chiptune music would align more with homophony rather than counterpoint.
Your chiptune piece makes me imagine exploring a ruined, cursed town in something like Dragon Quest. Devoid of life but not of danger, crawling around in search of treasure and seeking to find the source to put a stop to it, to cleanse it to allow the world to heal, or at least to figure out what happened.
Do a part 2 on pokemon gold silver music please! I want to see more of the evolution of some Kanto songs in Gen 2
I second this, unless I'm too late and it's already done by now lol
a channel called 8-Bit Music Theory has a really good video on that!
You appeared in my recommandation and I'm more than happy to have clicked on the video ^^ I like videos which tackles music theory behind our beloved OST and I see that Masuda really made genius moves while composing the soundtracks with so few voices available !
Awesome topic for a video I'm stoked!
😁😁
Lavender town is in E minor. The harmony and melody are in E minor. The motiff does make it sound C lydian.
Exactly! I wonder why nobody pointed it out sooner and why David himself didn't realise during analysis that C lydian flat 2 is an unneccessarily complicated way of looking at E minor / Dorian and does not fit well with the structure of the melody and bassline.
I can't believe the soundtrack to my childhood was written in code. Loved the chiptune song at the end!
A refreshing look into my favorite games 💕 that chiptune you composed was AMAZING 👏 🙌
Fantastic!! I adore music analysis for game music and I adore the Pokémon game music, especially these early ones inspired by classics! So fascinating, I never tire of learning. Your piece at the end was so cool as well. It made me want to try composing in these parameters! 💜
1st time here, I'd call myself a music illiterate but I must admit I somehow found easy to understand your explanation. I know pokemon is very underrated in music compared to other game franchises but it happens that Masuda-sama and Ichinose-sama are favourites game composers overall. I hope you could cover gold, silver, crystal too in a video. If I may request your analysis on gum leader / elite 4 theme and Lance / Red, I'd be forever grateful.
I can’t thank you enough for this video. This soundtrack was part of my childhood and such an important thing to me up to this day, and it fills my heart up with joy to discover more about it.
Thank you ❤
This was amazing, thank you for this! Also I love your chip tune at the end it’s awesome :)
Thanks for doing this! Great work
love that little melancholy chiptune piece you wrote for the end! stellar vid as usual 👏👏
17:12 sounds like "h Poké" hijacking the audio chip! Really nice tune and glitch effect.
This video is inspiring, and I hope there will be more like it!
I normally enjoyed this video like many others of yours...but I was NOT expecting the last piece at the end!
Throughout the video my ear adjusted to trying to differentiate each tone separately, but when suddenly I was able to just naturally discern what each melody was saying in the last piece and then be able to listen to them altogether...I just felt like crying for a second there. Great video!
This is such a good video - well researched and explained perfectly , deserves more views !!
Thank you so much for this video man, this ost is pure love
I used to hear this type of audio when I was playing the my cousin's games and it was so impressionable, all kinds of major mood changes can be felt from them.
Very potent material, and thanks for sharing.
I come back to this video every couple months. It's changed how I write immensely!
I think this is my favorite video of yours yet. Keep up the great and interesting work!
I actually loved your composition at the end, reminded me of a prolog, a point of important narration or even a villain theme. Really cool.
Man, thanks for uploading this video
I've been struggling with composing Pokemon music for so long, and with this video, you've made it way easier.
Many thanks!
My dear Mr. Bennett,
I cannot stress enough how nicely arranged this video is. The way how swift and clear you show the different musical concepts to a music newcomer like me is simply astonishing! Also, this kind of music seems way more engaging for young people than bachs original pieces but is not less than a fitting example.
Really lovely, thank you very much
Would love more video game music analysis from you!! This was so well done
That chip tune you made was fire, brother. Amazing video and detail. I know understand an arpeggio better 🎉❤
Never noticed the vibrato on the Pokémon Tower song. Must have heard it 1,000 times too.
beautiful outro tune as well! great stuff as always david
A phenomenal video. Your composition at the end is fantastic and has inspired me to delve into the genre. Much thanks.
There is so much in this video, you can learn bases of the music theory with those exemples, it’s brilliant
I loved learning this. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!
This is really good! Your own design sounds really legit too!
amazing analysis and beautiful song at the end, do more in this style with your songs at the end please
Loved this video! Great job David👌🏻
Literally tripping out at your original piece! It's insaaane 🔥🔥
absolutely fascinating examination. i love bach and also pokemon music but had no idea that his works played such an important role in the development of the music.
Great video! The nostalgia I felt from this was very intense. I didn't realize how much the music impacted me, even as a child. Lavender Town was definitely my favorite, no doubt due largely to the excellent theme. Ghost Pokemon are still my favorite to this day even. Thanks for the journey! Again, great video and excellent song at the end!
One of my favourite videos you’ve made! Cheers and Happy New Year!
Amazing, now I see why I always liked both pokemon and Bach so much.
That chip tune at the end is fantastic. I really love flat notes. Please release the full track :D
Thank you for making these! Very educational on both theory and game design
This is a wonderful video, thank you for sharing this bit of game music history from one of my most beloved game series. Your chip tune composition is beautiful too! This turned me into a subscriber :)
The trainer battle theme from gen 1 was truly masterful. That they got that out of the gameboy was incredible
great vid, love how you explain Masuda's thought process for writting this music :D
Absolutely brilliant video, just class. Recently found this channel and full of gems. Looking forward to more videos, really inspiring for my own music composition aspirations!
Awesome video and chiptune song! Those old school Pokemon tracks get me every time ha. So good.
What an incredible video, thank you very much to everyone that worked on it
This is amazing... Thank you for making this, videos like yours are few and far between...
This was very well executed. Super enjoyable and comprehensible.
Nice work!
Thanks for this video!! absolutely brilliant, thanks masuda-sensei for the incredible music too
This is an unbelievably well-presented video, very well done.
I'd like to add that if anyone watching is interested in counterpoint, Johann Fux's "Gradus ad Parnassum" was considered the master treatise on counterpoint in the late Baroque: J.S Bach himself owned a copy. Jacob Gran has an excellent (if a bit dry in presentation) series of YT videos on counterpoint as well, based on Fux's book.
Lovely piece of original music at the end. Thank you for sharing :)
Wow this video was amazing and great job on the track you made at the end it definitely sounds like it could be in a game.
You don't know how much I loved your composition. You should upload a video only with this music.
Love your 8bit song at the end! (And the video in general)
Yessss!! Finally a detailed video that I can share with everyone!! I’ve always knew that the soundtracks are inspired by classical music but I never knew how to really explain it properly! Very much appreciated for this video!!! ❤
This video is amazing, thank you man!