
How Videogames Are Saving the Symphony Orchestra - ihuman
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-videogames-are-saving-the-symphony-orchestra-1444696737
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scintill76
> Not every concertgoer is convinced. “From a business-strategy perspective,
> it completely devalues the brand,” said Roderick Branch, a 39-year-old
> lawyer in Chicago who attends symphony-orchestra performances about once a
> week. The very idea, he said, is “akin to Mouton Rothschild using its wine
> to make and sell sangria.”

Is it just me, or is this guy the epitome of snob/hipster? He goes weekly,
probably because he's far above the entertainment choices of the Philistines
around him, name-drops an expensive wine so he can denigrate a beverage he
deems not classy enough. If too many people start showing up to these
performances, he might have to find a more niche form of entertainment so he
doesn't have to rub shoulders with the plebs.

To be less snarky, I guess he's just saying he doesn't like it, so that's
fine. Ultimately these groups are working to make some money and send whatever
artistic message they choose (and they seem happy on both counts), not to
satisfy one certain person in the audience.

Some people act like "classic" things are inherently purer or even different
than modern ones, but for example Shakespeare has vulgar jokes and was
performed to earn money, just as modern entertainment has "baser" content and
motivations. It doesn't mean both can't also teach us about timeless themes,
the human condition, etc.

~~~
zyxley
The modern perception of "the brand" of the stereotypical classical symphony,
with formal attire for performers and audience, completely silent audiences,
etc, is the biggest reason that symphony attendance has been on a long,
continual decline. It makes middle-class types who might otherwise like the
music but don't want to get looked down on by snobs like Mr. Branch himself go
elsewhere for their entertainment.

Compare, for example, to the popularity of musicals. They operate under the
same basic "spend a lot of money to sit your butt in a seat for two hours and
listen to musicians perform" principle, but many musicals have intentionally
aimed themselves at all kinds of audiences, like politically-conscious artists
(Rent), middle-class white girls (Wicked), families with children (Lion King),
twentysomethings worried about their futures (Avenue Q), people who are into
furries (Cats), etc.

~~~
janardanyri
Your note about the brand is so true that even their self-awareness lacks
self-awareness, such as this note from the SF Symphony first-timer's guide:

6\. What should I wear to a San Francisco Symphony concert?

Contrary to what many people think, formal attire—such as tuxedos and evening
gowns—is not required at Symphony concerts. In fact, most people only wear
formal clothing to our Opening Gala. At our other concerts, most concertgoers
wear business or cocktail attire.

~~~
Johnny_Brahms
Just wow....

It is really the other way around at other places. The orchestra in my town
(my old employer before tinnitus ended my carreer) has a big image of the solo
clarinettist in a quite out-doorsy clothing saying something about how you
should come as you are and ignore the fact that the whole orchestra looks like
penguins.

~~~
kuschku
And in my city they’ve started live-streaming the operas and concerts to big
video walls in multiple squares around the city, most of which in low-income
areas.

------
hkmurakami
Personally I am jealous of my friends in Tokyo who can attend performances of
relatively lesser known but musically interesting soundtracks such like
Xenogears [1] or SaGa Frontier 2.

[1] Nov 29th in Tokyo
[http://melodiesofcrystal.blog.fc2.com/](http://melodiesofcrystal.blog.fc2.com/)

~~~
ekianjo
Nice, but 20 000 Yen for joining a concert starts to get really expensive,
even for Tokyo.

~~~
hkmurakami
So I think that price tag is actually for musicians to _pay_ to play in the
orchestra putting on the performance. (I'm guessing it might make sense for
some people since they'd get some professional instruction?)

~~~
glandium
Yes, that's what the page says: the 20000 yens are for participants, as in
instrument players. It also says information such as list of "songs" and
tickets purchase will be given later.

~~~
ekianjo
did not pay enough attention when I was reading then. That's even more
strange, to pay in order to play in an orchestra ? Most musicians already have
a hard time making a living...

~~~
glandium
That's 20000 yens for 10 practice sessions with a professional player for each
part, plus 2 whole-day sessions before the event.

While here, the ticket price has now be announced: 1500 yens, and they will be
sold starting October 24th.

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Animats
I thought this was going to be about hiring a symphony orchestra to do video
game sound tracks. A few years ago there was an article in one of the game
development magazines suggesting hiring an orchestra in Eastern Europe for
that purpose. There was a cost analysis showing that it was cheaper than
having someone do it in-house, one simulated instrument at a time, all mixed
together.

~~~
ckozlowski
Really comes down to budget. Hiring musicians is expensive. That being said,
they are hired for larger projects though.

[http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/super_mario_g...](http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/super_mario_galaxy/2/0)

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cableshaft
Back when I was in the band (in high school), my conductor loved playing Hans
Zimmer and John Williams and we played them pretty much every year, and in
marching band we mostly did halftime shows based on popular movies or
musicals. I don't see much difference between performing the soundtrack of
Jurassic Park or Jaws and performing music from Zelda.

I personally know at least one person performing in orchestras professionally
who grew up with video games and would be excited to play music from her
favorite games.

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veddox
I find it sad that people often talk as if everybody who attends classical
concerts of the dress-up variety is a cultural snob. Not to deny that many
snobs flock to such gatherings, but I find it very unfair to have everybody
painted with the same brush.

At 20 years old, I am not your typical orchestra attendee. I don't get to go
often either, but when I do, I always thoroughly enjoy it. I enjoy the music
(though alas, I still understand much too little of it) just as much as the
atmosphere: fancy clothes, a beautiful building, the hushed silence during the
performance.

I do not deny that a casual clothes performance of video game music can be
fun, entertaining, good listening. I do not even say that it is necessarily
worse than a classical piece (though I also agree with cicero's and mazelife's
previous comments - and yes, I like more contemporary music too). What I do
say is that you can't really compare the two. OK, both are music, and both can
be played by an orchestra. But for one, their style is very different - one
meant to be listened to with full concentration, the other as a background
track to something more important. Quite aside from that, how you experience a
piece of music very much depends on the atmosphere; it is precisely the fancy
clothes and old buildings that build up the whole "feel" of a classical
concert, just as the dancing, clapping crowd and light shows determine the
atmosphere of a rock concert.

Interestingly, I find that just about everybody who talks about "all those
snobbish classical concert-goers" and talks about how we should stop imposing
dress codes for these visits tends not to have been to such concerts
him/herself. Maybe if they did they would discover that there is a lot more to
classical music than a bunch of old people putting on airs.

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6stringmerc
Music is for enjoyment, and one of the greatest pieces of advice my former-pro
guitarist mentor said was "Audiences don't like it when you play over their
head."

I'm all for expanding the universe of good tunes that orchestras can play,
especially if that keeps orchestra members able to make money and continue
their art. There's a small part of me that can see the perspective of the
purist, but it reminds me too much of "formal musical study" of the guitar,
which is, essentially, playing a lot of classical stuff that most people
aren't interested in hearing! The jazz guys and gals maybe have a bit more
approachability, but again, the peak of the genre is very complex and out of
the usual scope of "listening for pleasure."

I haven't been to one of these (yet) but I'd surely like the chance to
experience it. Also, somewhat relevant, the last time I checked, the "Trans
Siberian Orchestra" holiday performances were hanging in and probably making
some good money! I know they got my cash one year.

Times change, tastes change.

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Natsu
The first thing that came to mine for me was the Final Fantasy 3 (6j) Opera
House. I still remember many of the lyrics to that, even after all these
years, though I may have been helped by the fact that you had to memorize your
lines to move on in the game.

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snksnk
Beautiful music is composed for video games. For instance, the work of
Yasunori Shiono for the Lufia series:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J55nuklps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J55nuklps)

~~~
ino
I love Lufia 2. But after the first tune that sounds like a little classical
piece, I can tell the music was made for a video game. I prefer to the whole
game experience, with the music alone makes it feel something is missing. That
being said, I have no problem with people listening to whatever makes them
happy, in whatever setting. Also like in everything, there are tons of generic
shit music in games.

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voltagex_
Years and years ago I attended
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play!_A_Video_Game_Symphony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play!_A_Video_Game_Symphony)
\- the experience stuck with me ever since. Video game soundtracks can be
quite beautiful.

~~~
hkmurakami
Along with Hollywood film scores, AAA game soundtracks are seemingly the only
place where modern classical music composition thrives.

~~~
ekianjo
It's not really classical music, since classical music is a style that clearly
refers to a certain era of music composition + game music is hardly anything
similar to classical music in the first place.

~~~
hypersoar
"Classical" (big "C") refers to the period, but "classical" (little "c") is
often used to refer to the vague, nebulous cloud of music to which it often
refers and of which Classical music is a subset. I know that's super pedantic
and nebulous, but I've never heard a satisfactory term for the broader
category. I've heard "Western Art Music", but that implies that Western music
outside of its umbrella isn't art, which is plainly ridiculous. So, I use
"classical", because it's the least bad term I've heard.

~~~
princeb
even more pedantic... modern refers to the early 20th century period, the
period we live in is contemporary. so modern classical: stravinsky,
contemporary classical: john williams... same applies to design and
architecture.

~~~
ajuc
Naming a period in art "modern" is like naming your file "final.doc". You just
have to know there will be "copy of final(4).doc" in that directory at some
point.

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Yhippa
I went to Video Games Live years ago and I have never seen this particular
performance venue as full as that night, ever. I think this might be the way
to go in the future for the symphony orchestras out there. I go to several
performances a year but the audience is clearly greying. I do wonder if the
performers feel this is cheapening their art. I still really like the classics
but I have few people to talk to them about. Most of my friends play video
games however.

~~~
zyxley
I suspect that arrangements or elaborations of other popular music would do
pretty well. Video games are easiest, though, because they've often got
orchestral or quasi-orchestral music already, along with having tons of easy-
to-sell merchandise.

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knowaveragejoe
The University of Maryland has a Gamer Symphony Orchestra[1] consisting of
students and Alumni that performs multiple times per year and does other
pretty neat things. Having several friends in it it immediately came to mind
and I wonder if there are similar organizations at other schools. Seems to be
growing in popularity.

[1] [http://umd.gamersymphony.org/](http://umd.gamersymphony.org/)

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jMyles
Allow me to brag for a moment: I have box seats to VGO in New Jersey on Jan 2.
The first box. With three of my friends. Oh man I'm psyched.

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squeaky-clean
This inspired me to check out my local symphony,

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Sigh... :/

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hitekker
Direct link to youtube video of Colbert Zelda Performance:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=220&v=Wg8d3TJzVl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=220&v=Wg8d3TJzVl0)

------
mazelife
I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's great to see a
younger and/or less-traditional audience attending symphony concerts. But I
wonder what percentage of these first-timers would ever come back for a non-
videogame music performance? Because—the title of this article
notwithstanding—if these concerts don't do anything to cultivate an audience
who actually engages with classical music (or "art music" or "western concert
music", call it what you like) then videogames are not going to save the
symphony. Not even close.

People in the comments rightly jumped all over the guy in the article who said
these concerts were “akin to Mouton Rothschild using its wine to make and sell
sangria.” But there is a point buried under all the snobbishness: video game
music (and film music) are not supposed to be concert music. In fact a good
film composer would probably tell you that if their score for a film is so
compelling and interesting that it can be extracted out and plunked down in
the concert hall as a fully-fledged work, they're doing it wrong.
Film/videogame scores are (by definition) supposed to be subservient to the
whole of which they are a part. Thus it's the narrative of the game or movie
that drives the formal aspects of the music. This isn't to say that there
can't be greatness and even genius in scores, but that it's not being used in
service of producing a stand-alone concert work. Which is why even very good
scores usually have long passages of music that successfully create an
atmosphere for a particular scene, but taken out of that context would sounds
rather boring and aimless in a concert hall. Similarly the kind of drama
evoked in a concert piece where you have musical themes that are presented and
then developed and transformed at length just doesn't work for film scores,
where you are working in much shorter time increments (like the length of a
scene). This is why even the greatest film scores (Maurice Jarre's score for
Lawrence of Arabia and John Williams' score for Star Wars, for example) are
known for having a few really memorable, resonant melodies and/or for the way
in which they contribute to a memorable scene.

I've gone to film music concerts and enjoyed them, but I'm under no illusion
that it's necessarily the most challenging or profound stuff. I'm also aware
that it's partly the memories and associations I have with the movies
themselves that I am enjoying when I listen to the music. In any case, it's
not at all the same experience as a classical music concert. I hope that some
of the people who have dipped their toes in the water listening to an
orchestra perform "The Legend of Zelda" might be curious enough to go back and
hear what other, far more interesting kinds of things an orchestra can do.
Because if not, these concerts will be a nice windfall that can help pad an
orchestra's bottom line (and god knows they could use the money). But they
won't do what orchestras need most, which is to develop a real, life-long
appreciation for classical music in younger audiences. Unfortunately this
article presents zero statistics one way or the other on that point.

~~~
veddox
Movies can have amazing music tracks - "The Lord of the Rings" and "The
Hobbit" being my favourite there. But as you say, that music was written for a
very different purpose.

