For a long time-- like, YEARS while I was learning chords and progressions, I was really keen on learning how to play music from videogames. Specifically Mario games, but any game would suffice. I remember having the title theme to The Incredible Crash Dummies by Geoff Follin down pretty well (for however well an 11-year-old who could only play 1 left-hand chord could play that) and being satisfied with it. But, later on, in high school, after I had access to a MIDI editor, I found I could download game MIDIs from VGMusic.com and see the notation in a form I could read. My magnum opus was a primitive arrangement of the Clock Town theme from Majora's Mask that I had sequenced on my old Yamaha, which I could play along with on my violin. I played along with that for quite a few years, let me tell you.
But, it seemed like, after I shifted flats, I started to lose my interest in learning game music. I had perfected the Super Smash Bros. Melee menu theme to the point I just flew over it on the keyboard (never could work out how to play it on the violin, though-- whatever); I was even working out how to play the Brawl menu theme, and then... I failed college for the second time. I was not doing well in general back then; it was a struggle to go places I liked. There were two indie coffeehouses that had pianos where I liked to go and play stuff. I sort of treated it like an impromptu concert; I'd get coffee or tea or something and then wait for what I deemed to be an appropriate time to play the piano. I had this huge, great, long medley of Mario and Zelda music, linked together by the Melee menu theme, that took about 15 minutes to play through completely.
Failing college was a big setback. I mean, it would be, wouldn't it? But this was the second time I'd failed. Sure, now, looking back at it as a rational 34-year-old woman, I can identify the exact points at which I went wrong, but... at the time, how was I supposed to know that? That really set me back, because I realised I couldn't do any of the things I'd been planning on doing in high school, but I also knew that janitorial and retail jobs weren't going to end up any better. I sort of became ashamed to go to the coffeehouses, because, being in gentrified, liberal parts of town, their clientèle was principally college and university students. As I was no longer in college, I felt I didn't belong there. I guess that was a contributing factor in not learning any more game music. I'd been doing it this whole time, largely as a way of entertaining people; connecting with them in the only way I was equipped for. Now that I wasn't playing pianos in public anywhere except the musical instrument shop, where everyone is as jaded and browbeaten as I am, there was no longer any need to play game music. If the only audience I had was myself, then what's the use? It wasn't until 2009 that I learned how to play the Super Mario 64 Main Theme adequately enough to have it stand on its own, outside of the Mario/Zelda medley. I totally lost the Super Smash Bros. Brawl menu theme to the point that I can't even play the first 3 notes anymore.
I also lost the bridge to the Melee menu theme; and when that happened, the entire Mario/Zelda medley fell apart. I didn't realise until I couldn't play it anymore that the Melee menu theme was the corpus colossum that held the medley together, and I just let the whole thing dry up and blow away. It's not that I can't play game music; and, despite what I said at the outset, it's not that I haven't learnt any nre game music lately... it's just... all the game tunes I've learnt in the past 2 years have been from Doom. At this point, I can play every single song from "Knee-Deep in the Dead", but, it's just that... well... i don't like Doom half as much as I like Mario. And, with the possible exception of "At Doom's Gate", no one has ever wanted to listen to the Doom OST outside the game. I certainly never have, therefore no one else has, either; that's just science, right?
I came to this realisation over the course of two separate events. First, the very first thing I played when I got the Super Mario 64 soundfont loaded into sforzando wasn't from Mario at all-- I played "At Doom's Gate" with the Castle strings. Second, I was watching Bismuth's history of the A Button Challenge, and the soundtrack is 100% just piano covers of Mario music. I know it was a multi-tracked DAW job, but that's just living the dream right there. To have right there at your fingertips a dozen mario songs that you can just play because they're as much of second nature to you as "The Imp's Song" is to me-- that's just unfair.
Fortunately, in the intervening time, I've been studying the Super Mario 64 soundtrack and learning how to play stuff from it. I'm pretty good at the File Select theme (to the point I even covered it with Spitfire Audio's BBC Symphony Orchestra), and I was surprised to discover that the Water World theme uses the same chord progressions I've been playing for 15 years, so it's actually a lot easier than I thought it was. So, I'm trying to get back into learning game music. I accidentally played the text screen theme from Doom II the other day, but I'm pretending that never happened.
--21 April 2023--