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Koji Kondo

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Koji Kondo
Musical artist

Koji Kondo (近藤 浩治, Kondō Kōji, b. August 13, 1960) is a Japanese composer and musician best known for his scores for various video games produced by Nintendo.

Biography

Kondo was born in Nagoya, Japan. He took to music at an early age, writing simple tunes for fun even when young. At seventeen years of age, he decided to pursue music professionally . He undertook classical training, and he learned to play several instruments .

In the 1980s, Kondo learned that a company called Nintendo was seeking musicians to compose music for its new video game system, the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan). Kondo had never considered writing video game music before, but he decided to give the company a chance. He was hired in 1983.

Kondo found himself in a totally different environment at Nintendo. Suddenly, he was limited to only four "instruments" (two monophonic pulse channels, a monophonic triangle wave channel which could be used as a bass, and a noise channel used for percussion) due to limitations of the system's sound chip. Though he and Nintendo's technicians eventually discovered a way to add a fifth channel (normally reserved for sound effects), his music was still severely limited on the system.

Kondo has stayed with Nintendo through various consoles, including the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo outside Japan), the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo GameCube, the Nintendo DS and most recently the Wii. These latter systems have vastly improved Nintendo's audio capabilities, and Kondo today composes music with CD quality sound.

Koji Kondo attended the world-premiere of PLAY! A Video Game Symphony at the Rosemont Theater in Rosemont, Illinois in May of 2006. His music from the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda series was performed by a full symphony orchestra. This event drew nearly four thousand attendees.

Musical style and influences

Koji Kondo is widely acclaimed thanks to his unique partnership crafting the most recognizable themes and sound-tracks with industry giant Nintendo (and to his credit, a creatively fluent partnership with Shigeru Miyamoto). Fans and critics alike cite his greatest talent being his ability to craft melodies that while catchy and pleasant upon first listen, remain enjoyable even when looped over long periods of time and played through inferior sound equipment. His songs are certainly memorable; the title theme song to Super Mario Bros. retains its iconic status two decades after its initial release. Not unknown in the musical community, Mr. Kondo can count talent such as Paul McCartney among his admirers. Kondo's music has been cited as being as integral to the Nintendo style as the game design of Shigeru Miyamoto.

Conversely, this familiarity is also the cause of most criticism of Kondo's work. Over nearly two decades in video game music, his style has changed very little. The themes of Super Mario Bros. in 1985 are little different from those of Super Mario Sunshine in 2002, although the earlier game sounds more primitive due to technological constraints. This need for sameness over the years is something of a double-edged sword for Kondo; when he did try something different, as in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), some criticised him for abandoning the themes and styles they have grown to enjoy.

"Super Mario Bros. Theme" has been on Billboard Magazine's Hot Ringtones chart for over one hundred sixty weeks, where it also hit #1.

Koji Kondo's work shows at least three major influences: Latin music, jazz music, and classical music (mainly ragtime and march music), often with a strong cinematic flair. Latin is particularly evident in his bouncy themes throughout the Mario series, such as the soundtrack to Super Mario Bros. 3. The happy main theme has a slow, samba-like rhythm. The second theme offers a more up-beat, ragtime-like style. The Bowser theme would not sound out of place being played by a Mexican mariachi band. This influence also shows up in his more recent works, such as the Gerudo Valley theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a song with a certain stereotypical Andalusian flair. Kondo also has been influenced by classic rock, as the Deep Purple instrumental "April" bears a striking resemblance to the main title theme of The Legend of Zelda. Kondo even uses a riff from the song as the looping end section of the underworld/dungeon theme from the same game.

Kondo's more jazz-influenced pieces also come from a wide variety of projects. One of the earliest examples of this is his minimalist underground theme from the first Super Mario Bros. Saria's theme from Ocarina of Time sounds almost Dixieland in places. All of this is hardly surprising; Kondo lists the late Henry Mancini as one of his most admired influences.

Kondo was trained as a classical musician, and this shows in his more ambitious projects, such as the soundtracks to the Zelda and Star Fox series . These pieces are distinctively cinematic, reminiscent of John Williams' work on Star Wars or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The title theme to the 1986 The Legend of Zelda is grandiose for all its low fidelity. Several of Mr. Kondo's themes have been famously recorded with full orchestral backing, with several tours of his work featured highly in concerts presented world-wide .

Kondo's work is also highly influenced by Eastern Asian music. His songs are predominantly melody-based with little supporting harmony, which is in keeping with the Asian tradition. This makes him somewhat unique among the most popular video game composers, as his counterparts such as Nobuo Uematsu and Koichi Sugiyama produce more Western-sounding compositions for their games.

Video game Soundtracks

Albums

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items.

Notes

  1. http://www.gamedaily.com/blog/2007/03/09/gdc-koji-kondo-looks-to-star-wars-superman-for-super-mario-gal
  2. http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,56235
  3. Did not actually work on the game. All music and sound effects were taken, unaltered, from the first Super Mario Bros. game.

References

External links

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