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Kenji Ito

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Kenji Ito (伊藤 賢治 Itō Kenji) is a video game music composer. He is best known for his work on the SaGa series. In 2001 he left Square Enix to become a freelance artist, but has since continued to collaborate with the company.

History

Born 5 July 1968 in Tokyo, Ito became interested in music at the early age of 4. By the time he began composing at the age of 10, he had learned to play alto saxophone, clarinet, and piano. During March 1990, Ito was recruited by Squaresoft.

His first project was a co-effort between himself and Nobuo Uematsu for the Game Boy title, Final Fantasy Legend II. Shortly after in 1991, he composed the complete soundtrack for Final Fantasy Adventure (Seiken Densetsu), another Game Boy title. Beginning in 1992, Ito would have the Super Nintendo's 8 channel sound chip to rely on as he began composing music for the SaGa trilogy. This includes all of the music for Romancing SaGa 1, 2, and 3, as well as SaGa Frontier (a PlayStation title).

1997 marks the beginning of several smaller contributions to video game music made by Ito. Two tracks were contributed to Tobal No. 1, as well as the opening and closing themes of Chocobo's Dungeon. An original vocal track along with some arrangements of Nobuo Uematsu's older works were made by Ito in 1999 for Chocobo Racing. Although highly successful in the past, Ito's scores for Gekikuukan Pro Baseball in 1999 and Wild Card in 2001 were not well-received. Following these unsuccessful works, he decided to leave Squaresoft in 2001 to become a freelance composer. Shortly after, he composed his magnum opus for the dreamcast title, Culdcept II, along with various other works for Dark Chronicle Premium Arrange and Shadow Hearts II.

During 2003, Ito was found working with Square Enix again, updating his compositions for Final Fantasy Adventure for its remake on the Game Boy Advance, Sword of Mana. Ito's recent works with Square Enix include the latest SaGa title, Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song-, and Hanjuku Hero 4 ~The 7 Heroes~., as well as the upcoming Seiken Densetsu DS: Children of Mana.

Style

Kenji Ito is most well-known for his epic, rock-based battle themes and use of string ensembles in counterpoint and harmony. Strings, in some form, are present in a vast majority of Ito's music. Although usually not part of the melody, two to four string voices are often present in his music at lower pitches to harmonize and define chord progressions. These strings often move with the main melody in a form of counterpoint.

Also widely-used by Ito in his battle tracks is the slap bass. It is used in every Super Nintendo SaGa battle theme, and in many SaGa tracks onward. The slap bass sample controls the song's bassline and defines its chord progression at the root note. A common slap technique applied by Ito is octave "popping", where the original bass tone halts to make way for the same note an octave higher. When this technique is repeated (usually in eight notes), the bass becomes more percussive.

Video game soundtracks

External links

References

Kenji Ito's official english website

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Japan

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