Good day, listeners!
Happy September 2nd, 2009! This is August’s podcast of “Into the Score,” the only podcast solely devoted to the in-depth study of video game music! In this installment, we hammer in a look at Square Enix’s 2008 release of “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” with a score by Koichi Sugiyama and performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra!
We also look at the Classical Era (and all of the coolness that it entails), we look at the life of Sugiyama, the history of the franchise, as well as many other musical and gaming tidbits! It’s sure not to disappoint, so tune in!
Until next time!
Kenley
shownotes
Ahhh, good stuff… I’m pretty sure that I enjoyed this podcast more than the game itself. I was glad to hear the classic themes in there too (from when it was called ‘Dragon Warrior’ in the US on the old nintendo) - more on that game, in particular, would certainly tickle my retro-nostalgic fancy.
thanks for this. i’ve long thought that sugiyama’s work partly succeeded because it seemed written to accomodate adaptation with actual instruments (this is why it’s always awkward, then, to hear less malleable works played in a literal manner by an orchestra). i actually first heard his music — though i didn’t know of his name, then — through a score he did for an 80s godzilla movie. besides the parallels drawn to other composers, it would’ve been pretty interesting to have had resemblances between sugiyama’s own content within dq highlighted (example: every castle theme seems to be a variation of a basic musical idea).
i don’t necessarily agree on the point of expectations for a song being met a good thing. i prefer to have my guesses outwitted (a reason why i avoid a lot of baroque music, with its rigorous devotion to a canon of sound deemed “pleasing” by monarchy).
and, yeah, sugiyama is pretty old. i wonder who square-enix is going to have take his spot when he’s gone. i believe the dragon quest title for the wii had an additional composer who emulated his methods.
cheers!
Kenley, great episode. Some of those facts surprised me. It was very good, and I think a great way to mark the end of the long months with out podcasts. A great choice for an opening. I’d offer some suggestions for future episodes, but I don’t think this area is the right place for those. However, I would like to hear what some of the previous Dragon Warrior titles had in them for music.
Correction, I meant Dragon Quest
Thanks for all the comments, everyone!
applo - You’re right about the expectations thing - it’s way more fun (and exciting) to be surprised, it’s just that, at that period in time, everything that was dissonant was often resolved. When the Romantic Era came along, all was different (which is one, among many, reasons that I like it better :P). And yeah, I wonder who could be next… though, I don’t ever wish to know the answer to that!
Richard - thanks for the nice words too! If you have ideas for shows, then send me an email at kenley@intothescore.com - I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
Thanks for doing this show! I’ve been trying to find a show like this for a long time!!!
Thanks again for all you do!
Hi Kenley - I’m a bit behind, but I finally caught up on this episode.
One thing I love about ITS is that even when you’re delving into topics that aren’t necessarily my favorites, you still manage to hit upon something new and interesting to me. I’m passingly familiar with baroque/classical/romantic music, but it hadn’t occurred to me before to think about how the chords we use as basic building-blocks today first arose as more of a side-effect of early polyphonic music than as something that was used intentionally. Pretty cool.
One technical note - I think you might want to play with the balance of the podcast, especially when there’s a lot of orchestral clips as in this episode. I know you don’t want to mix the music too high to avoid clipping, but I found myself repeatedly turning my volume way up - say, to catch subtleties in what the strings were doing - only to find myself confronting Very Loud Kenley after the clip was over. It wasn’t about to blow out my speakers or anything, but it was a bit disconcerting.
Anyway, minor quibbles aside, the podcast is still awesome. Keep it up!
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