[1989: pp. 136–139]
[2003: pp. 140–143]
[Side Tab:]
A Nighttime Chat About MOTHER's Music
THE MAKING OF MOTHER'S MUSIC
The Grand Debut of the Famicom World's Lennon-McCartney
Keiichi Suzuki (left)
鈴木慶一 Bandleader of MOON RIDERS, those Middle-Aged Nobleyouths you know from the techno world. In his enthusiasm for his first Famicom soundtrack, he transformed his own home into a studio for five months. Which makes sense when you consider the album's magnificent end results.
Hirokazu Tanaka (right)
田中宏和 Nintendo Music Director. Known as the Julie¹ of the game music world, and the only one at Nintendo who gets letters from female fans. His previous band experience is alive and kicking in this collaboration with Mr. Suzuki.
INTERVIEWER: Takashi Watanabe 渡辺隆司
Even on the Famicom, You Can Do a Guitar String Bend.
Mr. Keiichi, you've been crazy about video games for a long time, but this is your first foray into Famicom music, correct?
SUZUKI: Yep. That's why I began by exploring what was and wasn't possible. I mean, coming from my own experience with all the games I've played, there were parts where I'd go, "Personally, I would've done it like this". So when I started, I probed Mr. Tanaka, asking, how far can we take this?
So musically speaking, the limitations of the Famicom really are a thing to be reckoned with?
SUZUKI: Believe you me, it can reduce a man to tears (laughs). But, you know, before I came on board, there was already the music Mr. Tanaka had made. He was doing guitar string bends. I was blown away: I had never heard of that kind of thing. I thought, I can do this.
Like the Chuck Berry-esque guitar sounds in the battle scenarios, right? Was that difficult from a technological standpoint?
SUZUKI: Oh no, that was an issue of hard work.
TANAKA: Hard work and stamina (laughs). No, for real, for several years I've been experimenting as a programmer to see, okay, if I do this, it'll produce this kind of sound, and I've been creating different patterns. So I've had the ideas themselves, there just wasn't a game that used them.
So what you're saying is, these ideas you'd been sitting on for so long saw the light of day with MOTHER.
TANAKA: That's right. The ideas themselves are nothing new, but I hadn't been making good use out of them. Even songwriters don't get as hung up on things like that. ... Me, I like music, and it so happens I can also program it, so I like to try a lot of different things.
In that sense, are there other areas you'd say were highlights?
SUZUKI: Mr. Tanaka is excellent at zeroing in on the finer details. Like how to put together drum sounds or echo effects. You can't actually make echoes on the Famicom, but by putting the sound in again after its cue, with the levels brought down, you can simulate the acoustics of an echo.
So it's all putting in numerics as you go along?
TANAKA: That's right. Calculations and numerics. For example, even a canary voice is a calculation, and when I think about it on my own later, even I'm like, wow, I'm doing something crazy. Like calculating a frequency then adding a random number to it.
SUZUKI: Even though it's a canary voice, it ended up in harmony with the music in that area. It's a fine detail. That's why, if you time it right, it should sound like a canary is singing in time with the background music. It all consists of a pile of hard, fine-detailed work of that sort.
The Programmers and Working with What You've Got = A Tussle Over "Money"
There's also the issue of how much the Famicom can hold, correct?
SUZUKI: Yep. We called it "money", but it ultimately turned into a battle. The music we started with had more going for it. Like changes in drum patterns, and so on. But there'd be various requests from the game creator, and when that happens it becomes a question of, what's most important to keep? For example, the Tejano-style music heard in the desert area. It nearly got scrapped. So I wrote a letter to the programmers. It said: "I want the music to change when you enter the desert."
A letter?
SUZUKI: Uh-huh. In other words, for the music to change, it would have to be programmed in that way.
TANAKA: It's quite the pain in the neck.
SUZUKI: And everyone's in the final stretch and bloodthirsty and scary, and here I am, writing a request letter (laughs).
Actually, I was brought in by Itoi and caught a glimpse of the programmers' workspace, and there were some unbelievably cool things going on there.
SUZUKI: Yep. But even in the prep meetings, you could feel the incredible love not only from Mr. Itoi, of course, but the entire staff. So I'd steel myself, like, there's absolutely no way I'm saying, "Yes, understood. I'll make that." Well, I think it ended up being, in all, a good five months' worth of me falling for their charms (laughs).
Making the Suzuki Home into a Studio for Five Months of Student Training Camp
So, when it actually came to creating, did that take the form of Mr. Keiichi getting a mental image of a sound, then Mr. Tanaka taking that and implementing it technically?
SUZUKI: Sometimes, yes, and sometimes it was the other way around. Lemme tell ya, it was a completely shared effort. Even writing the compositions was between me and Mr. Tanaka, so it was like, take your pick. ... See, it was in my own home that the data entry was done. I mean, anywhere would've done just fine, but I also had to keep my secrets. So I had a computer sent to my house and Mr. Tanaka would come from Kyoto about three days at a time every week. There he'd do the data entry, and then he'd say, I think it needs such-and-such kind of sound here, then the two of us would listen to records. I almost felt like I was back in school. Two people listening to records, that's pretty rare these days.
Sounds like a whole lot of fun (laughs). How did you convey the compositions to each other?
TANAKA: Mr. Keiichi would leave a demo tape with me that had him singing alongside the raw guitar elements, then I'd input that as a rough cut. Then, when I went to his house, I'd bring it out and have him listen to it. That's how we did things.
SUZUKI: When a musician makes Famicom music, he gets used to just handing over a demo tape or sheet music or something. Then, even if the piece is good, I hear there are a whole lot of times when it'll turn into something else when it's entered into the computer. That's what Mr. Tanaka told me, and sure enough, when I had him input the melodies I sang, they'd come out with something weak about them. We had to correct that, so we had our own little training camp, just the two of us.
It's Precisely Because it's Game Music that it Has to Have a Strong Melody
What do you mean when you say the melodies ended up being weaker?
SUZUKI: I mean there's something the natural voice has that other things don't. It turns into an instrumental, that is, it's played with instruments. When you're making a normal recording, I think you can use arrangement and the sound's design as the heart behind the song. But with the current Famicom sound generator, all that comes out is a bare-bones melody. You can't expect the heart of the music to show through from that, so since you're arranging the notes in a more basic way, it just won't work unless you have a strong melody.
Oh, I see. In MOTHER's case, you can tell on the record that they became proper songs. Right?
SUZUKI: Uh-huh. That was a fixed thing from the get-go. Then, later on, when it comes to making the record, it's just awful when it bears a resemblance to something. I mean, I guess it's no biggie if everyday game music sounds like something. ... I imagine there've been a lot of these that use music patterns you've heard somewhere before.
TANAKA: Current Famicom music kind of sits on the fence. It's melodic, but there's an airiness to it in places that covers up where the melody is lacking. That, of course, is why I think it'd be boring if you put that on a record.
These Two Have a Real Band Vibe Going for Them, So Their Records Would Come Out Great!
What I thought was incredible about MOTHER was, it's also good to let Famicom sounds stand on their own merits as Famicom sounds, and records stand as records. The way I usually picture the process is making the Famicom sounds first, then developing those and making a record out of them. But then, if you did it that way, I wonder if you'd get the same results. ...
SUZUKI: I don't think you would. The reason they stand on their own merits is because the creator links them together. Both Mr. Tanaka and I always took record-making into consideration when we were making the Famicom music. Mr. Tanaka had a lot of know-how on the Famicom side of things. So he'd listen to my compositions and say something like, "I think this would be a good fit for the walking parts." On the other hand, I'd say things like "Mr. Tanaka, 'Snowman' is gonna sound really great on the record, mark my words!" That's how our exchanges would go while we worked on it.
Come to mention it, I didn't know who did what piece of music until I saw the credits on the record.
SUZUKI: With game music, I don't think you would know unless you were quite the pro.
TANAKA: Of course, it was Mr. Keiichi who made the broad outline. Me, now, there are a lot of times I'll get stuck when making a composition or a pattern. It was times like that when I was glad to have Mr. Keiichi there to even things out. He'd tell me not to think of it as game music so much as just music.
SUZUKI: For instance, I might say, "I'd like to go with classic American rock for the airplane scene." Before, I didn't have anybody who got that. But, for my part, I can say about this: "Oh, okay. Then it's better doing it this way."
Japanese Music's Expansion into Overseas Markets May Begin with the Famicom.
You two make quite the formidable combo. I gotta say, I want to call you the Lennon-McCartney of the Famicom world (laughs).
SUZUKI: Hey, we should form a band (laughs). But I think from this point forward, it'll become more and more important to do it this way, to have joint collaborations. I mean, once we get the Super Famicom, there'll be more things you can do with game music. Not only that, but to speak in terms of the bigger picture, Japanese artists will expand into the overseas market, and when that happens, not only will there be the angle where they get into that market through records, but I believe there'll also be the Famicom angle. I guess you could call it the subliminal effect the Famicom has, but you're hearing this stuff for a really long time. I think it has huge potential to go on from there and be the birth of a hit across America.
That'll be fun to see! Oh man, hearing all this has made me want to play the game again so I can listen to the music.
The score for "Flying Man".[Photo: Pencilled sheet music, labelled FLYING MAN II. The II may indicate a second draft. One line of Linda Hennrick's lyrics is visible in the middle of the page. Presented as written: So Shine for all the world to night, And Live for Love give your Love To me]
[Screenshot: Ninten and Lloyd, with a ghost Ana between them, entering the Advent Desert. Caption below:]The desert music is Mexican.
[Small feature on the MOTHER vocal album:]For this Other MOTHER, You Close Your Eyes. And Listen with Your Ears and Heart.Presenting the MOTHER CD album, the result of the notable combo of Keiichi Suzuki & Hirokazu Tanaka. Of the eleven tracks included here, seven feature what you could call a first in game music history: English vocals. Catherine Warwick (pictured at right), a cute girl singer from Britain, starts the album off in her well-rounded voice with "Pollyanna" (that's the melody you hear in the game when the hero leaves his home). "The Paradise Line" is what you hear when you ride the railway. The diesel car-like (if that's the term for it) vocals are provided by Jeb Million. Then, when a British boys' choir sings MOTHER's theme song, "Eight Melodies", at the tops of their lungs, your musical journey is nearing its end. In a word, this album is brilliant. By all means, please do give it a listen.
¹ Julie: The stage name of Kenji Sawada, a huge Japanese rock star who nicknamed himself after Julie Andrews. He was the vocalist for the Japanese rock band The Tigers, and their 1968 movie, The World is Waiting for Us, served as the inspiration for Shigesato Itoi including the player's name in the end credits of MOTHER, as told in this comic by Keiichi Tanaka.
Thanks to my friend, professional translator Crouching Mouse for clearing up a few sentences for me.
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