Use of Progressive Rock in David Wise’s Soundtrack for Donkey Kong Country and the Advancement of Video Game Music Brooke Spencer Professor Stephanie Lind MUSC501 3 March 2019 Introduction In 1994, Nintendo released the Super Nintendo game: Donkey Kong Country (DKC)– resulting in widespread popularity and new innovative use of music in gameplay. Through the utilization of prog-rock in David Wise’s soundtrack for DKC, Nintendo has expanded its range of musical styles, function, and status as a top contending videogame company. The use of prog-rock can be broken down in David Wise’s three pieces: “Treetop Rock”, “Fear Factory”, and “Aquatic Ambience”. Through elements of prog-rock seen in each of these pieces - harmonic prolongation, fragmentation, distortion, and use of the concept ‘meta- chord’ – we can see that DKC’s music was unlike anything Nintendo had been creating previously, and set expectations for music in videogames to come. History Starting in 1977-78, the video game industry began to rise in popularity through arcades. In the 1960s/1970s when first-generation home consoles were created, sound was not a possibility. It was only when Pong was released on the Atari home console in 1975 that sounds were used deliberately: the game had 3 different sounds coinciding with actions on screen: the ball hitting the wall, the paddle, and a sound for player failure. Most games included sound in future releases to increase profits after Pong’s success.1 By the end of the 70s, arcades were growing in popularity, with Nintendo a primary arcade console producer. In 1980, NAMCO released Pac-Man, whose huge success led 1 Fritsch, Melanie. "History of Video Game Music." In Music and Game: Perspectives on a Popular Alliance, edited by Peter Moormann. Musik Und Medien, 11-40. Berlin, Germany: Springer VS, 2015, pg. 12. Nintendo to realize they had to up the ante against their competitors. Such an opportunity came in 1981 with the release of Donkey Kong, which solidified Nintendo as a prominent contender in the video game market. During the late 1970s-1980s, the rise of home consoles began and created a new conflict for video game producers, with a rapid decline in arcade production due to a decrease in profits. As the game industry became more competitive, the threat of lawsuits and copyright battles led to secrecy, fear and protection over the brands.2 After Atari’s success with their home console, Nintendo decided to shift from the arcade business, releasing the Famicom home computer in 1983 in Japan; this was re-released internationally in 1985-6 and rebranded as the “Nintendo Entertainment System” (NES. The system ported three popular arcade games previously released by Nintendo: Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye.3 The North American Famicon (NES) was released in 1986; alongside seventeen launch titles including a game called Super Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. was entrusted to developer Shigeru Miyamoto, who developed Nintendo’s first big title Donkey Kong; Nintendo’s reliance on Miyamoto was an attempt to stick with a developer with a proven track record of success. With the NES launch, Nintendo as a company sought to create something never done before in video game history, both technologically and musically: more complex rhythms, dynamics, an expanded range of timbre used in the systems music, as well the ability to have polyphony for the game/system. 2 Collins, Karen. Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008, pg. 37-39. 3 Ibid, pg. 19. Koji Kondo (born in 1961 in Nagoya, Japan) became one of Nintendo’s lead sound designers/composers. From an early age Kondo had studied music, mainly piano and keyboard. It is interesting to note that Kondo never intended specifically to work as a professional musician. Kondo had been taking a general arts degree at the Osaka University of Arts when Nintendo sent a recruitment message to the university in 1984 due to company expansion, seeking someone dedicated to composition and sound programming. Kondo showed interest in the position and was hired without even submitting a demo tape. Once employed, Kondo worked on smaller projects until the company gave him the task of writing the Super Mario Bros. score.4 Kondo would establish many music video game conventions in the 8-bit era; unlike many classically-trained composers, Kondo could not rely on human elements to bring expression in his works. Articulation, dynamics, texture, and voicing are variables most composers take for granted, whereas with the NES these factors generated new and more difficult technological challenges that had not been explored before. All of Kondo’s music had to be put into code, and to play and be “performed” by a programmable sound generator rather than being performed live musicians. To make matters worse, the NES also had a very small amount of memory on their sound chips (five channels, only three of which Kondo could use for technical reasons), which limited the expansion of the music. Rather than viewing this as a limitation, Kondo embraced this challenge of his work, using creative looping techniques to repeat melodies, with only a few moments of creative content. This technique takes up less data on the sound card, still creating the effect that 4 Schartmann, Andrew. Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack. Vol. 106: Bloomsbury, 2015, pg. 28. the music playing is new and interesting throughout by giving different wave channels melodic or accompanying music that created a “blended three-voice sound.”5 Where Kondo would establish a basis for this genre of music, Koichi Sugiyama (best known for 1986 Dragon Quest) would make significant improvements in the use of texture. Sugiyama surpassed Kondo in his wider range of orchestral timbres and use of more complex harmonic structures. Using full-size orchestral sound and harmony, Sugiyama had an advantage to Kondo – especially as a classically trained performer, conductor and composer. Both the NES and SEGA Genesis consoles were widely successful; however, the SEGA Genesis had a wider segment of the coin-op arcade market, and an FM synthesis chip and superior sound to the 8-bit NES. The Genesis was the most popular console to employ FM sound. Its sounds at times were a bit “scratchy”; however, they still dramatically surpassed Nintendo’s sound system. The FM chip would allow creation of sound sampling through computer’s sound chip memory and also introduced a bigger range of timbres & more realistic sounds for gaming systems. During this time, Nintendo was trying to emulate the sound SEGA was achieving, but could not keep up with their competitor’s success. Once digital instrument timbres were developed, musical sequences could be coded to the FM chip and could be looped and/or transposed. When coded, SEGA games began to experiment with interactivity of sound, responding to player input or having gameplay consequences. SEGA’s music in games at this time was also well known for its progressive rock stylistic traits. This was done because SEGA composers wanted to make sure none of their material was “too catchy” and would not become annoying upon repetition. SEGA’s 5 Ibid, pg. 39-41. use of prog-rock was Nintendo’s downfall as the latter was seen as a company targeted towards children with more ‘pop-tuney’ music that would be very catchy, but not what larger audiences wanted. The SNES Progressing into the 16bit-era of music, more professional experience was also required for composing video game/computer music, and ensuring the composer’s product was high quality: this was because of the competitiveness between video game companies (like Nintendo and SEGA), striving to have the best consoles, with the best game design available. When the SNES was released, Nintendo had begun to produce some of their most popular series games that positioned titles including Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokémon, and Donkey Kong as flagship titles to continuous series development. These series would soon become some of Nintendo’s most popular titles and were (and are) exclusive to Nintendo, increasing sales for the company. This also set the precedent for newer consoles to also receive games related to the flagship titles. Nintendo’s follow-up game to Donkey Kong was Donkey Kong Country (1994), which used new 3D technology to out-run other competitors during the mid-90s. New improvements to graphics and sound were made to enhance the SNES’s dominance in the market with 3D games like Killer Instinct (1994) and DKC. DKC was not only a cultural statement for Nintendo, but was also a technological statement to which would promote “A.C.M” (Advanced Computer Modeling) and other technological advancements of the SNES.6 6 Ibid, pg. 85. David Wise In 1985, David Wise met two men coincidently one day while he was working in a music shop-trying to promote the newest Yamaha CX5 music computers. As Wise was demonstrating his own compositions he wrote on the computers, the two men asked him if he had an office. Wise believed that this was so the men could purchase the computer, but instead they offered him a job as a composer. The two men revealed to be Tim and Chris Stamper, the founders of the video game company Rare that helped release DKC. Within a year of being employed by Rare, Wise had composed scores for over a dozen games and by year two, he was composing entire game soundtracks within one, two, or (if lucky) four weeks. Having more time with a complete score meant more time to deal with the complex hardware and software; time was of the essence.