If you ever looked for piano sheet music or piano covers, chances are you stumbled upon one of Torby Brand’s works. What you may not know, is that Torby was one of the men behind AM2R’s soundtrack, and we have the pleasure of asking him a few questions about it!
“My name is Torbjørn, but I’m better known as “Torby Brand”, and I am a 23 year-old computer engineer from Norway.
I’ve always been engaged by video games and soundtracks, which lead into the start of my YouTube channel in 2016. There I post piano covers from various video games, anime and other media. I’ve only played for 3-4 years, and I don’t consider myself to be particularly skilled on the piano. I instead focus on fun and nostalgic pieces that anyone can play, complete with self arranged, free sheet music.
AM2R was a huge deal for me. I had been following the project for years, and I knew DoctorM64 through the Metroid website that I work on, MetroidHQ. As he was developing some of the later areas in the game, I was lucky enough to be given the chance to contribute. I composed two pieces for the 5th area of the game, the Distribution Center. As this was the only main area in the game, that was completely original, it was fitting to have original music. Additionally, I arranged and performed the piano medley “SR388” that neatly merges my original pieces with melodies from the original Metroid II. I am very grateful to Doc for giving me the opportunity, as it allowed me to part of something so beautiful and grand, as well as jump-starting my YouTube carrier.
For “Ancient Power” I spent a lot of time listening to and contemplating the different underwater themes in the Metroid series. However, a lot of the temple ended up being above water and with fancy new Chozo technology. That’s why I ended up with a much more “lively” melody, more like the synths in the Prime Trilogy. I made my piano version, and worked closely with Doc to recreate the track with his instruments. Similarly, we used the same bassline and parts of the melody for “Flooded Complex”, the calm watery prelude track to Ancient Power.
Right now I’ve been releasing a lot of albums, including works on Minecraft, Deltarune, Steins;Gate and AM2R. These are available on platforms like Spotify and iTunes, and has really brought my piano game to a whole new level. So if you’re interested in any of those, please check it them out!
Not to mention that I just finished my second Pixel Mixers track, which will be on the brand new Donkey Kong album. The Pixel Mixers community has been immensely friendly and helpful, something I hope to repay by contributing on future albums as well!”
Last week we interviewed some Pixel Mixers who took part to #21daysofVGM challenge launched by Video Game Music Academy, but not all of them! For those who don’t know, the challenge consists in writing a short piece of music every day for 21 days in a row, in order to make composition part of the daily routine of a musician.
Like the last time, I invite you to press the “play” button here below to enjoy a selection of the entries during your reading!
Lord Bifis a veteran among Pixel Mixers, delving in rock, folk, jazz and wherever his moustache senses the rhythm. “It’s been a while that I wanted to compose more, to work on my skills, try new things, get new challenges. This #21Daysofvgm was the perfect occasion to do it steadily, forcing myself not to postpone it for tomorrow and break my procrastination side! I was surprised how some creativity came out of this challenge pretty easily. It gave me motivation, and this motivation built creativity. It allowed me to create things I didn’t think I would be capable of. So this, as well as self-confidence, was some of the greatest benefits in participating!”
“Finding time was hard somedays, but that was the point: no excuse! It didn’t need to be a polished 5-minute song everyday. That leads to the other hardest part: saying “it’s done, lets’ put it online”, even if it was far from perfect. But it’s a skill to have too, and I’m glad this challenge forced me to do that.”
He leaves us with a final word of encouragement: “Composing is awesome. If you’re a musician, even if it’s just for yourself, for fun, try to compose things sometimes, it will make you do progress in so many ways!
If you say Dewey Newt, you say groove. Despite not being on time for the official subscription, Dewey decided to throw his retro sounds in the ring and have everyone bob their head to them regardless.
“Joining the challenge was a spur of the moment decision: everybody in the Pixel Mixers Discord started posting their tracks, and it looked fun, so I joined in as well! It seems like I got just a general boost in skills (laughs). I feel like I’m a little better at coming up with an idea, a little better at taking what I hear in my head and writing it down, a little faster at producing a track. etc.. Just some overall really good practice!”
“The hardest part for me it was finding the time. I had to travel for my job for two weeks during the challenge, and that really limited how much time I could spend making something. Even with 20-30 minutes, some kind of musical idea was possible! Great job to everybody who participated, I’m glad I could join in on the fun!”
Last, but hopefully not least, today is Danilo Ciaffi, who is totally not interviewing himself for this article. “I took on this challenge because I wanted to test the part of music making that is more of a craft than just ‘having the inspiration’. I also seized the occasion to explore as many genres as I could, which one does not always do when composing in the little time he has, and this was surely my favourite part. On the other hand this was also the hardest part, because usually composing something in a genre you are familiar with is much faster than coming up with something you’ve never tackled, but again, this was part of the fun! I also had the chance to confront myself with many other talented musicians, give and receive feedback and learning from my peers, which surely gave me much as a composer”.
To conclude, the moral of the story confirms to be the same: even though finding the time is hard, composing is definitely a rewarding activity for any musician.
If you enjoyed what you heard, I suggest you check out the artists featured or any other artists who took part in the challenge: the amount of talent will surely surprise you!
July 1st to 21st took place the #21daysofVGM challenge launched by Video Game Music Academy. The challenge consists in writing a short piece of music every day for 21 days in a row, in order to make composition part of the daily routine of a musician.
Some brave Pixel Mixers embarked upon this exciting adventure, so we decided to interview them. But first, why not pushing the “play” button here below to listen to a selection of the entries while reading about our members’ experience.
We asked our members what motivated them to take on the challenge, what they feel were the major benefits and difficulties.
The first to answer these questions was Dacian Grada, the highly prolific synth-metal cover artist on YouTube. “I’m not really used to composing original music, so this was the perfect opportunity to hone my skills.” he said,“The real benefit for me was the sense of accomplishment from doing a new original composition every day, often really different from the previous one, making me realize I can in fact do some original stuff if I put my mind into it. Coming up with original melodies was (and still is) the biggest challenge, i still need to learn how to properly do one, but I feel I’ve definitely improved with this!”.
Mind Waker was already featured on this website, and didn’t disappoint in this challenge delivering as usual tracks of great variety. “I just made it for the challenge, but I’m happy to have some ideas to work on later – there were few tunes I definitely want to polish to full songs. The hardest part later on was just to come up with something interesting” he continues, “sometimes you just need to go with the uninspiring idea and work on it until it sounds interesting. The important part is just to finish and work on something and not to wait for the inspiration”.
Relatively new in the Pixel Mixers community, Moonbike surely didn’t waste his chance to prove himself a skilled and eclectic composer.“I love participating in game jams, and I love composing original video game songs. It’s hard to finish these pieces sometimes, especially under tight deadlines, so I thought this challenge would be a great way to practice completing songs in a timely manner and build the habit of composing every day. This challenge also pushed me to grow as a composer and expand my repertoire of techniques – which is invaluable – and introduced me to many other talented composers! […] The hardest part was finding the time to work on a new piece every day. It was a time sink, and often took hours out of my day when I had other things to do. Sharing my completed tracks with other participants definitely motivated me to keep going.”.
As the name suggests, Piano Game Knight is a pure pianist, mostly known for his Chrono Cross piano covers. He told us of his experience in the challenge too: “I mainly wanted to level up my piano improv skills by composing ideas from my head to the piano based on the prompts/challenges given to myself. Also to get out of my comfort zone by challenging myself to create something daily and sticking to that schedule to the end even if I’m busy with life and work. The biggest benefit for me, in the end, was having 21 ideas that we could build upon in the future for ourselves and maybe make an album! Also it was nice to see different people’s approaches to the challenge”.
Despite different motivations and obstacles, all these musicians agree on one thing: composing everyday is challenging, but a great learning experience, especially in a context like the #21daysofVGM, where plenty of people make this together and provide feedback and encouragement each other.
P.S. If you listened carefully to the playlist in the beginning, you have heard tracks from artists not in this list. Did we interview them? Stay tuned to find out!
This is a guest post from DT Majesty, a video game cover artist whose cover of “Wizpig’s Theme” is one of the entries for Pixel Mixers’ February Cover Contest: “90s battles”. This theme from the racing game Diddy Kong Racing would seem to be an unconventional pick, so DT offered to write a guest post explaining his reasoning.
Wizpig
As we begin [editor’s note: end] a new month in the Pixel Mixer community, a new contest is brought upon us. This month, the theme is “Battle Music”. While most people would probably default to an RPG or Fighting game theme, like you’d find in Final Fantasy or Street Fighter, I immediately began to think outside of the box. To me, the music that goes with the final races against Wizpig (from Diddy Kong Racing) should fit the “Battle” theme. However, as Diddy Kong Racing is a kart racing game, most people would not see it that way.
So let’s start with the game itself. How is Diddy Kong Racing (DKR for short) any different gameplay-wise from a game like Mario Kart, F-Zero, or Wave Race? If we look at these games in their most basic form, you can say these are all racing games you can play either by yourself against computers, or go split screen and play against your friends. One thing that makes DKR stand out from these other games is the fact that it has a Story mode to it, rather than just a Grand Prix/Time Trial mode. With this story mode, it plants the seed for the eventual final race, or “battle”, against Wizpig.
But Wait, There’s More
Most racing games have one goal for the player to achieve, and that is to simply win the race. DKR is no exception to this rule, however saying that’s all there is to the game is selling it short. With the story mode, you get introduced to the evil pig-wizard Wizpig. He has taken over the island where the game takes place. This island also happens to be where the main characters of the game hang out and have fun. Your goal for the game is not only to win races, but also to drive (no pun intended) Wizpig out for good.
As you make your way through the game, the courses you play on get progressively more difficult. This allows the player to ready themselves for the few boss fights found in each stage, and also prepares them for the final races against Wizpig.
Something About a Battle
So how do the races against Wizpig differ from any other race? Normally, with most races, when you win, you just get to advance further along in the story by unlocking more tracks. However, with the Wizpig races, there’s actual purpose and incentive to winning the race. If you put yourself into the mind of the game’s characters, your goal is to get rid of Wizpig by any means necessary, which in this case means kart racing. By defeating the evil wizard on his own tracks, you hope that he never returns to mess with the island or it’s inhabitants again. If you lose these races, Wizpig still remains the ruler of the island.
This is where we can start to call these races, “battles”. You must win these races, using all of the skills that you have learned playing through the rest of the game. If you win, you can claim the island back for you and all of the other inhabitants. Once you win the first race, you realize that Wizpig is not done yet, and you must face him one more time, this time with more traps and hazards to try and inhibit you.
As you approach the final race to stop Wizpig, he appears on a rocket which he uses to race against you. You avoid flying rocks, electrical traps, and small caves as you push your way towards first place. If you manage to beat Wizpig, he will be flabbergasted by losing to you. He loses control of his rocket and flies off into space, heading towards a moon. Eventually, he crashes into said moon and the rocket that he rode in on is now demolished, leaving behind a sizeable explosion. Being a Nintendo game, we can’t say that he died in that explosion. However, we can at least come to the conclusion that he has no way of making it back to terrorize the island that you saved.
Well, TECHNICALLY…
So how does that compare to any other games typical battles? When you think of a battle, be it large or small, there is usually a set of conditions that happens: before, during, and after.
Before a battle, you are advancing along a path that you must get through to beat the game. That can be a literal path like you would find in Pokemon or other RPGs, or something like in Street Fighter where your “path” is a set group of people/tasks that you must defeat/complete. In the case of DKR, since the “battle” of that game is Wizpig, your “path” can be considered all of the races and bosses you must complete to get to him.
During the battle is pretty self-explanatory. In most games, that means you are faced in combat with an enemy that you must defeat to progress. Same with DKR, you must defeat Wizpig to progress.
After the battle is usually where you are rewarded. In some cases, you may be awarded with some Experience Points, or some type of currency. Sometimes you’ll unlock new items or areas for you to explore. When it comes to DKR, when you defeat Wizpig, your reward is claiming the independence of the island from his evil that he held over the land.
Final Thoughts
Although it may not be conventional to think of Diddy Kong racing to have a “battle” in it, I believe that you can make a case for this one particular race, even if it is somewhat weak. In fact, I’m sure many of the people reading are probably thinking I put in too much effort just to try and bend the rules my way for this contest. In any case, I will stand by my argument. This is why I believe that Wizpig’s Theme from Diddy Kong Racing should be in consideration for a Battle Theme. It’s not his character theme, and there’s no way to play these tracks outside of the story. It is only when you are battling against Wizpig.
What is a video game battle theme? Do only certain genres of video games have battle themes? Can stage themes or character themes count as battle themes?
The theme for the Pixel Mixers February 2017 Cover Contest is for fan musicians to cover video game music from the ’90s that were used as battle themes. (If you are a musician and would like to participate, click that link for more information about our monthly contests.) But within just a few days of announcing this theme, I received several questions about what counts as a battle theme in a video game.
What are obvious choices for video game battle themes?
Pixel Mixers 