Old Composer Reacts to Earthbound, ARK, Kingdom Hearts Video Game Music and then some Minecraft

All right guys let’s do this and of course let me know if there’s any Echo problems but this is smiles and tears from Earthbound all right nice Rhythm on that little part thank you I thought it would go you are my sunshine my only sunshine why are you crying

I’m not crying you’re crying thank you foreign thank you so once again this is if this is 1994 I think this sounds like this could have been that time for when again once again I still don’t have enough knowledge to make a call like this so this is where I

Rely on you guys but it sounds like this is maybe that period when the eight bit the 8-Bit to 16-bit jump was made and um and I only say that because the quality of the sounds itself let’s rely on the raw oscillated um vibrations if you would of the sine

Waves or you know Square wave saw wave style composition and that’s what it is 16th video okay thank you um and it’s really kind of funny because now that they actually have a kick snare sound compared to the original um 8-bit days which was more of the little tick pop sound that would

Represent kick snare and register that in our minds when we were listening to it I thought it was really the first thing I picked up on is there was a slight delay slap on the kick just to give it a little ambiance you know and I think the delay

Was the only post effect tool or one of the top three post effect tools that composers could use at that time and so there’s that little slap back delay on the kick the composition itself I saw a lot of people popping up saying um you know there’s reflections of The

Beatles You know the infu the the um uh influence for the composer was was the Beatles there are Beetle style chord changes there but it’s extremely melodic this is the same thing that I say a lot of times when it comes to music that comes from Japanese composers is that they really really

They relied more on melodic uh content than they did support content so what I mean by that is is you have the melody now if I was just to do that over a song you might be able to like lock into my rhythm of me doing it but what’s that

Without the arrangement and the supports behind it so the unique approach the composers using is very reminiscent of you know I’d say late 50s through 60s in into the 70s uh Pop Style composition you know so uh that’s why it’s it’s got that nice little you know fluffiness to it

Smokey Joe thanks for that I didn’t know that oh yeah Mr Nathan it is very memorable there is a definite slapback on the on the right headset of that Melody that’s playing slightly to the left so some really nice Dynamics there okay something like this might remind you of like the Beatles um

What was her name in the Sky with Diamonds Lucy foreign so there’s a lot of fun little light-hearted lines that are going on here obviously the production changed from what was established I I was reading here in the comments that somebody had mentioned that NES actually um gave a little more

Space for the drums to sound better per se then obviously than times four and that’s by allocating you know file size I guess um and somebody also mentioned in the comments that also um it was more based off of samples and and I I don’t know I’m going to take

Your word for it but samples doesn’t necessarily mean it was samples from live instruments sometimes I’ve used Samplers back in the late 80s early 90s to sample sounds from let’s say an original Mini Moog sample it into another system and then tweak it from there as well

So there’s many different ways I mean I guess we all know that yeah if anybody listens to uh hip-hop you know of the last forever from day one to now there’s always some kind of sampled phrases or something in most cases not in all hip-hop but that process of sampling has

Been around since for what the 80s I guess since Kurzweil and um who else did the first sampling roll in and Kurzweil um there’s another company too but anyhow thank you thank you I’m sorry I hope this is this isn’t gonna ruin it for you guys here but I’m sorry but uh um

Cyndi Lauper’s true colors thank you here’s a little slap back on the kick thank you foreign I’m not crying you are um it was a very well written track I mean this you know for me as as more of an arranger composer than a composer composer and the

Difference being a lot of times uh you know most most of my life whenever my phone rang to do work it was more of an arranger than I was a composer that’s that’s an argumentative argumentative uh distinction depending on who you’re talking to but when people would come to me with a

Guitar and vocals and then I come and fill in the rest of the stuff with drums and bass guitar or strings or whatever Arrangements they want but still yet the raw and the more organic aspect of a song melodically is what a song is all about and what we

Just heard was a song this might be a an OST you know for a video game but um there was definite repeats of that that’s Cindy Loper thing and then at the very beginning actually I kind of made a little bit of fun of another hook not

Fun of it but another hook it reminded me so there was I’m not going to say that the composer purposely did that to get us in you know to Jimmy us into a hook but um at the end of the day when you listen to it this may not have been constructed uh

But with the pop sense of in it to a Minute to Win It song structure but there were definitely hooks that repeated but when the hooks repeated sometimes the chain the the arrangements changed behind it a little bit gives a little bit of a lift so um but this was

Great as minimal sounding as the music was what I enjoy is watching people hear on the comments still pulling back into the nostalgic action they don’t need to hear you know an Orchestral Version of this of course it would sound beautiful and completely unique but the intimacy of an

Arrangement like this and this kind of 16-bit stuff of course when you marry it to a video game that you’ve played for hours upon hours upon hours you know that’s how that that gets uh you know permeated in your soundtrack of life so that’s why a lot of people were crying

But you were crying but I wasn’t crying but you were crying not me you were crying all right guys what’s next and go to do here comes the chat room look at this talking you know the way this the way this chat’s going makes it look like

I’ve got like 8 000 people just flying in there it looks good you know it plays well if I was to make a Sizzle reel yeah look how many people comment on my stuff all right guys I found one that I’ve never heard and also by somebody

Um I don’t think I’ve ever said Aloha to so I will surprise that person by putting their selection in my how do you do and you guys here we go drum roll oh what is there is that it okay the final stand uh I don’t know if this is the one um

Stand by for a second scroll down oh right here this one right here how many minutes is this no that’s 14 minutes is it 14 minutes long uh I can’t yeah oh it Loops a lot okay well let’s see if we can’t find a straight up one really quick

We we we we we we we okay well okay whoops I I let’s start uh so it’s not this one the five minute one somebody saw five oh this right here there was one with four minutes Square thumbnail yep that one okay this is the one I guess everyone’s saying this one this

One this one this one the topic one and that’s the topic one I take it Gareth Coker is the composer is he ah okay great all right guys uh so this comes to me by Jacob Zariah jackazara thank you for your suggestion let’s do this all right

How the hell did that start like that oh that’s right I had a friend of mine tell me he watched my stream and he says the reason why sometimes I choose the video and it looks like it’s like already started it’s because I’ve had the mouse kind of hovering over it during me

Looking at the browser and if it automatically starts to play even though I don’t listen to it it marks it off as I don’t know is that a YouTube flaw all right guys here we go I can turn that off in settings I love that hybrid that sequence going

While you still have the Bold brassy horns thank you foreign what year was this released uh 2018. thank you very much you know this is this is one of the things about what I love in this journey with the OST games very similar to what happened to

Me on the heavy metal Channel my other one the decomposer Lounge when I would get a get a hold of bands like Behemoth or or just some of the most gnarliest sounding metal bands that have infused orchestral composition in it so that’s uniquely bold experience for me I mean

I’ve heard it before but never to that recorded you know professional as professionality professional Sony but here in the Video Game World a lot of composers do a lot of hybrid work where they’re using um synth sequences in arpeggiations uh and those arpeggiations in an orchestral World which translate into something called

Ostinatos or something that would hold the pattern but the dot but the the sonic Dynamics between hybrid synth uh um sequences uh or arpeggiations and then infusing a lot especially in a track like this these very large bombastic powerful everything about this is really powerful what I mean this is

Even the the horn arrangements are full on they’re not little glowy pads behind there everything is and I know that must sound really funny but that’s actually a performance Dynamic that that an orchestrator or a conductor an orchestrator writing for a live Orchestra would give is so that you

Can get from the trombones and from the French horse what we call that rip sound you know and um another thing that’s really a big thing that I really enjoy listening to is the Unison work between the vocals the choir and then if you listen to I don’t know

If it’ll happen going forward it should since it’s an established part of how uh this composer is using uh his sound palette is that you hear the orchestra I mean you hear the choir strings and the horns are doubling it so that really gives his Melody some really great sticking power

It really it really really jumps out at you and then in between it he’s got these nice little in intervalic intervalic interrelic I get called out so much by people saying they’re saying it wrong dude I thought you’re a composer 45. I never had to say it for anybody before except

I getting on YouTube and twitch anyhow so I talk too much foreign okay before we just heard that modulation I’m going to go back about 15 seconds and I want you to hear how the composer uses now once again I’m not going to say that this is a live

Orchestra or not or whatever samples that’s not the point but listen to listen to How He uniquely infuses the rip of the horn section at the low at the very low end I can’t uh that so an octave lower than that I can’t do it listen to how he punches up with the

Horn but then he jams it in our throat with a very gritty rough synth uh kind of like envelope so listen for like and then you’ll then you’ll hear it it’s it’s it’s insane and it’s so well done let’s go back let’s see what we got foreign anybody out there who’s a musician

What’s the meter one two three four five one two three four yes but here for one two three four five one two three four five one two three four five no that’s okay I’m just getting out some fun things yes very Mission Impossible I love this Ambience juice he does here

Now I can’t get my head off of the mission impossible statement thank you for victory cry right there oh that was a great listen guys I had a great time listening to this with you guys now I know without a doubt that I do not do Theory or deeper musical kind of

Breakdowns I don’t want to and there’s a huge reason for that it’s because I sucked at Theory I don’t want to make a mistake it’s not that I suck it’s not that I sucked at understanding it I got really bored after the first year and I just was I

Can’t do this this is not going to help my career whatsoever and it certainly didn’t stop my career by not knowing it and that’s not a blast against Theory I think theory is an amazing amazing study but it didn’t suit me at the time when I

Went to I actually am having more fun learning bits of theory now in my early 60s you know than I was early on when I was composing and already making money I was already making money by the time I was 18. you know in the music business so I

Got out of high school and then well I’ll take some Theory and stuff and I sat there and I was just like I felt like Garfield the whole time I was like and so um but anyhow so when I do say things like that like hey what’s the meter and stuff like that

You know it’s sometimes it’s fun and it’s so good that there’s people here that have really good ears and stuff and good time and a temple or they they understand it and um so I knew it was in 5-4 but when I heard when somebody left me they left a comment about Mission

Impossible I was thinking about it the same exact time that it came up and what’s so ironic about that is that my dad’s friend wrote that and he also uh wrote uh Cool Hand Luke and Mission Impossible and Mannix and it’s a composer named Lalo shifrin

And so my dad and Lalo both came here to this country from Argentina that’s why I’m a first generation American from Argentina and um so Dad just did the Hollywood Vegas thing or dad did the Vegas Reno Atlantic City Tour Lala went straight to Hollywood but that was totally done

And you can you can’t help but get away you know it doesn’t matter even even if even if this composer didn’t even have that influence in there you can’t help but acknowledge how powerful that Rhythm uh is as far as getting you you know lunging forward so

Um anyhow let me have a sip Theory can be really interesting but it’s mechanical in a sense where here’s a before before I get onto this let me just give you my little breakdown here about Theory I don’t know how to how to how to really wrap my arms around Theory

Because it’s so much bigger than anything I I learned but what I have learned is that there’s a difference in in theory that has to do with western music Theory Global Theory what I mean by that is if you ask anybody who lives in the Middle East you

Know uh or or I don’t know what they call the area of India and all of that there’s been a music theory on rhythms and stuff that goes thousands of years what little knowledge I have about Western taught Theory what lit let me emphasize what little knowledge I have

Seems to be based on there is lineage there’s history about it but has to do with more of the Renaissance period and stuff like that in certain points and stuff and somebody had to come up with the pattern of the wise and how things were written off of somebody’s original works

Who that individual never studied Theory let’s say back in the 1600s and the 1700s or the 1500s wrote These incredible pieces and born of that natural ability to write music in a particular way that people it seemed like go back and kind of redisect it and

Say oh this is how this works this must be the theory and what it was I could have just put foot in my mouth so big and everybody with theories going to come after me but I’m not dissing it I’m just saying it’s a it’s a huge thing

For me to kind of absorb especially when I keep my ears and my spirit and my mind open to the fact that you know the way of of uh the like India and their their history of music is so Broad and amazing and cultural you know so but um

Yeah hang on for a second you guys been bobbing me on some good um let me let me read a couple of these things here yeah I did learn at school but I also my dad and my uncle refused to teach me Theory when I was working with them

Yeah pygmy worm I hear what you’re saying yeah so it was it it’s just it’s a unique thing I and because of where I think Theory probably would have worked better for me if I was a songwriter because there are some things in some rules you may want to keep yourself locked into

Uh but as a composer I’m so far my whole life has been so far outside of the snow globe all of my compositions professionally have been the same way you know so I don’t know I think it’s an amazing study of me of theory of music

But I couldn’t wrap my head around it so all right guys um let’s do one more and then I’m gonna get back to some um uh Minecraft so fire fire fire brick and Bracken brick and Brooklyn get that ball and really fight uh you thought I was gonna say something else all right

Okay I think I found one nope I did that one I did this one I did that one didn’t I do one from this nope I did do trying to find a game I’ve never heard of so and I’m and I’m finally getting to a place where I think I’ve you know huh

Okay here’s one I have chosen uh is that right I don’t know if okay Vector to the heavens uh Memorial zeon’s theme what is Vector to the heavens is that a anime or is that a video game this is a great one okay King oh it’s from Kingdom Hearts but

It’s an official orchestral Arrangement thank you the magic flying potato oh it’s a Kingdom Hearts game okay all right well I guess that’s what I’m doing right now guys so let’s uh sit back and rinse in this um this is from Kingdom Hearts the name of the track uh oh I don’t even

Know what the name of it and this is an Orchestral Version so uh I’m gonna play this one but I don’t know if this is the version they used in the game you tell me but let’s listen to some orchestral uh music let’s do this all right negative there we go

Beautiful flute harmonies a little French horn to warm us up bring on that elbow yeah for Ryan fully foreign you know this this is just everything that I’m about as um as a composer this style of composition and one of the things that I love about how

This opened up was the doubling uh the flute Harmony that he had going on with his Melody as this piece opened up and then the piano these piano intervals that he’s got in his voicings are sorry that he’s got in his playing even though he’s playing these uh eighth note um

Patterns in his chords very very hopefully disconcerting if that’s if that’s the emotion you get you the emotion is you’re hopeful but yet there’s there’s Challenge on the horizon kind of a thing and then as we move and then you know you hear the arrangements breathing and out when I said oh that

French listen to the French horns come in just to give you a quick embrace kind of gets you a little warm and then came out but through that whole thing what makes it feel like you’re somewhat adrift on a plane not that kind of plane like playing field or on an ocean

Is that very high strings that he has just he’s just holding these high strings out there and that gives you that sense of looking over and out and forward while this is happening here now when the oboe comes in um the first time I just love the oboe

It’s the it’s the orchestral Ginsu knife of Melodies and um but what’s really beautiful about the second pass here in the oboe here and I’ll just go back and then I’ll shut up we’ll listen to another chunk listen to the um the Dynamics and the movements of the lower register string Arrangements that

Are happening there so while The Melody of the oboe is holding this tonal range pretty bright pretty up there at the bottom there’s this kind of swooning running little mid-range Arrangements there that kind of gives you that like be it floating on a boat or floating on

A leaf that’s floating down or something like that this melody is just it’s like getting you to the next thing it’s almost like if you do play Minecraft no now I’m putting my head in there if you play Minecraft and you’re and you’re and you’re paddling and then you hit the

Space bar but then you hit the control bar and the paddles a little faster and then it slows down kind of a thing but it still gives you that that bit of a sway here so I’m just going to go back a little bit and then I won’t and we’ll

Listen for a few like minutes before I break in again but I want you to listen to when the oboe comes in listen to what the middle section string uh the mid section straight a bit forget it beautiful strings in the middle there oh it’s a she forgive me foreign

Piccolo out of nowhere now we’re into a very serious stoic kind of pseudo-march vibe I love the pianos doubling that of that into the major thank you foreign composition um can’t say that it focuses on the piano element in it because I mean if you really think of it by the mass

Sounds of what an orchestra can produce the pianos is one instrument down here a lot of times you have this just overwhelming amount of power coming from the orchestra but if The Pianist is the orchestrator of if if Yoko is The Pianist um of what I’m hearing in this orchestration see here’s the

Thing this is a this is what I didn’t find out what I you guys I don’t know if I asked you guys if this was a um an orchestral redo of an original theme or if this track was is the track that’s in the game uh but you could tell there’s still the

Really the really nice solid presence of the piano behind all of that and I really I really enjoy that because from that comes uh the version in the game is different okay so this is an orchestral redo so now that gives the orchestrator this big different set of challenges is to take

This piece and turn it into this so whoever did the orchestrating from the composer I don’t know if Yoko did the orchestrating two different things right you guys remember I explained that to you uh maybe I’ll Circle back and explain that again some other time but um the orchestrator has to sit there

Listen to the Beast uh Pete well funny enough listen to the piece at peace and turn it into a beast you know learn you know if it’s a small thing that with the art the composer wrote and then turn it into this gigantic orchestral piece so there’s a

Lot more Liberties to it but the emphasis is definitely on the um uh the musicality and the arrangements of the piano that’s going on back there let me bring it back a little bit here for you guys and we’ll finish up thank you what a great way to end the piece very

Emotional ending all right guys I want to show you something that I learned I hope you guys aren’t mad at me but I was like trying to figure out learning about the different versions of Minecraft because I want to do something that I think might be really fun for my

Age group you know considering I’m considered um in the world of numbers I am considered not Elder but senior citizen It’s the funniest thing in the world when I realize I can get like 50 off at certain things you know I was like so I wanted to maybe have some fun on um

Learning a little more about Minecraft what do all the different versions are and I kept oh [ __ ] look at how low I am on food all right well it’s not going to make a difference okay so I’m looking up why can’t I float like when I watch people do

These builds in something called creative I said what the hell is creative why can’t I find creative what is creative and then I realize oh I gotta click on something but then I looked at something because I was looking at somebody here mentioned for my videos that I did to hit F

Something would make my my my tilting smooth and so I’m hitting F this that didn’t work something else froze and whatever then I came across a video and it taught me this maneuver so it was just mind-numbing okay so how many of you guys know that in Java I

Can’t fly right I can’t do that like you know you know double tap whatever you can’t fly in Java you’re not allowed to and then of course that’s only in um in the creative mode well guess what guys look what I found you guys ready

For this uh can I have a drum roll please everybody type in TRD R okay ready watch this now you guys are probably gonna laugh because you’re all veterans here we go look I can stay in my game do this let go and now I’m in my game whoops hey wait a minute

Wait a second it didn’t work nope sorry oh there it is watch this guys I’m in my game I learned how to fly flop look I can see my house from here and I was like oh my goodness this is how they do it foreign

So all I do is now I haven’t even I have not even done anything in this yet I don’t know what to do with this mode because I’m so excited that I’m I’m high and flying but I was like oh my gosh the things I

Could do with this when I I was just right before um I went to my grandson’s um right before I went to my grandson’s t-ball game watch this pew pew will I make it yeah yeah didn’t make it got hit in the crotch right there with my diving board um is that um

If I look in my inventory mode you have every block and you’re Invincible what how do I do that um is that my e button what the hell is this what’s all this this is in my inventory now oh oh we’ve just released the Kraken

I had no idea is this how those guys do that in creative oh my goodness I had no idea what else can I get here look at oh diamond pickaxe I mean I don’t have to burn 500 hours looking for diamonds I still haven’t hit my own

Little vein yet oh no I did once when I broke my neck like 30 times falling down pits but I found one to build whatever you want then go back to survival mode for exploring oh okay so now I’ve got like all these things here that I don’t know quite yet what to

Do with but I don’t know what the heck these things are goat horn what do I use that for goat bags so anyhow all that being said Foods I got all the food I can eat I guess who needs to eat food if you’re not winding down I guess maybe these foods

Are for whom oh no what are spawn eggs what are these things cat spawn so you just like drop an egg and cax to come out of it they spawn mobs that’s something I learned too over the week over the week is that these are all called mobs so I didn’t

Know that I was I was confused is this a mod or mob so I know what a mob is but it’s not a mod but I need to download a mod if I want to film a mod a bot a a mob of whatever all right saved hot bars redstone blocks oh man

This can be dangerous for me guys and do I only get one use of a thing that I drag in there and then or does do I get to do I have to use if I got to use 10 of them do I have to drag 10 of them in there

It might take the joy away of discovery yeah I don’t wanna infinite yeah there’s no two ways about it I did dig no pun mining um I like that and there’s actually something very let me take a fly around my world really quick there is something very meditative about mining

If you don’t allow yourself to get too frustrated with the process of like if you’re mining when I didn’t like Mining and I started feeling frustrated was when I was specifically mining for like the diamonds that sucks and um cool POV on the flyby here I feel like

One of those guys with one of those kite capes yeah you know you see them on YouTube this is a killer view this is where I extended the lava flow down here and then I made a pit all this Cobblestone you see down here is a pit I was

Practicing and I still haven’t gotten it but where you mix water with lava to get some obsidian so yeah it’s a drone shot which is ironic because I do really as an amateur really love the Drone so but this kind of looks this is this is my house from up here foreign

So anyhow there’s Mr Piggies I’m thinking I’m going to put some cows over here and put them inside here fence this thing and then this big flat area I’m thinking of maybe making uh some kind of a lake Estuary or something like that through here I don’t know he’s gonna

Wait till he learns commands what are commands I’m not gonna let myself get too far out there but is the command when you type in the text in um um thingy I don’t know let’s watch the sunset mean any type T and then oh I see well

Let’s see it’s nice and deep here let me take a dive from up here boy if you have uh what’s the name what’s the name of that fear of heights or or what’s the thing that they have um uh when you anxiety and you look down

I forgot the name of that thing vertigo yes yeah vertigo okay well guys I’m gonna take a dive all right oh [ __ ] I hit bottom I hope I didn’t break my legs hey how come I don’t see any bubbles like I do when they’re warning me that I can’t breathe

Am I gonna die all of a sudden how come I don’t see I can’t die in this oh in this mode oh I see okay I wonder what this looks like when I do this hey I’m running oh wow this is oh God I’m glad it’ll get high anymore I would be

Cool I could just do this all day actually I try to do this at least once a day so we’re outside oh wow look at this all this stuff that’s down here that I never knew foreign wow this is unreal but I guess you guys are saying I

Shouldn’t get used to this because this will kind of ruin the joy of mining but maybe I can take advantage of this and maybe build a couple of cool things and then I go back in mining and explore the old-fashioned way for oh to build without restraints swim craft I like that okay

Who how’d you like that dismount let me check out my boats okay my Boathouse guys so I’ve officially made this my Boathouse oh geez I forgot where I’m at wait a minute I thought these guys weren’t supposed oh I put it on normal not difficult

Let me see if they if I can get him to shoot me did I put it on easy or normal because these guys aren’t bothering me head butt oink okay I must have it on I must have set it to wimp by accident oh I mean creative that’s why Mr Frog

Can you help me please I don’t know where you came from but nice talking to you really oh he turns his back on me so you freaking humans you ruin this planet I walk away from you we will be around in another million years you will die laughs