Koji Kondo Interview

[Dante]

Concluding today's celebration of Mario maestro Koji Kondo, my interview with the man himself, conducted earlier in the week at GDC.

 

Koji Kondo is a reticent man. A very friendly and supremely talented man, but a reticent man. Unlike Miyamoto, who will basically talk forever, many of Kondo's responses to my questions were initially a terse "yes" or "no."

 

So I put the thumbscrews to him to squeeze out some information, including a little tease about Kondo's role in the upcoming Wii Music, some explanations about why a full orchestra wasn't used in Twilight Princess, and more. After the jump.

 

Wired News: I wanted to start off with an overview of Mr. Kondo's life prior to Nintendo -- where did you go to school, what did you study, what jobs did you work before Nintendo?

 

Koji Kondo: I was born in Nagoya. I started studying music at the age of 5, on the electronic keyboard. I went to school at Osaka University of Arts, where I worked towards becoming, in general, some kind of director or producer of artistic work. I entered Nintendo straight from college, and haven't had any other jobs.

 

WN: When did you enter Nintendo, and what were your first jobs there?

 

KK: I graduated from university in 1984, and I found my way to Nintendo by looking at the school's job placement board. You're supposed to apply to many different companies, but I saw the Nintendo ad, and had a love of making synthesizers, and loved games, and thought -- that's the place for me. I interviewed with one company, Nintendo, and that's where I've been ever since.

 

WN: What games did you play in college?

 

KK: I played arcade games -- Space Invaders, Donkey Kong 3, the Donkey Kong series in general… there was a coffee shop I went to quite often that had the tabletop [cocktail] style arcade games, so I played on those a lot.

 

WN: What did you think of the sound in those games?

 

KK: When I was playing these games I'd never really thought about how I could change things to make it better, but I was really interested in them because they were really the only place where you could find the kind of sound creation that I was looking for. PCs were just starting to become widely purchased, so I used BASIC programming to create sounds. So that interest led me towards video games. But I didn't feel that I could do anything better. I was just interested in the whole process.

 

WN: What were your other musical influences?

 

KK: In middle school, I was into hard rock: Deep Purple, Yes. In high school, jazz and fusion: Cassiopeia, Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock.

 

WN: Did you have any dreams of superstardom, of putting on concerts and getting up in front of thousands of fans and performing?

 

KK: I thought, "I want to be a keyboard player…" But just a little! But not so much becoming a famous on-stage performer -- more like a studio musician, playing with lots of different kinds of music.

 

WN: So skipping ahead, you go and start working at Nintendo. What were the games you worked on prior to Super Mario Bros., if any?

 

KK: First, the arcade version of Punch-Out. Then, I worked on Famicom BASIC, which was a keyboard that you attached to your Famicom. In the instruction manual, I wrote instructions for how to program Japanese popular music into the Famicom using BASIC programming. And then I did the music for Devil World for Famicom. Super Mario Bros. was after that.

 

WN: And so Super Mario Bros. was the biggest soundtrack you'd ever composed for a game, then. There's six pieces in total, which is pretty huge.

 

KK: Yes, that's true.

 

WN: What were you thinking? What was your mission, going in?

 

KK: I wanted to create something that had never been heard before, where you'd think "this isn't like game music at all, isn't it?"

 

WN: What was the first piece you composed?

 

KK: The underwater music.

 

WN: Why was that the first?

 

KK: It's easiest to imagine the kind of music you want for "underwater". But the above-ground music, that I had to rewrite again and again.

 

WN: What was your goal for the main theme, then, if you rewrote it again and again?

 

KK: First off, it had to fit the game the best, enhance the gameplay and make it more enjoyable. Not just sit there and be something that plays while you play the game, but is actually a part of the game. As I'd create a piece of music, I'd set it aside and start working on another one, and then notice that something didn't fit, so I'd go back and fix it. And so all of my rewriting and recomposing was self-motivated.

 

WN: So you were taking the music you composed and putting it into the game and seeing how the game played with that music, that was your process?

 

KK: Yes.

 

WN: Did you get the sense that that was different from how other people were doing it? I think it is.

 

KK: Yes. It could very well be -- at Nintendo, we were able to start working on the sound of the game as soon as the rest of development was ramping up, so we'd be working in parallel to them. I know in some cases other developers have hired someone to do the sound after a game was pretty much done, so the results and the process were going to be different.

 

WN: So in that sense, you're as much of a game designer as Miyamoto.

 

KK: Yes, that's true. I often present game ideas to the game director, just like any other developer of the game.

 

WN: Has there ever been a time when a designer heard a piece of music that you've made and wanted to design a part of the game around it?

 

KK: Never. (Laughter.)

 

WN: The first time I ever talked to Miyamoto, he said he's always asking his music staff to stop writing music and start making rhythm games. Has he pressured you in that regard?

 

KK: Oh, yes. He's been asking me to make a music game for a while.

 

WN: Why did you never do it?

 

KK: I've thought about it, while doing other things.

 

WN: What do you think is good about today's rhythm games, and what's lacking about them?

 

KK: I don't think a lot about what they could do differently, but personally, they're just too difficult for me.

 

WN: Have you played Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan?

 

KK: No.

 

WN: There's an easy mode.

 

KK: It's too hard for me.

 

WN: Why did you ultimately decide not to include a full orchestra in the music for Twilight Princess? Is it because it didn't fit with the gameplay, in that sense?

 

KK: That's one reason. At the beginning, it was on the table, but we didn’t think it would be any more impactful or have any benefit over not having it. If we had found a way that a full orchestrated score would have made the game better, we might have done it.

 

WN: Were there any technical reasons inherent in the Zelda gameplay why wouldn't have worked?

 

KK: One of the things we worked on was making the music very interactive with the game. Orchestration presented some difficulties that sequenced music didn't. So sequenced music was the best fit to get to that interactive music world. In the future, if we can find ways to do it with a full orchestra…

 

WN: What was working on the first Legend of Zelda like, in comparison with Super Mario Bros?

 

KK: The first Zelda… With Mario, the music is inspired by the game controls, and its purpose is to heighten the feeling of how the game controls. With Zelda, I was trying to enhance the atmosphere of the environments and locations. The sound of Mario is kind of like popular music, and Zelda is like… a kind of music you've never heard before. So I try to incorporate many different types of music to create an otherworldly feel.

 

WN: What is your job like now? Do you do much composition these days?

 

KK: A lot of my time right now is spent checking on the work of the staff, managing them. As far as composition, I did the above-ground theme in New Super Mario Bros., and the music from the demo scene in Twilight Princess.

 

WN: Do you want to go back and compose the whole soundtrack to a game one of these days, or are you happy to be done with that?

 

KK: I'd definitely like to go back and do something like that.

 

WN: Are you working on Wii Music right now?

 

KK: Yes. I'm one of the people overseeing the whole project.

 

Game|Life

[Lens of Truth]

I hope we do get some full game soundtracks from Kondo-san in the future. I wonder if he's composed much for Mario Galaxy..? The music in the trailer certainly sounds like him.

 

For the next Zelda they should get him to compose the whole thing, so it's more unified stylistically, and preferably with a full orchestra. The 'demo' music in TP is great - hopefully a taste of things to come!

[Cube]

KK: One of the things we worked on was making the music very interactive with the game. Orchestration presented some difficulties that sequenced music didn't. So sequenced music was the best fit to get to that interactive music world. In the future, if we can find ways to do it with a full orchestra…

 

I'm glad someone agrees with me that midi is currently the best option for games.

[The Bard]

Midi actually tends to sound really good for some things. I hate people who are just on recording overkill, even though it doesn't sound any better.

[Lens of Truth]

Personally, I thought the 'interactive' element in the music for TP that midi allows wasn't handled well anyway. I found it actually quite annoying whenever I came even vaguely near to an enemy and the obnoxiously uninspired 'danger' music kicked in. Sometimes you kill an ememy before the music rears it's ugly head and then it pops-up too late, only to accompany a scene of serenity over Hyrule Field. I'm not against the idea in general, but I think it could have been a bit more subtle..

[4q2]

Midi is something that when programmed, sequences and expressed correctly sounds fantastic. When given to an amateur who doesnt understand the midi set thats when it goes to pot.

 

Koji has always had my attention musically since hearing the score for Starwing in the Snes days. As an experienced midi musician/sound engineer myself I have always had admiration for his work.

 

Personally, I thought the 'interactive' element in the music for TP that midi allows wasn't handled well anyway. I found it actually quite annoying whenever I came even vaguely near to an enemy and the obnoxiously uninspired 'danger' music kicked in. Sometimes you kill an ememy before the music rears it's ugly head and then it pops-up too late, only to accompany a scene of serenity over Hyrule Field. I'm not against the idea in general, but I think it could have been a bit more subtle..

 

In all honesty the problem you speak of is down to the game triggering the sound.....The danger sounds I found fitted the game very well, but its down to individual opinion at the end of the day.

[Lens of Truth]

Yes, I suppose you're right. I'm a huge admirer of Koji also, hence I would love to see him given the chance (and the budget) to work with a full orchestra. He's definately correct tho when he says that orchestral versions of the TP's music wouldn't have made a huge difference to the game. I was actually pretty happy with quality of the sound overall.

 

I was very intrigued by a comment he made a while ago about wanting to use big orchestral sounds for the more dramatic moments in a Zelda game and a string quartet or chamber ensemble for the more intimate sequences.

[Anakenobi]

Personally, I thought the 'interactive' element in the music for TP that midi allows wasn't handled well anyway. I found it actually quite annoying whenever I came even vaguely near to an enemy and the obnoxiously uninspired 'danger' music kicked in. Sometimes you kill an ememy before the music rears it's ugly head and then it pops-up too late, only to accompany a scene of serenity over Hyrule Field. I'm not against the idea in general, but I think it could have been a bit more subtle..

 

Y'know... I've been playing games with MIDI based music for ages. And when what you said happens to me (killing an enemy before the music spawns), instead of feeling bad about it, I feel great. Because I was able to kill the enemy THAT freakin' fast. I even have a chuckle. Never found that annoying or obnoxious.

 

What I would find annoying would be a game where the music is not interactive and never changes it's mood. So one moment I'm walking on a field with serene music and the next moment I have to fight with the same serene music in the background. In most cases, the game dev will cut to the battle scene with the screen going black and then after some seconds, you're fighting with different music in the background. Having to go through all that process everytime can be annoying. So I'm all for interactive music and MIDI's seem to be the best way to go. Not that I don't want orchestral music in my videogames. If it's done right, I'm all for it.

[Jasper]

I'm looking forward to Wii Music, really. I think that Koji Kondo is probably the best composer of game music anyway. As much of an artist as Miyamoto. And he's Nintendo! That's just great.

[Hellfire]

This man rocks the house.

[cheap-seats]

Decent interview even though he does seem like somebody that would sooner be doing something else but, then again, the score composers are usually ignored in most media types. Ask most people to name a famous film score composer and chances are that only John Williams would occur more than once.

[Anakenobi]

Ask most people to name a famous film score composer and chances are that only John Williams would occur more than once.

 

No, depends who you asked. If you asked Star Wars/Harry Potter freaks, they would say that. But some others would mention Danny Elfman (Batman, Spiderman, The Simpsons, etc.) and some more would mention Jerry Goldsmith (Alien, Poltergeist, Star Trek films, etc.). James Horner is the one behind Titanic and he probably is known by quite a few people.

 

Among Videogame composers, I usually read more about Mr. Kondo and Tommy Tallarico.

[Cube]

No, depends who you asked. If you asked Star Wars/Harry Potter freaks, they would say that.

 

I'd say John Williams (like Koji Kondo) has the majoraty of the "memorable" themes. Star Wars, Jurrasic Park, Indianna Jones, Harry Potter, etc have some very memorable tunes. Like the Zelda/Mario themes.

[Lens of Truth]

Jerry Goldsmith's excellent. He's not quite as accessible as someone like Williams (less emphasis on crowd-pleasing tunes) but his music is arguably more developed.

 

What fascinates me about Kondo-san's contributions to the Zelda franchise over the years is how the various themes are subtly related. So even in a genre of composition where sustained development of musical motifs is difficult, he has achieved this. I love hearing how the main Zelda theme right back from the NES original is reworked and woven into each game. Some people at the time of Ocarina's release claimed to be disappointed at the lack of the signature tune, but if you listen carefully during Hyrule Field it's there in nascent form! There's also a clear family resemblance between Zelda's lullaby and other 'love' themes that appear throughout the series - eg Aryll's theme, Ilia's theme. I could go on..

[DCK]

Mind you, I wish Kondo would change from the jazzy latin style he usually has. It's alright for Zelda games (especially Wind Waker was awesome), but I felt Mario Sunshine didn't have a very memorisable sound to it. Although I loved the Delfino Plaza tune.

[Anakenobi]

Mind you, I wish Kondo would change from the jazzy latin style he usually has. It's alright for Zelda games (especially Wind Waker was awesome), but I felt Mario Sunshine didn't have a very memorisable sound to it. Although I loved the Delfino Plaza tune.

 

It's a great tune... here's a link to it:

 

http://yoshi.2yr.net/files/core/php/getmp3.php?mp3=sms-delfinoplaza.wma

 

And the finale theme song:

 

http://yoshi.2yr.net/files/core/php/getmp3.php?mp3=Mario Sunshine Ending.mp3

 

[Lens of Truth]

Kondo is capable of writing some quite symphonic-sounding stuff. Just listen to the moody opening of the 'demo' music in TP, and the liltingly poignant oboe melody that follows it.. gorgeous!

 

I know this is hardly necessary, but I just thought that I'd give a mention to the greatness of Nobuo Uematsu while I'm here. It's soooo good that he's doing some music for Brawl! Hopefully Kondo will also contribute.

 

Edit: Thanks for the links Anakenobi!